Dorothea Lynde Dix (April 4, 1802 - July 7, 1887).
Dorothea Lynde Dix (April 4, 1802 - July 7, 1887).
Item Information
Title:
Dorothea Lynde Dix (April 4, 1802 - July 7, 1887).
Description:
Crusader for more humane treatment of the mentally ill. During the Civil War, she served as Superintendent of Army Nurses beating out Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell. She submitted her resignation in August 1865. She was born in the town of Hampden, Maine, and grew up first in Worcester, Massachusetts, and then in her wealthy grandmother's home in Boston. She fled there at the age of twelve, to get away from her alcoholic family and abusive father. She was the first child of three born to Joseph Dix and Mary Bigelow. Her father was an itinerant worker. About 1821 she opened a school in Boston. But her health broke down, and from 1824 to 1830 she was chiefly occupied with the writing of books of devotion and stories for children. Dix conducted a statewide investigation of how her home state of Massachusetts cared for the insane poor. Following the Civil War, she resumed her crusade to improve the care of prisoners, the disabled, and the mentally ill. From a crayon portrait by Cheney in the Boston Athenaeum. Dix died on July 17, 1887. and was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Watertown, Massachusetts.
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