Quinn Smith Hall '03

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