The Redoubtable Ones, Part 2: Dorothea Dix
We seem to focus on communities being necessary to effectuate change. Then we are amazed at what just one person can accomplish within a relatively short period.
Dorothea Dix, born in 1802, challenged how those with mental illness should be treated by society and revolutionized the field of nursing in the United States.
Little is known of her early years. In 1814, Dix moved to Boston to live with her wealthy grandmother as a result of neglect or other issues with her parents.
In 1821, because of limited options for women at the time, Dix established an elementary school in her grandmother’s home and became an author of children’s books written between 1824 and 1832. In 1831, she opened a secondary school in her own home.
She was committed to teaching and always carried a heavy workload. In 1836, she began suffering from periodic illnesses, generally developing a cough and fatigue during the winter. One scholar who had access to her papers believed that she may have also suffered from depression. Eventually, she was forced to stop teaching. Physicians suggested that she spend time in Europe as a possible cure.
She stayed in England for over a year at the home of William Rathbone, a politician and reformer. While there, she met prison reformer Elizabeth Fry and Samuel Tuke, founder of the York Retreat for the mentally ill, who provided her with insight on the issues.
In 1837, just after the death of her grandmother, Dix returned to Boston. Her inheritance allowed her to support herself and devote herself to reform work.
In 1841, she taught Sunday school classes to female convicts at a jail near Boston. She witnessed inhumane and neglectful treatment of the mentally ill. She had to work for change. But how? In Massachusetts, women could not vote, could not hold office, and could not testify before the legislature. The only way she could participate was to create pamphlets as to needed changes and have male legislators read them into the record. Dix, however, was able to recreate in her writing vivid images of the abuses and neglect that were common.
Dix began visiting hospitals and jails in other parts of Massachusetts, in neighboring states, and across the country. She was particularly interested in requiring states to provide care for the poor.
She compiled her findings, creating national standards for the treatment of the mentally ill, and presented them to politicians who were uninterested. Her efforts to pass federal legislation failed. Undeterred, she founded asylums in New Jersey, North Carolina, and Illinois. She also traveled to Europe, reporting on the inhumane hospital conditions there.
At the beginning of the Civil War, she was appointed Superintendent of Army Nurses for the Union Army. She was fifty-nine years old. Although male doctors were openly hostile to the use of female nurses, she began building a nursing corps and set high standards. Although unusual for the time, she insisted that soldiers in the Confederate Army receive equal treatment to the those of the Union Army. During the war, she appointed more than 3,000 nurses or about 15 percent of the Union Army nurses. In 1865, she stepped down from her position. Ultimately, she helped modernize and professionalize the nursing field.
After the war, she continued with her efforts to improve the care for the mentally ill, leading many hospitals in the US and in Europe to restructure their treatments. However, some have criticized her for not doing more to advance the rights of women and for not being an abolitionist.
After another illness, she returned to New Jersey where she had a suite at the New Jersey State Hospital. She lived there until her death in 1887.
Over her lifetime, she worked in many states and countries and founded or expanded more than thirty hospitals which treated the mentally ill. She fought against cruel or neglectful practices concerning the mentally ill, including “caging, incarceration without clothing, and painful physical restraint.”
I celebrate her as a tireless advocate for the mentally ill and for her work in the nursing field.
https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/dorothea-dix.
Thank you Sarah!