by: saarah amin. dorthea dix was born on april 4 th, 1802. she was born in hampden, maine. at age...
TRANSCRIPT
Dorthea Dix was born on April 4th, 1802.
She was born in Hampden, Maine.
At age 12, she fled from her alcoholic and abusive family. She
went to go live with her wealthy grandmother.
When she was 14, she opened her own school and began to
teach there.
She is most famous for the prison reform.
Birth and Childhood
In 1841 Dorothea Dix went to investigate state prisons.
She found that mentally ill people were held in cages or
small prison cells. They were beaten and were given
tattered clothes to wear. Most of them were chained to the
walls or to the floor.
Prison Reform
In 1848, Dorothea Dix traveled to North Carolina. She gave a
speech on how mentally ill people were treated. In her speech
she stated that mentally ill people should be cared for and not
treated like animals.
The people of North Carolina created a hospital for the
mentally ill people. They named it The Dorothea Dix Hospital in
her honor.
The Dorothea Dix Hospital
Dorothea Dix was in charge of hiring the nurses to care
for the wounded men from the Civil War. The nurses had to
be between the ages of 35 to 50. They had to wear plain
black or brown dresses and were not allowed to wear any
kind of jewelry. She would often fire the untrained nurses,
or nurses that she didn’t hire herself.
The Civil War
Dorothea Dix moved into The New Jersey State Hospital in 1881, 4
years before her death.
The hospital gave her a private suite which she could live in as
long as she lived.
She died on July 17th, 1887. She died when she was 85 years old.
She was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge
Massachusetts.
Death
In 1983, the United States Postal Office created a 1 cent
stamp in her honor.
The Dorothea Dix Hospital was named in her honor.
Honors