Representative women of New England/Dorothea L. Dix
DOROTHEA LYNDE DIX.—Over a grave in Mount Auburn Cemetery, Massachusetts, the American flag always waves. It is kept there by the Army Nurses' Association of Boston and the Grand Army Post, and its presence fittingly commemorates the service which Dorothea Dix rendered her country in the war of the Rebellion.
Miss Dix was born April 4, 1802, during the temporary residence of her parents, Joseph and Mary (Bigelow) Dix, in Hampden, Me. She died July 17, 1887, at the State Asylum, Trenton, N.J., "one of her hospital homes," where she had been tenderly cared for, a loved and revered guest, in her declining years of exhaustion and pain.
It has been remarked that Miss Dix seems to have inherited the strong points of her character not from her parents, but from her paternal grandparents. Dr. Elijah Dix and his wife, Dorothy Lynde. "Her father, Joseph Dix, was a visionary man of delicate health, and died early. Her mother, after the birth of her second son, fell into invalidism, leaving to the child Dorothea the care of her two brothers, a trust she faithfully fulfilled.
"The grandfather. Dr. Elijah Dix, of whom Miss Dix always cherished pleasant memories, was located many years as a physician at Worcester, where he is remembered to-day as well developed physically and mentally and in advance of his age in village improvement and educational theories. He was characterized for his bravery, honesty, and patriotism. In 1795 he removed to Boston and established a drug store under Faneuil Hall, and founded in South Boston chemical works for the refining of sulphur and the purifying of camphor. He entered largely into the land speculations in the State of Maine, purchased large tracts of forests, out of which he founded the towns of Dixmont and Dixfield." He died in 1809, his widow surviving him twenty-eight years.
At twelve years of age Dorothea, leaving her home in Worcester, went to live with her grandmother. Madam Dix, in Boston. At fourteen she opened a school for little children in Worcester, which she taught in 1816-17. A number of years later she established in the Dix mansion in Boston a boarding and day school, which she continued successfully for five years, but at the cost of her health. In her school-teaching days Miss Dix wrote several books, mostly for children, one of which, "Conversation on Common Things," reached its sixtieth edition. In the spring of 1836 she broke down completely, and was obliged to give up school-keeping. Going to England for change of scene and rest, she returned to Boston in the autumn of 1837 with her health greatly improved, but found it necessary to go South for the following winter. She had received from her grandmother a bequest which, with what she had saved from her earnings as a teacher, gave her a competency, enabling her henceforth to dispose of her time and follow her tastes as she would.
She chose to be a worker in a much neglected field of philanthropy. Visiting in March, 1841, the jail in East Cambridge, "Miss Dix," says her biographer, "was first brought face to face with the condition of things prevailing in the jails and almshouses of Massachusetts, which launched her on her great career."
Note-book in hand, she visited jails and alms-houses throughout the State, accumulating statistics of outrage and misery, and then addressed a memorial to the Legislature (January, 1843), showing the need of reform in the system and appealing for legislative action. She was supported by such men as Dr. Samuel G. Howe, Horace Mann, Charles Sumner, and Dr. Channing. The committee to which the memorial was referred made a report strongly indorsing the truth of Miss Dix's statements; and engineered by Dr. Howe, chairman of the committee, a "bill for immediate relief was carried by a large majority, and the order passed for providing State accommodations for two hundred additional insane persons."
"Thus was ventured and won Miss Dix's first legislative victory, the precursor of numbers to follow throughout the length and breadth of the United States."
A small asylum in Providence, R.I., receiving from Mr. Cyrus Butler, in answer to a personal appeal from Miss Dix, the sum of fifty thousand dollars, was enlarged and had its name changed to Butler Hospital.
