Reference
- Dorothea Dix (1802–1887)A humanitarian and tireless crusader for the mentally ill, Dorothea Dix was a pioneer in American health care reform who laid the foundation for the establishment of separate facilities for people with mental illnesses. When she began her work in 1841, only thirteen mental asylums existed in the United States. By 1880, largely because of Dix's efforts, that number had increased to 123.
Dix was born in the frontier village of Hampden, Maine, at that time still part of the state of Massachusetts. After caring for her invalid mother and helping to raise her two younger brothers, at the age of twelve, Dix was sent to the Boston area to live with relatives. Mainly self-educated, Dix was a serious student with an aptitude for teaching, and at the age of fourteen, she opened a school for young children. Despite poor health brought on by overwork, she continued as a schoolmistress in the 1820s and 1830s. She also authored an elementary school science textbook and devotional works expressing her deep religious beliefs.
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- Insane Asylum ReformsAs outrage spread across Europe at the brutal conditions in asylums they began to change from prisons to hospitals for recovery. Dorothea Dix led the reforms of American asylums.
- Dorothea Dix: Improving Conditions for the Mentally IllAppalled by the treatment of the insane in the mid-1800s, Dorothea Dix worked to persuade legislature to establish 32 new asylums in various states, including the monumental government hospital for the insane in Washington, D.C.
Online Resources
- Dorothea Dix (1802–1887)A humanitarian and tireless crusader for the mentally ill, Dorothea Dix was a pioneer in American health care reform who laid the foundation for the establishment of separate facilities for people with mental illnesses. When she began her work in 1841, only thirteen mental asylums existed in the United States. By 1880, largely because of Dix's efforts, that number had increased to 123.
Dix was born in the frontier village of Hampden, Maine, at that time still part of the state of Massachusetts. After caring for her invalid mother and helping to raise her two younger brothers, at the age of twelve, Dix was sent to the Boston area to live with relatives. Mainly self-educated, Dix was a serious student with an aptitude for teaching, and at the age of fourteen, she opened a school for young children. Despite poor health brought on by overwork, she continued as a schoolmistress in the 1820s and 1830s. She also authored an elementary school science textbook and devotional works expressing her deep religious beliefs. - Dorothea Dix (1802–1887): Topic PageDorothea Dix was a renowned social reformer and vocal advocate for the humane treatment of people with psychiatric disabilities.
Perspectives
Heroines of Mercy Street
A look at the lives of the real nurses depicted in the PBS show Mercy Street. Heroines of Mercy Street tells the true stories of the nurses at Mansion House, the Alexandria, Virginia, mansion turned war-time hospital and setting for the PBS drama Mercy Street. Among the Union soldiers, doctors, wounded men from both sides, freed slaves, politicians, speculators, and spies who passed through the hospital in the crossroads of the Civil War, were nurses who gave their time freely and willingly to save lives and aid the wounded. These women saw casualties on a scale Americans had never seen before, and medicine was at a turning point. Heroines of Mercy Street follows the lives of women like Dorothea Dix, Mary Phinney, Anne Reading, and more before, during, and after their epic struggle in Alexandria and reveals their personal contributions to this astounding period in the advancement of medicine.
Dorothea Dix
By exposing the sickening conditions people with mental illness endured in jails, almshouses, and basement cells, Dorothea Dix (1802-1887) single-handedly transformed the U.S. system of mental health care in the 19th century. Dix traveled from state to state, describing the hideous sufferingpeople who were both poor and mentally ill endured at the hands of their captors. Her tireless research and personal lobbying of legislators led to construction of asylums for the mentally ill in state after state.Oxford Portraits are informative and insightful biographies of people whose lives shaped their times and continue to influence ours. Based on the most recent scholarship, they draw heavily on primary sources, including writings by and about their subjects. Each book is illustrated with a wealth ofphotographs, documents, memorabilia, framing the personality and achievements of its subject against the backdrop of history.
Asylum, Prison, and Poorhouse
This illustrated collection of annotated newspaper articles and memorials by Dorothea Dix provides a forum for the great mid-nineteenth-century humanitarian and reformer to speak for herself. Dorothea Lynde Dix (1802-87) was perhaps the most famous and admired woman in America for much of the nineteenth century. Beginning in the early 1840s, she launched a personal crusade to persuade the various states to provide humane care and effective treatment for the mentally ill by funding specialized hospitals for that purpose. The appalling conditions endured by most mentally ill inmates in prisons, jails, and poorhouses led her to take an active interest also in prison reform and in efforts to ameliorate poverty. In 1846-47 Dix brought her crusade to Illinois. She presented two lengthy memorials to the legislature, the first describing conditions at the state penitentiary at Alton and the second discussing the sufferings of the insane and urging the establishment of a state hospital for their care. She also wrote a series of newspaper articles detailing conditions in the jails and poorhouses of many Illinois communities. These long-forgotten documents, which appear in unabridged form in this book, contain a wealth of information on the living conditions of some of the most unfortunate inhabitants of Illinois. In his preface, David L. Lightner describes some of the vivid images that emerge from Dorothea Dix's descriptions of social conditions in Illinois a century and a half ago: "A helpless maniac confined throughout the bitter cold of winter to a dark and filthy pit. Prison inmates chained in hallways and cellars because no more men can be squeezed into the dank and airless cells. Aged paupers auctioned off by county officers to whoever will maintain them at the lowest cost." Lightner provides an introduction to every document, placing each memorial and newspaper article in its proper social and historical context. He also furnishes detailed notes, making these documents readily accessible to readers a century and a half later. In his final chapter, Lightner assesses both the immediate and the continuing impact of Dix's work.