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{{infobox person | {{infobox person | ||
|name = Dorthea Lynde Dix | |name = Dorthea Lynde Dix | ||
− | |image = | + | |image = |
|image_size = 228px | |image_size = 228px | ||
− | |caption = | + | |caption = Thomas Kirkbride, M.D. From the collections of the National Library of Medicine. |
|birth_date = April 12, 1802(1802-04-12) | |birth_date = April 12, 1802(1802-04-12) | ||
|birth_place = Hampton, Maine | |birth_place = Hampton, Maine | ||
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All important crises in historical movements are associated with the lives and conduct of marked individuals; persons who have advanced some original or discriminating conception as to duty or public policy, and who, through enthusiasm, strength of purpose and the force of personality, have initiated and conducted to a successful issue a notable departure in government, moral and religious convictions, social habits, or institutional methods. | All important crises in historical movements are associated with the lives and conduct of marked individuals; persons who have advanced some original or discriminating conception as to duty or public policy, and who, through enthusiasm, strength of purpose and the force of personality, have initiated and conducted to a successful issue a notable departure in government, moral and religious convictions, social habits, or institutional methods. | ||
− | + | the history of insanity, in conformity with this universal law, has its conspicuous pioneers, its epoch-making masters, its heros and heroines. In this connection many American specialists are entitled to more or less prominence. But from the standpoint of personal labors to promote practical reforms in public provision for the insane, the work of Dorothea L. Dix stands pre-eminent. | |
Her surroundings in childhood were humble and she had a hard struggle to obtain an education, followed by a toilsome period spent in school-teaching. But in spite of these difficulties in her early life and of the semi-invalidism which, later on, hampered her physical activity, she achieved a national and even international reputation as a practical philanthropist, her remarkable personal influence over public officials and governmental policies contributing greatly to her success. In the 40 years of her public work she was instrumental in founding or enlarging more than 30 state institutions for the proper custody and right treatment of the insane, becoming an acknowledged power in this respect not only throughout the United States, but in European countries as well. It is impossible to estimate how many men and women, suffering from mental disease, she extricated or preserved for public jails and private pens, or how many others enjoyed release or exemption from galling chains and other cruel devices for restraint as a result of her humanitarian efforts. | Her surroundings in childhood were humble and she had a hard struggle to obtain an education, followed by a toilsome period spent in school-teaching. But in spite of these difficulties in her early life and of the semi-invalidism which, later on, hampered her physical activity, she achieved a national and even international reputation as a practical philanthropist, her remarkable personal influence over public officials and governmental policies contributing greatly to her success. In the 40 years of her public work she was instrumental in founding or enlarging more than 30 state institutions for the proper custody and right treatment of the insane, becoming an acknowledged power in this respect not only throughout the United States, but in European countries as well. It is impossible to estimate how many men and women, suffering from mental disease, she extricated or preserved for public jails and private pens, or how many others enjoyed release or exemption from galling chains and other cruel devices for restraint as a result of her humanitarian efforts. | ||
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She not only wished to gain personal independence for herself, but also to support and educate her two brothers. The small house in which the school was opened soon became overcrowded and was exchanged for her grandmother's residence, know as the "Dix Mansion." The high reputation which the school acquired attracted pupils from prominent families in Boston and elsewhere throughout New England. With the rapid development of her school, Miss Dix gradually assumed many arduous duties: she managed the household, taught in the day and boarding school, nursed her aged grandmother, and finally from a lively sense of duty to the poor oped a charity school. These labors proved too much for her strength, and at the end of six years her health failed. In 1827, when the Dix School was suspended because of her disability, she entered the family of William Ellery Channing, D. D., as governess and spent several successive summers at Portsmouth, R.I. | She not only wished to gain personal independence for herself, but also to support and educate her two brothers. The small house in which the school was opened soon became overcrowded and was exchanged for her grandmother's residence, know as the "Dix Mansion." The high reputation which the school acquired attracted pupils from prominent families in Boston and elsewhere throughout New England. With the rapid development of her school, Miss Dix gradually assumed many arduous duties: she managed the household, taught in the day and boarding school, nursed her aged grandmother, and finally from a lively sense of duty to the poor oped a charity school. These labors proved too much for her strength, and at the end of six years her health failed. In 1827, when the Dix School was suspended because of her disability, she entered the family of William Ellery Channing, D. D., as governess and spent several successive summers at Portsmouth, R.I. | ||
− | In 1830 she went to the West Indies with the Channings, and in this benignant tropical climate, surrounded by new and luxuriant vegetation, entertained by unfamiliar customs, and fascinated by the novelties of a new world, she found complete mental relaxation. Various branches of natural history attracted her attention, everything new in her experience receiving searching investigation and being catalogued in her memory, if not in her voluminous note-books. Geological formations, landscapes, flora, fauna, harbors, shores and ocean-currents, in short, all the novel phenomena within her conscious horizon, engaged her critical interest now that she had time and opportunity to indulge her natural thirst for information. The keen | + | In 1830 she went to the West Indies with the Channings, and in this benignant tropical climate, surrounded by new and luxuriant vegetation, entertained by unfamiliar customs, and fascinated by the novelties of a new world, she found complete mental relaxation. Various branches of natural history attracted her attention, everything new in her experience receiving searching investigation and being catalogued in her memory, if not in her voluminous note-books. Geological formations, landscapes, flora, fauna, harbors, shores and ocean-currents, in short, all the novel phenomena within her conscious horizon, engaged her critical interest now that she had time and opportunity to indulge her natural thirst for information. The keen discrimation shown in her reports and the value of the specimens which she collected elicited letters of appreciation form Audubon and Silliman. |
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