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Dorothea Dix
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The most commonly cited biographies of Dorothea Dix are early ones. Francis Tiffany, The Life of Dorothea Lynde Dix (1890), is a standard work which contains copious quotations from letters and reports. More recent is Helen E. Marshall, Dorothea Dix: Forgotten Samaritan (1937). Additional details are provided in Gladys Brooks's concise and popular Three Wise Virgins (1957). See ... Albert Deutsch, The Mentally Ill in America: A History of Their Care and Treatment from Colonial Times (1937; 2d ed. 1949), and Norman Dain's brief but scholarly Concepts of Insanity in the United States, 1789-1865 (1964).
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Dorothea Dix was a social reformer dedicated to changing conditions for people who could not help themselves—the mentally ill and the imprisoned. Not only a crusader, she was ... a teacher, author, lobbyist, and superintendent of nurses during the Civil War. Through her tireless work of over two decades, Dix instituted changes in the treatment and care of the mentally ill and improved prison conditions. Today, the results of her efforts can still be seen throughout the United States, Canada, and many European countries.
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Mar. A shy, consumptive, 39-year-old spinster teacher, Dorothea Dix, entered the East Cambridge, Mass., House of Correction to conduct a Sunday school class for the inmates. When Miss Dix emerged from the House of Correction, shocked and shaken by what she had witnessed, she was a changed woman. The harrowing experience started her on a crusade that would last 4 decades and reform the treatment of the mentally ill and insane in the U.S. and England.
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Departing a 24-year career as a school teacher, Dorothea Dix began her second career at the age of 39 when she embarked on a career as a nurse. Dix was not educated as a nurse, but modern nursing did not yet exist. In fact, Dix became one of modern nursing's pioneers, pursuing the core value that drives the provision of all other nursing care: patient advocacy.
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Dorothea Dix is known as one of the most influential social reformers of the nineteenth century. In 1841 Dix, then a teacher, volunteered to teach a Sunday school class to the women in the East Cambridge Jail in Massachusetts. When she entered the jail to teach, she was appalled at the conditions the inmates were forced to endure. At the time, mentally ill people were viewed as incurable and generally unaware of their surroundings. As a result, they were often housed in filthy conditions without heat. After witnessing the deplorable state of the East Cambridge Jail, Dix began visiting and documenting the conditions in jails and almshouses.
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Dorothea Dix was born on April 4, 1802 to Joseph Dix and Mary Dix in Hampden, Maine. She was the first of three children. In her first few years she was a very responsive, loving, and affectionate child. Unfortunately, her father was not home very much and her mother often failed to give her the attention she needed. Dorothea began to look forward to visits with Grandfather Dix because he took time to play and tell her stories of other family members. Until the time she was four, she was an only child and became extremely self -centered.
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Dorothea Dix