Dorothea Lynde Dix

Dorothea Dix

Dorothea Lynde Dix (born April 4, 1802 in Hampden , Maine , † July 18, 1887 in Trenton ) was an American benefactress. She initiated reforms in the health system for the mentally ill, first in the United States and later in Europe. At her instigation, numerous mental hospitals were founded between 1840 and 1860. During the Civil War , she was put in charge of all hospital nurses in the northern states .

Life

Childhood and teaching

Joseph Dix and Mary Bigelow's daughter grew up with her two younger siblings in Worcester . Her father was an itinerant preacher and often moved around with his family. Dorothea fled from her family at the age of twelve, where she had experienced abuse and alcoholism. She found refuge with her wealthy grandmother in Boston . She wanted to become a teacher and was teaching in schools when she was fourteen; at the age of 19 she founded her own small school, which was financed by wealthy families. She also gave home schooling to poor and neglected children.

From 1824 to 1830 she was in poor health and mainly occupied herself with writing children's books and prayer books. In 1831 she opened a model school for girls and taught there herself until 1836 when she fell ill again. She traveled to England in 1836 and met the Rathbone family in Liverpool , in whose villa she spent over a year. The Rathbones were influential Quakers , politicians, and patrons who pushed for the state to play an active role in health care. At the same time she also saw a reform movement in the British insane asylums, in which investigative reports and methodological studies had been submitted to the British House of Commons .

Campaign for the establishment of insane asylums

After her return to America in 1840/1841, Dix also investigated the accommodation of mentally ill people from the lower classes in Massachusetts. Until then, the mentally ill were housed in prisons or public poor houses, depending on their level of danger; Prison guards occasionally even made extra income on sightseeing tours for the curious. Dix's study revealed that abuse was common in the underfunded and unregulated institutions. Dix submitted their investigation report to the state in 1843:

“I proceed, gentlemen, briefly to call your attention to the present state of Insane Persons confined within this Commonwealth, in cages, stalls, pens! Chained, naked, beaten with rods, and lashed into obedience. "

“Gentlemen, I would like to draw your attention briefly to the current situation of the crazy people locked up in this community: in cages, booths and crates! Chained, naked, beaten with sticks, whipped into obedience. "

- Memorial to the Legislature of Massachusetts, Boston 1843

As a result of their efforts, a bill was passed to establish a state mental hospital in Worcester. In the years that followed, Dix traveled through all of the east coast states of the United States, in spite of her vulnerable health, which required longer breaks. She documented the housing conditions of the mentally handicapped, presented the results of the research to state lawmakers, and devoted a great deal of energy to working with committees to develop new laws and licensing regulations for mental hospitals. Mentally ill people should not only be admitted, but also cared for and medically treated. She visited and described over 300 prisons and 500 poorhouses in the United States from 1840 to 1854.

On her instigation, among other things:

• 1843 the New York State Lunatic Asylum in Utica ( New York )
• 1846/47 a state mental hospital in Elgin ( Illinois )
• 1848 Trenton Psychiatric Hospital in Trenton ( New Jersey )
• 1849 an institution (today: Rex Hospital) in Raleigh ( North Carolina )
• 1851 Harrisburg State Hospital in Harrisburg ( Pennsylvania , from 1853 with a specialist library and museum dedicated to her)
• 1852 St. Elizabeths Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts
• 1852 Central State Hospital for the Insane (pre-existing, but rebuilt after her visit in 1847) in Nashville ( Tennessee )
• 1852 Spring Grove State Hospital (pre-existing, but redesigned as a new building) in Baltimore ( Maryland )
• 1853 Sheppard Pratt Hospital in Towson, Maryland
• 1853 Bryce Hospital in Tuscaloosa ( Alabama )
• 1858 the Nova Scotia Hospital in Dartmouth ( Canada )

Dix approx. 1850–1855

She traveled to Nova Scotia in 1853 based on a report that mad people were simply abandoned on Sable Island , but found the report to be unfounded.

In 1854, a draft law she had put forward in 1848 was passed by both chambers of the US Congress, according to which federal funds from land sales were to be made available for state support for the mentally handicapped. However, President Franklin Pierce refused to sign due to constitutional concerns (social welfare remained a matter of state for another 70 years) and ultimately let the law fail. Frustrated, Dix traveled to Europe and continued her work in Scotland and Italy with the help of the Rathbone family.

American Civil War

After the outbreak of the civil war, Dix was appointed superintendent of the hospital nurses of the US Army ; she stabbed Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell , who was also a candidate for the post.

The zealous lone fighter showed herself to be overwhelmed with the management of a large organization: through recruitment guidelines and dress codes (with the well-justified fear that young, pretty or well-dressed girls would be defrauded in the army), she reprimanded volunteers, always occupied positions with self-selected and trained women and fired others. Catholic nuns particularly distrusted the anti-Catholic Dix, although they played an important role in the organization. This policy drew her anger, including the United States Sanitary Commission and many doctors with whom she had an internal paper war.

To end the condition, the War Department issued Order No. 351 in 1863, which largely curtailed her extensive powers and made her only a figurehead. She submitted her resignation in 1865 and later described this "episode" of her career as a failure. In spite of this, she had worked with all her might in this office, and also arranged that southerners in hospitals were treated in the same way as northerners.

Post-war period and end of life

After the war she continued her campaign for humane institutions in prisons and asylums; one of their first actions was a trip to the southern states to provide reconstruction aid.

In 1881 Dix retired to a private suite in the New Jersey house, from where she continued to correspond with acquaintances around the world. She died there in 1887.

Works and publications (selection)

• Conversations on Common Things (1824; reprinted 60 times by 1869)
• Memorial to the Legislature of Massachusetts (1843)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Francis Tiffany: The Life of Dorothea Lynde Dix , Houghton & Mifflin Company, Boston 1890
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Antonius Lux (ed.): Great women of world history. A thousand biographies in words and pictures . Sebastian Lux Verlag , Munich 1963, p. 132.
3. ^ Encyclopædia Britannica in Wikisource: Dix, Dorothea Lynde
4. ↑ Barbra Mann Wall, "Called to a Mission of Charity: The Sisters of St. Joseph in the Civil War, Nursing History Review (1998) Vol. 6, p85-113
5. ↑ http://www.bookrags.com/research/dix-dorothea-aaw-02/ Book Rags: Dorothea Dix

literature

• Thomas J. Brown: Dorothea Dix. New England reformer , Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. 1998, ISBN 0-674-21488-9 .
• David Gollaher: Voice for the mad. The life of Dorothea Dix , Free Press, New York 1995, ISBN 0-02-912399-2 .
• David L. Lightner: Asylum. prison and poorhouse. The writings and reform work of Dorothea Dix in Illinois , University Press, Carbondale, Ill. 1999, ISBN 0-8093-2163-7 .
• Charles Schlaifer: Heart's work. Civil was heroine and champion of the mentally ill. Dorothea Lynde Dix , Paragon House, New York 1991, ISBN 1-55778-419-1 .
• Charles M. Snyder: The Lady and the President: The Letters of Dorothea Dix and Millard Fillmore. University Press of Kentucky, Lexington 2015, ISBN 978-0-8131-6457-1 .

Web links

• FemBiographie Dorothea Lynde Dix
• Robin Pape, Burkhart Brückner: Biography of Dorothea Dix In: Biographisches Archiv der Psychiatrie (BIAPSY) , 2015.