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Birth
Dorothea Dix was born on April 4th, 1802 in Hampden, Maine -
Dix Mansion
At age 12, Dix left home to live with her grandmother in Boston, and then an aunt in Worcester, Massachusetts. She began teaching school at age 14. In 1819, she returned to Boston and founded the Dix Mansion, a school for girls, along with a charity school that poor girls could attend for free. -
Publishing a book
She began writing textbooks, with her most famous, Conversations on Common Things, published in 1824. -
Women's prison
The course of Dix’s life changed in 1841, when she began teaching Sunday school at the East Cambridge Jail, a women’s prison. She discovered the appalling treatment of the prisoners, particularly those with mental illnesses. -
"Memorial"
In 1843, Dorothea Dix petitioned the Massachusetts Legislature to pay for an expansion of the state insane asylum in Worcester. She appealed to both the reason and the emotions of the legislators, and in her petition, she provided evidence of the horrific conditions under which the people with mental illnesses lived. -
Federal Land Grant
Dix also lobbied at the federal level, and in 1848 she asked Congress to grant more than 12 million acres of land as a public endowment to be used for the benefit of the mentally ill as well as the blind and deaf. Both houses of Congress approved the bill.President Fillmore supported the bill. -
Veto of Bill
The federal land grant bill was approved in both houses of Congress, but President Franklin Pierce vetoed the bill after he was elected in 1854 -
Europe Trip
Discouraged by the setback, Dix went to Europe. She discovered enormous disparity between public and private hospitals, and great differences among countries. She recommended reforms in many countries, and, most significant, met with Pope Pius IX, who personally ordered construction of a new hospital for the mentally ill after hearing her report. -
Naming of Hospital after her
When the North Carolina State Medical Society was formed, the construction of an institution in the capital, Raleigh, for the care of mentally ill patients was authorized. The hospital opened in 1856 as Dix Hill in honor of her grandfather and was almost 100 years later named in honor of Dorothea Lynde Dix.[1] -
The Civil War
Dix returned to the United States in 1856. When the Civil War broke out in 1861, she volunteered her services and was named superintendent of nurses. She was responsible for setting up field hospitals and first-aid stations, recruiting nurses, managing supplies and setting up training programs. -
Death
Dorothea Dix died in 1887 at the age of 85 in a New Jersey hospital that had been established in her honor.