Taking up the cause of the insane in New Jersey, Miss Dix went " from county to county, making personal investigations, preparing a memorial to the Legislature, and moving them to appropriate means for building the Trenton Hospital with its lofty walls and extensive grounds. At the same time she was creating the State Lunatic Asylum at Harrisburg, Pa. Through her efforts the asylum at Utica, N.Y., was doubled in size, and the .4sylum for the Insane at Toronto, Canada, tniilt. From State to State, from county to county, Miss Dix journeyed, seeking out the suffering in jails, almshouses, and wherever they were to be found, who had no other earthly heljier. Hos])itals sprung up at her touch, until she saw structures of her own creation rise in Lidiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mis.'iouri, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, South Carolina, North Carolina, Maryland, Washington, and Halifax, N.S.
" Far-away Japan owed its first asylum for the insane to Dorothea L. Dix. She so inter- ested Mr. Mori, the first Minister from Japan to the United States, that on his return to his home he was instrumental in building two hospitals.
"She was known and loved everywhere. In 1S5S and 1S59 she visited the hospitals throughout the South that she had been in- strumental in founding. She writes in Texas: ' Everybody was kind and obliging. I had a hundred instances that filled my eyes with tears. I was taking dinner at a small puljlic house on a wide, lonely prairie. The master stood with the stage way-bill in his hand, reading and eying me. I thought because I was the only lady ]3assenger; but when I drew out my purse to pay, as usual, his (|uick expression was: "No, no! by George, I don't take money from you! Why, I never thought I should .see you, and now you are in my house. You have done good to everybody for years and years. Make sure, now, there's a welcome for you in every hou.se in Texas! Here, wife, this is Miss Dix. Shake hands and call the children."'
"The same kindly spirit was manifested by the press of the South, which spoke of her as ' the chosen daughter of the Republic,' that 'angel of mercy.'
" It was during this period of her life that Miss Dix through legislative bodies secured large sums of money for humane ])urposes, more than was ever before raised by one in- dividual.
" At the breaking out of the Civil War Mi.ss Dix was nearly sixty years of age, but she entered Washington with the first wounded soldiers from Baltimore, and reported at once to Secretary Camei-on as a volunteer nurse without j)ay, and was by him apjxiinted ' Super- intentlent of Women Nurses, to select and assign women nurses to general or jsermanent military hospitals.'
"While in personal devotion," writes Mr. Tiffany of Miss Dix (then under the burden of "responsibilitiesJoo great for any single mind to cope with"), "no portion of her career surpassed this, still in wisdom and ])ractical efficiency it was distinctively inferior to her work in her own s])here. Of its consecration of purpo.se there can be no question." Mr. Tiffany testifies that through the four years of the war "she never took a day's furlough. Untiringly did she remain at her post, organizing bands of nurses, forwarding sup])lies, ins})ecting hos])itals, and in many a case of neglect and abuse making her name a salutary terror."
Secretary Stanton, having a high sense of the country's indebtedness to Miss Dix for her in-estimable services on the l)attle-fiel(l, in camps and hospitals, ordered the presentation to her of a stand of the United States colors. The beautiful flags, received by her in January, 1867, she bequeathed to Harvard College.' They now hang in the Memorial Hall, over the main portal.
After the war Miss Dix continued general philanthropic work for many years. Worn out with fatigue, in October, 1881, she went for rest to the Trenton Asylum, which was her home till the end came.
It has been .said of Miss Dix that personally she was most attractive. "Her voice was of a quality that controlled the rudest and most violent — sweet, lich, low, perfect in enunciation, pervaded in every tone by love and power. Her apparel was quiet, spotlessly neat, and uniquely tasteful—the apparel of a delicate, high-bred Friend. A plain gray dress sufficed for travelling, a black silk one was reserved for social and public occasions. A shawl or velvet mantle without ornament .she donned when she went to meet persons of high rank. Her waving brown hair was brought over the temples and carried above the ears, in the fashion of the period. Her soft, brilliant, blue-gray eyes, with pupils so dilating as to make them appear black, the bright glow of her cheeks, the well- set head, and distinction in carriage, all expressed the blending of dignity, force, and tenderness in her character."