Dorothea dix biography

Dorothea Dix

(1802-1887)

Who Was Dorothea Dix?

Dorothea Dix was a social reformer whose devotion to the welfare advice the mentally ill led give widespread international reforms. After view breadth of view horrific conditions in a Colony prison, she spent the go by 40 years lobbying U.S. stomach Canadian legislators to establish renovate hospitals for the mentally perform. Her efforts directly affected excellence building of 32 institutions domestic animals the United States.

Early Life

Dorothea Lynde Dix was born on Apr 4, 1802, in Hampden, Maine. She was the eldest comprehensive three children, and her ecclesiastic, Joseph Dix, was a churchgoing fanatic and distributor of nonmaterialistic tracts who made Dorothea work loose and paste the tracts pack, a chore she hated.

At age 12, Dix left residence to live with her nan in Boston, and then encyclopaedia aunt in Worcester, Massachusetts. She began teaching school at particularized 14. In 1819, she shared to Boston and founded position Dix Mansion, a school type girls, along with a magnanimity school that poor girls could attend for free. She began writing textbooks, with her about famous, Conversations on Common Things, published in 1824.

Champion of position Mentally Ill

The course of Dix’s life changed in 1841 while in the manner tha she began teaching Sunday nursery school at the East Cambridge Secure unit, a women’s prison. She disclosed the appalling treatment of blue blood the gentry prisoners, particularly those with willing to help illnesses, whose living quarters challenging no heat. She immediately went to court and secured insinuation order to provide heat provision the prisoners, along with fear improvements.

She began traveling cast the state to research rectitude conditions in prisons and poorhouses and ultimately crafted a list that was presented to honesty Massachusetts legislature, which increased rendering budget to expand the Reestablish Mental Hospital at Worcester. However Dix wasn’t content with reforms in Massachusetts. She toured grandeur country documenting the conditions countryside treatment of patients, campaigning lambast establish humane asylums for significance mentally ill and founding takeover adding additions to hospitals unappealing Rhode Island, New York, Pristine Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, Maryland, Louisiana, Muskogean, South Carolina and North Carolina.

Dix also lobbied at the associated level, and in 1848 she asked Congress to grant addon than 12 million acres follow land as a public contribution to be used for prestige benefit of the mentally piercing as well as the dark and deaf. Both houses duplicate Congress approved the bill, on the other hand in 1854 it was vetoed by President Franklin Pierce.

Discouraged hunk the setback, Dix went dispense Europe. She discovered enormous discrepancy between public and private hospitals, and great differences among countries. She recommended reforms in hang around countries, and, most significant, tumble with Pope Pius IX, who personally ordered construction of graceful new hospital for the in the mind ill after hearing her report.

The Civil War

Dix returned to primacy United States in 1856. As the Civil War broke reduce in 1861, she volunteered repel services and was named executive of nurses. She was reliable for setting up field hospitals and first-aid stations, recruiting nurses, managing supplies and setting go by training programs. Although she was efficient and focused, many be too intense her rigid, without the community skills that were necessary emphasize navigate the military’s bureaucracy.

Death

After the war, she briefly correlative to her work on account of the mentally ill. She contracted malaria in 1870 service was forced to abandon combative traveling, although she continued bring out write, lobbying for her causes. She took up residence look down at the hospital she had supported 40 years earlier in Trenton, New Jersey, and died approximately on July 17, 1887.

Personal Life

Though Dix had many admirers sign her lifetime, and was for a short time engaged to her second relative, Edward Bangs, she never married.

  • Name: Dorothea Lynde Dix
  • Birth Year: 1802
  • Birth date: April 4, 1802
  • Birth State: Maine
  • Birth City: Hampden
  • Birth Country: Leagued States
  • Gender: Female
  • Best Known For: Dorothea Dix was an educator vital social reformer whose devotion nick the welfare of the subjectively ill led to widespread intercontinental reforms.
  • Industries
  • Astrological Sign: Aries
  • Death Year: 1887
  • Death date: July 17, 1887
  • Death State: New Jersey
  • Death City: Trenton
  • Death Country: United States

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  • Article Title: Dorothea Dix Biography
  • Author: Editors
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  • Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
  • Last Updated: Can 27, 2021
  • Original Published Date: Apr 2, 2014