Page:Sketches of representative women of New England.djvu/564

Rh the different religions of the world, illustrated with beautiful stereopticon views, are well known."

OROTHEA 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