Do you know who Dorothea Dix is?
She is an historical personage worthy of note by all National Council members, particularly those who participated in this week’s Hill Day. Bob Beckwith, National Council IT manager, mentioned her in the previous blog entry. You may find a look at her fascinating life particularly inspiring as you pursue making a difference in the lives of people around the country.
Up in my neck of the woods, Dix is true hero for her lobbying efforts to establish hospitals for the insane poor and her being named Superintendent of Union Army Nurses by President Abraham Lincoln. Born in 1802 in Hampden, Maine, she has one of the state’s psychiatric centers is named for her, as well as a local park. Several towns in Maine are named for her family, as her grandfather was a major land owner in the state in the 19th century. The child of a highly dysfunctional immediate family, Dix transformed her childhood experience and inherent compassion into a crusade to help those suffering from mental illness.
Dix was the daughter of an alcoholic itinerant minister who wrote religious tracts and a seriously depressed mother who sent her and her two siblings to Boston to live with their grandparents. Like many abused children, Dix later refused to ever reveal the extent of the abuse she suffered. It was a trip to England after a severe breakdown that exposed her to social reform and her true vocation.
Returning to Massachusetts, Dix was asked to teach Sunday school to 20 women at the East Cambridge jail. Later walking through the dungeons of the jail — over the strong objections of the jailer — Dix was appalled at the filth, misery and suffering she saw among the insane and naked inmates. She confronted the jailer and was told that the insane didn’t feel heat or cold. Nonetheless, she was able to get the inmates clothed and a stove installed in the main cell.
From 1840-41, Dix undertook a complete inventory of jails and almshouses throughout the state and wrote a highly confrontive report, Memorial, to the state Legislature:
I proceed, Gentlemen, briefly to call your attention to the present state of Insane Persons confined within this Commonwealth, in cages, stalls, pens! Chained, naked, beaten with rods, and lashed into obedience.
Her lobbying resulted in a bill to expand the state’s mental hospital in Worcester.
Dix took her crusade to other states, including New Hampshire, Louisiana, and North Carolina, and even the Maritimes in Canada. The first state hospital built because of her efforts was in New Jersey. She was instrumental in getting established the first hospital for the mentally ill in Pennsylvania. Traveling thousands of miles to every state east of the Mississippi River, she worked with numerous legislators to make reforms, always focusing on humanitarian reasoning. Interestingly enough, she held rather low opinions of politicians, which she diplomatically hid.
“They are the meanest and lowest party demagogues, shocking to say, — the basest characters,” she wrote.
Nonetheless, Dix was tireless in her efforts and completely determined to make reforms. “They say nothing can be done here!’ I reply, ‘I know no such word in the vocabulary I adopt!” she wrote to a friend.
Dix even pursued legislation for the establishment of a federal hospital for the mentally ill and handicapped, with money from the sale of federal land to be distributed to the states for creation of more hospitals. The bill passed both houses of Congress, but was vetoed in 1854 by President Franklin Pierce, who said that federal government shouldn’t be in the business of social welfare. Defeated, Dix took her crusade to Europe.
At the age of 60, Dix became Superintendent of Union Army Nurses, organizing care for both Union and Confederate soldiers. She also worked diligently to change the perception of female nurses, but was less successful in this position.
She eventually retired to the New Jersey State Hospital, where she maintained a suite made available to her by the state Legislature. Dix continued to write letters to people around the world in support of reform until her death in 1887. She is buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Mass.
Tireless, determined and passionate, Dorothea Dix truly is a hero and her life an inspiration to all who care and fight for mental health.
Sources:
Dorothea Dix, Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothea_Dix
Life of Dorothea Lynde Dix, by Frances Tiffany, 1890, Houghton, Mifflin Company
Biography of Dorothea Lynde Dix, North Carolina Division of Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities and Substance Abuse Services, http://www.dhhs.state.nc.us/MHDDSAS/DIX/dorothea.html
–Jeanne Curran, friend of the National Council
