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Ruth Ashby and Deborah Gore Ohrn, Herstory: Women Who Changed the World, [New York: Viking, 1995] pp. 89-90

"I proceed, gentlemen, briefly to call your attention to the present state of insane persons confined within this Commonwealth, in cages, closets, stalls, pens; chained, naked, beaten with rods, and lashed into obedience."

-- "A Memorial to the Massachusetts Legislature, 1843

      Dorthea Dix was thirty-nine years old and in poor health when she visited a jail in East Cambridge, Massachusetts, where mentally ill patients were locked up with regular criminals. She was so appalled by the suffering she witnessed that for the next two years she traveled to almost five hundred towns throughout the state and recorded the brutal conditions in which people who were considered insane were kept. It was the start of Dix's lifelong crusade to improve the lot of the mentally ill in North America and Europe.

      Dorthea was born in Hampton, Maine, to Joseph Dix, the son of a doctor, and his wife, Mary Bigelow. Dorthea's father was emotionally unbalanced and an alcoholic; her mother, eighteen years older than her husband, suffered from blinding headaches and was unable to care for her children. The family was so unstable that in later years Dorthea would say, "I never had a childhood."

      When she was twelve, the family separated and Dorthea and her two brothers were sent to live with her wealthy grandmother in Boston. Soon Dorthea decided that she wanted to devote her life to teaching children, both rich and poor. At fifteen, she started her own school.

      Unfortunately, she fell ill with tuberculosis and finally had to abandon teaching. She was recuperating when, in 1841, she began to investigate the situation of the mentally disturbed in Massachusetts. Her findings shocked the public, and in 1843, the legislature passed a bill to provide additional, more humane accommodations for the insane.

      This first victory prompted Dix to try for more. Over the next three years, she traveled ten thousand miles across the United States and Canada, collecting statistics on every mentally ill person in every state. Her findings she then presented to the state legislatures. Wherever she went, people were impressed by her high intelligence, earnestness, and devotion to her cause. Throughout her life, Dix was able to found or improve thirty-two hospitals for the mentally ill in this country alone.

      In 1854, Dix went to Europe, where she continued to investigate hospitals and encourage a new awareness in the care of the mentally ill. She traveled through eleven countries bearing her message of mercy and understanding.

      Because she was so hard-working and effective, Dix was appointed the first superintendent of the Unites States Army nurses when the Civil War broke out in 1861. Throughout the four long years of the war, she directed nurses, organized hospitals, and managed supplies. Dorthea Dix always remained true to her belief that the mentally ill deserve the same care and compassion as other, more fortunate human beings. When she was eighty-five, she died in Trenton, New Jersey, in a private apartment in the first hospital she had ever built.

For More Information:

      David Gollaher, Voice for the Mad: The Life of Dorthea Dix, [Free Press, 1995]

      Dorothea Dix by Jenn Bumb

      PageWise

      Civil War Nurses Page

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