Throughout
history there have been many people in the United States who have sought to reform
mental institutions in order to improve the treatment of the mentally ill. Dorothea Dix is one of these
people. Starting her improvements
in the United States and then spreading out to Canada and Europe, she is
perhaps one of the most influential mental institution reformers in all of
history. The purpose of this paper
is to trace her life from birth to death in order to learn how she was inspired
to care for the mentally ill in the way that she did.
There
is evidence that even as early as her birth, Dorothea’s life was
unstable. She was born on
April 4, 1804 in the town of Hampden, Maine, to Joseph and Mary Bigelow Dix
(Dorothea Dix: 1802-1887). They fled to Vermont shortly before the
War of 1812 began in which Hampden was eventually overtaken by the
British. This began a life of
instability for Dorothea. To add
to this, her mother had poor mental health and her father, although a Methodist
preacher, was an abusive alcoholic (Dorothea Dix: 1802-1887).
Also, he had bouts of religious phanaticism that made him even more
unsound. Dorothea and her parents
moved around many times during her childhood. They lived in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Massachusetts. Because of this constant moving it has
been hard to trace her childhood.
However, one result of this constant moving that has been noted is that
they lived in poverty. Also, there
was a lack of permanent schools and churches in Dorothea’s life because
they moved so much (Tiffany, 1890).
After
moving, again, to Worcester, Massachusetts, Mary Bigelow Dix gave birth to two
more children, Joseph and Charles, in which Dorothea inherited full
responsibility of. However,
household conditions got so bad that one source suggests that she ran away to
her grandmother’s house, which was located in Boston (Tiffany,
1890). However, another source
suggests that it was the grandmother who made the decision to take 12-year-old
Dorothea and her two brothers into care.
One reason that the children left home is that their father was drinking
in large quantities, and their mother was suffering from horrible
headaches. Even at her
grandmother’s Dorothea was still the main caretaker for her brothers
(Dorothea Dix: 1802-1887). To add to this, she also took care of
her grandmother, especially in her older age (Tiffany, 1890). From early on Dorothea had the role of
a caretaker and became very accustomed to doing so. This is one reason why the desire to care for the mentally
ill came so natural to her.
Dorothea’s
grandmother was very rich, and she lived in a mansion named after the family,
Dix Mansion. Even though she was
very wealthy Dorothea was still not receiving any formal education (Tiffany,
1890). What education she did
receive came from her father before she moved in with her grandmother. For example, he taught her to read and
write, and when she did begin school she was ahead of everyone. It has also been suggested that this
education influenced many of her choices in life. One of these choices is her love for reading and
teaching. This began when she
taught her brothers how to read.
Her desire to teach was further carried out when upon moving in with her
great aunt she was encouraged by her cousin, Edward, to start a school for
girls. So, in 1816 she taught 20
six to eight year old girls and did this for three years. When Edward told Dorothea that he had
fallen in love with her and wanted her to marry him she immediately closed her
school and moved back to Dix Mansion, as she was scared. However, he followed her to Boston, and
she eventually refused his proposal upon the death of her father and began to
devote her life to teaching (Dorothea Dix: 1802-1887).
In
1821 Dorothea opened up another school for poor and neglected girls at Dix
Mansion with the permission of her grandmother (Tiffany, 1890). From then until 1836 she taught classes
and wrote several children’s books.
In 1836 she became very ill with what we now know as tuberculosis. She moved to England with a friend
until she was well again. In 1841
she moved back to the United States (Dorothea Dix: 1802-1887).
This marked her second career in which she continued to show great
compassion for those who were less fortunate than others.
Dorothea’s
second career began at the East Cambridge Jail where she taught Sunday School
to a group of female inmates. When
she entered the jail she was overwhelmed with the horrible conditions. One image that remained in her mind
from that point on and sparked her determination to reform state institutions
was the living quarters of the mentally ill in this jail. These individuals were placed together
in a room that had a horrible odor, contained no furniture, and was unheated
(Dorothea Dix: 1802-1887). Conditions were unsanitary as well
(Dorothea Dix). She asked jail
officials why the conditions were so harsh for these people, and the reply she
got was as follows, “the insane do not feel heat or cold” (Dorothea
Dix: 1802-1887). After this she visited many jails and
places in which the mentally ill were housed while taking notes of the horrible
conditions. She put all of this
together in a coherent document that she presented to the Massachusetts
legislature. After a debate, her
argument for better conditions for the mentally ill in state institutions won
support of the legislature and funds were set aside in order to expand
Worcester State Hospital, in specific (Dorothea Dix: 1802-1887).
After
making reforms locally Dorothea traveled to other states and made the same
reforms. “In all she played
a major role in founding 32 mental hospitals, 15 schools for the feeble minded,
a school for the blind, and numerous training facilities for nurses”
(Dorothea Dix: 1802-1887). Furthermore, in 1848 she asked
the United States Congress to designate five million acres for the care of the
mentally ill. This bill was passed
in 1854, but President Franklin Pierce vetoed it. Discouraged that she could not fulfill this part of her
dream, she moved to Europe and made many improvements in the way the mentally
ill were treated, and she did so in numerous countries throughout Europe. In 1854 she moved back to the United
States and became Superintendent of Union Army Nurses during the Civil
War. Six years before her death
the first hospital that was built directly from her efforts was opened in
Trenton, New Jersey (Dorothea Dix:
1802-1887).
Dorothea
always had compassion for people considered ignorant as well as people who were
put down. Also, she had compassion
for those who suffered (Tiffany, 1890).
Perhaps this is the reason she attempted to give food and new clothes to
beggar children when she lived with her grandmother (Dorothea Dix: 1802-1887). She reasoned that they needed these things more than she. She used this very reasoning as the
basis for reforming mental institutions and thus providing better care for the
mentally ill. Throughout her life
she had a desire to help those who were less fortunate. The following quote best sums up her
contributions to the improvements of mental institutions, “There are few
cases in history where a social movement of such proportions can be attributed
to the work of a single individual” (Dorothea Dix: 1802-1887).
References
Tiffany, Francis (1890). Life of Dorothea Lynde Dix. New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company.
Dorothea Dix. (no date).
[Online]. Available:
http://www.humboldt1.com/~history/rogerson/Dorothea.htm
Dorothea Dix: 1802-1887. (no
date). [Online]. Available: http://www.sandiego.edu/~kelliej/dix.html