This is an accepted version of this page Dorothea Lynde Dix (April 4, 1802 – July 17, 1887) was an American advocate on behalf of the indigent mentally ill who, through a vigorous and sustained program of lobbying state legislatures and the United States Congress, created the first generation of American mental asylums.

She was the first child of three born to Joseph Dix and Mary Bigelow, who had deep ancestral roots in Massachusetts Bay Colony.

[3][a] At the age of twelve, she and her two brothers were sent to their wealthy grandmother,[2] Dorothea Lynde (married to Dr. Elijah Dix)[4] in Boston to get away from her alcoholic parents and abusive father.

She began to teach in a school all for girls in Worcester, Massachusetts at fourteen years old and had developed her own curriculum for her class, in which she emphasized ethical living and the natural sciences.

[10] After Dix's health forced her to relinquish her school, she began working as a governess on Beacon Hill for the family of William Ellery Channing, a leading Unitarian intellectual.

It was while working with his family that Dix traveled to St. Croix, where she first witnessed slavery at first hand, though her experience did not dispose her sympathies toward abolitionism.

These reformers included Elizabeth Fry, Samuel Tuke and William Rathbone with whom she lived during the duration of her trip in Europe.

During her trip in Europe and her stay with the Rathbone family, Dorothea's grandmother died and left her a "sizable estate, along with her royalties" which allowed her to live comfortably for the remainder of her life.

At Greenbank, Dix met their circle of men and women who believed that government should play a direct, active role in social welfare.

Dorothea's interest for helping out the mentally ill of society started while she was teaching classes to female prisoners in East Cambridge.

[13] It was during her time at the East Cambridge prison, that she visited the basement where she encountered four mentally ill individuals, whose cells were "dark and bare and the air was stagnant and foul".

[14] She also saw how such individuals were labeled as "looney paupers" and were being locked up along with violently deranged criminals and received treatment that was inhumane.

"I proceed, Gentlemen, briefly to call your attention to the present state of Insane Persons confined within this Commonwealth, in cages, stalls, pens!

Dix urgently appealed to the legislature to act and appropriate funds to construct a facility for the care and treatment of the mentally ill. She cited a number of cases to emphasize the importance of the state taking responsibility for this class of unfortunates.

Dix's plea was to provide moral treatment for the mentally ill, which consisted of three values: modesty, chastity, and delicacy.

[17] She gave as an example a man formerly respected as a legislator and jurist, who, suffering from mental decline, fell into hard times in old age.

Dix discovered him lying on a small bed in a basement room of the county almshouse, bereft of even necessary comforts.

[19][20] Dix traveled from New Hampshire to Louisiana, documenting the condition of the poor mentally ill, making reports to state legislatures, and working with committees to draft the enabling legislation and appropriations bills needed.

However, after a board member's wife requested, as a dying wish, that Dix's plea be reconsidered, the bill for reform was approved.

[22] In 1849, when the (North Carolina) State Medical Society was formed, the legislature authorized construction of an institution in the capital, Raleigh, for the care of mentally ill patients.

[28] Dix took up a similar project in the Channel Islands, finally managing the building of an asylum after thirteen years of agitation.

He thanked Dix for her work, saying in a second audience with her that "a woman and a Protestant, had crossed the seas to call his attention to these cruelly ill-treated members of his flock.

[30] Dix wanted to avoid sending vulnerable, attractive young women into the hospitals, where she feared they would be exploited by the men (doctors as well as patients).

Dix often fired volunteer nurses she hadn't personally trained or hired (earning the ire of supporting groups like the United States Sanitary Commission).

Georgeanna Woolsey, a Dix nurse, said, "The surgeon in charge of our camp ... looked after all their wounds, which were often in a most shocking state, particularly among the rebels.

Union nurse Cornelia Hancock wrote about the experience: "There are no words in the English language to express the suffering I witnessed today ...".

[28] At the end of the war, Dix helped raise funds for the national monument to deceased soldiers at Fortress Monroe.