Life Story: Dorothea Dix (1802 - 1877)

Dorothea Dix was born in 1802 in Hampden, a town that would soon be part of the state of Maine. She was the eldest child of Joseph Dix and Mary Bigelow. Joseph was a traveling preacher and bookseller, so he was not home often. Mary suffered from an unknown illness that prevented her from taking proper care of her children. From an early age, Dorothea was responsible for caring for her two younger brothers. Later in her life, she told friends that she never had a childhood.

When Dorothea was 12 years old, the three Dix children were sent to live with their grandmother in Massachusetts. Dorothea began teaching at a local school for girls when she was only 14. In 1821, she founded her own school in Boston. Her school was popular with wealthy families, and she made a comfortable living. In her free time, she taught classes for poor and working-class girls in her grandmother’s barn. She also began to write. She published her first book, an advice guide for new teachers, in 1824.

In 1831, Dorothea founded a secondary school for young women. Dorothea was not part of the progressive movement that was just starting to take hold in women’s education. She firmly believed that the best education for girls was the one that prepared them for their duties as a wife and mother. She was also very strict with her students. Within a few years, Dorothea was facing strong pushback from her community. The stress of running her school and dealing with her critics took a toll on her health. In 1836, she closed her school and set off for England, hoping that a long vacation would heal her.

Dorothea’s life changed in two important ways while she was in Europe. First, her grandmother passed away in 1837, and Dorothea inherited enough money that she did not need to worry about supporting herself for the rest of her life. Second, Dorothea was introduced to leaders in prison reform and mental health advocacy. Dorothea returned to the U.S. a wealthy woman with a new interest in social reform. She was ready to begin the next chapter of her life.

In 1841, Dorothea volunteered to teach religious education to female convicts in East Cambridge Jail. During her visits, she learned that poor women with mental illness were sent to East Cambridge Jail because there was no one to care for them. These women received no treatment for their illnesses. Dorothea also discovered that they were being physically abused to keep them quiet. Dorothea was appalled. She set out to learn how mentally ill people were treated throughout Massachusetts. She found that middle-class and wealthy families could afford to care for mentally ill relatives at home or pay to send them to quality treatment facilities. But the poor were housed in prisons, where they frequently suffered physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. Dorothea believed this treatment of poor mentally ill people was disgraceful, and she decided to do something about it.

In 1843, Dorothea Dix submitted a petition to the legislature of Massachusetts. In the document, she outlined in grim detail what she had learned about the treatment of mentally ill people in her state. She told the legislature that the state’s failure to take care of its most vulnerable populations was indicative of their larger moral failing as a society. She asked that the legislature grant more money to expand the state insane asylum in Worcester, Massachusetts, so that poor mentally ill people could receive proper care and treatment. 

Dorothea’s campaign was successful. The Massachusetts state legislature approved more money to fund the state asylum, and this victory drew national attention and interest to the crisis Dorothea had discovered. In 1844, she conducted a similar investigation in New Jersey and was again successful in her plea to secure funds for an asylum. For the next 15 years, she traveled tirelessly around North America, conducting her research and making cases for the better treatment of the mentally ill. She did not pay much attention to the medical science or details of treatment. Instead, she focused her energy on making sure there were well-funded facilities where care could be provided to those who could not otherwise afford it.

Dorothea’s influence peaked in 1854 when she campaigned for Congress to pass the Bill for the Benefit of the Indigent Insane. The bill proposed to sell over 12 million acres of federal land and use the proceeds to build asylums all over the country. The bill passed both houses of Congress but was vetoed by President Franklin Pierce on the grounds that caring for the poor and mentally ill was the responsibility of the states, not the federal government. Dorothea was very disappointed by this outcome, but she returned to tirelessly campaigning at the state level.

Dorothea’s career coincided with the development of the women’s right movement, but Dorothea refused to get involved. For one thing, many of the leaders of the women’s rights movement began their careers in the abolition movement. Dorothea was very close with many enslavers who supported her work, so she did not support abolition. But more importantly, Dorothea firmly believed in the idea of separate spheres for men and women. She saw her work as a natural extension of the role of a wife and mother. She had no family to care for, so she cared for the most vulnerable in society instead. She never lectured publicly, believing it was not appropriate behavior for women. And she did not think women should be granted equal rights in U.S. society because as far as she could see, they did not need them.

Dorothea’s personal politics proved her downfall during the Civil War. At the start of the conflict, President Abraham Lincoln needed to appoint a woman to organize the women who were volunteering to help care for wounded soldiers. He had two candidates. The first, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, was a trained medical professional who believed that nursing should be professionalized, and nurses should be paid for their work. The other was Dorothea, who believed that women should volunteer their time as nurses because it was their duty to care for men. President Lincoln chose Dorothea, because her vision of the nursing service did not challenge the popular ideal of American womanhood.

Unfortunately, Dorothea was not equipped for the monumental task. She angered many people from the start by requiring that all nurses be plain-looking, single women between the ages of 35 and 50. She believed this was necessary to protect the moral integrity of her nursing corps, but, in actuality, she was simply limiting the number of available volunteers. Dorothea frequently fired nurses who she did not personally train. She clashed with the surgeon general over whether her nurses should be allowed to serve in hospitals and lost. By the end of the war, she had alienated every support group that could have made her work easier. Under Dorothea’s watch, a singular opportunity for women to advance in U.S. society ended instead in total failure. 

Dorothea’s time as the Superintendent of Army Nurses was so bad that it left her reputation in tatters. When the war ended, she acknowledged her failures and returned to the work she knew best—campaigning for the better treatment of the mentally ill. Before she died in 1887, Dorothea helped found or expand more than 30 hospitals for the treatment of people with mental illness. Her work blazed the trail for future disability advocacy in the United States and raised important questions about what responsibility government had toward its most vulnerable citizens.

• abolition: The movement to end the practice of slavery in the U.S.
• asylum: The outdated name for an institution dedicated to caring for people with mental illness.
• Congress: The part of the federal government that makes laws.
• indigent: Poor.
• legislature: The part of the government that makes laws.
• petition: A formal written request, usually signed by many people to signal their support.