Dorothea Dix

      Dorothea Dix was a very influential reformer. Her work led to prison reform and improved treatment of the insane. She helped changed the way mentally ill were treated. She left her family at the age of 12 to live with her grandmother. At age 14 she founded a school for young children, and taught there for the next two decades. In March 1841, at the age of 39, she held a prayer hour for women in the East Cambridge Jail. She had noticed that the cells of the mentally ill were very dirty and cold. She reported the living situations to the local court and efforts were made to improve the mentally ills living conditions. She investigated every prison and poorhouse to analyze their living conditions. In 1843 Dorothea presented an address to the state legislature to persuade the expansion of the state hospital for the insane at Worcester.

   One major setback for Dorothea was when she pushed for a federal land grant to endow state mental hospitals, but failed. In April 1861 Dorothea gave her services to the union army, and was appointed Superintendent of female nurses in June. She did all of her work without pay.

 She died on July 18, 1887 in Trenton, New Jersey.