peacocks and lilies

Dorothea "Dolly" Dix (1802-1887)

Fiercely independent, Dorothea Dix left her dysfunctional home in then upper Massachusetts (later to become Maine) at the age of twelve. Arriving in Boston and upon the security of her wealthy grandparents, Dix took advantage of the greater educational opportunity. While only fourteen years old, she started a successful school for young children in Worcester, which she ran for three years. Dolly, as she was known, started a dame school in 1821, when she was only 19 years old. The dame school placed a special emphasis on botany, an uncommon curriculum for girls at that time. Dorothea Dix was a strong disciplinarian, but was also known as a great beauty.

Struggling with life-long lung problems and intermittent exhaustion, Dix was forced to take time off occasionally to recuperate. During her lulls, Dix kept busy by writing books about everything from science to church hymns.

Quite unexpectedly, Dix found her calling in 1841 at age 39. Already a “spinster,” Dix taught Sunday school at various places around Cambridge. On one such visit to the women in jail, she found a site that horrified and haunted her the rest of her days. Many of the women in the jails had only been guilty of “mental illness”, and these ladies were kept in filthy cages inside cells without any heat. The jailer explained that the women could not feel anything due to their condition, but Dix begged to differ. She begged all the way to the local authorities and the newspaper, and did so loud and often. This effort led to public indignation, and efforts were made to accommodate the women in a more comfortable manner.

After two years of studying the phenomenon of mental illness, Dix again defied the conventions of the day by traveling alone throughout the northeast to research and draw attention to the treatment of mentally ill people. The “memorial” she wrote as a result of this experience, which she presented to the Massachusetts State legislature in 1843, is now called the “first piece of social research conducted in America.” In it, she gave a detailed account of the conditions of 958 “insane paupers” in the hands of the penal system. The state responded within weeks with hospital beds, and Dix took her cause on the road. Traveling through New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, Dix was able to get her writing published in newspapers because of her easy-to-read form and the obvious attention scandals brought even then.

In 1844, she was instrumental in helping found the Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the Insane, a landmark in the unnamed field of psychiatry at the time. She eventually traveled through fifteen states and Canada, providing impetus for thirty-two new institutions. She also worked as nurse during the Civil War and was appointed as Superintendent of United States Army Nurses, a first in formal command for that time.

Dorothea Dix died at age 85 in the Trenton, N.J. hospital she helped build, just as words like sociologist and psychologist were coming into use. She had been both, without benefit of title, for over half her life. Her political activism laid the groundwork for the likes of Nelly Bly and others who worked to reform the American Justice system.