Before she led the Union Army nursing corps during the Civil War, New England’s Dorothea Dix led the most ambitious reform efforts for the care of the mentally ill ever attempted in the U.S.
Dix argued that a land grant system, similar to the one that created state universities, should be used to create mental hospitals across the country. And she very nearly succeeded, were it not for New Hampshire’s only U.S. president, Franklin Pierce, and his insistence on catering to southern slaveowners above all else.
These two New Englanders would not seem to be natural opponents on the issue, but they came to loggerheads nonetheless in the swirl of politics in the 1850s. Slavery and even a hint of abolitionism dominated the terms of virtually all debate.
Dorothea Dix
By any measure, Dorothea Dix led a remarkable life. Born in Hamden, Maine, to a semi-invalid mother and an alcoholic Methodist preacher for a father, she fled at the age of 12 to live with her wealthy grandmother in Boston and her great aunt in Worcester.
While her mother and father floated around New England, Dorothea Dix worked at teaching and writing. But soon after her grandmother’s death, she found her true calling as a social agitator. Following a trip to Europe, where she became acquainted with the reform movement to improve the conditions of the mentally ill, she brought the issue home with her.
The treatment of indigent mentally ill people in New England and throughout the country was abominable in the 1830s. Asylums barely existed and most often the mentally ill were housed in segregated quarters in jails or poorhouses. Lacking any training or understanding of mental illness, the jailers often treated their charges no better than animals.
Dorothea Dix struck upon a straightforward and effective means of change. She simply traveled the country touring the facilities and described what she saw. She seemed to understand government’s penchant for commissioning studies in lieu of taking action, and she appointed herself to study the conditions of the indigent mentally ill.
Pits, Pens, Outhouses
In state after state, beginning in Massachusetts, she documented mentally ill people living in underground pits, pens, outhouses and attics. She simply explained how they lived lacking clothes, heat and decent food.
Her reports shamed even the most recalcitrant legislatures into taking action, and in the 1840s insane asylums led by doctors began springing up throughout the country. Building on the techniques that had worked on a state level, Dorothea Dix took her case to Washington.