Dorothea Dix
Dorothea Dix
Dorothea Lynde Dixwas an American activist on behalf of the indigent insane who, through a vigorous program of lobbying state legislatures and the United States Congress, created the first generation of American mental asylums. During the Civil War, she served as a Superintendent of Army Nurses...
ProfessionCivil Rights Leader
Date of Birth4 April 1802
CityHampden, ME
men made
Man is not made better by being degraded.
strong real men
I come to present the strong claims of suffering humanity. I come to place before the Legislature of Massachusetts the condition of the miserable, the desolate, the outcast. I come as the advocate of helpless, forgotten, insane men and women; of beings sunk to a condition from which the unconcerned world would start with real horror.
awaken control diminish increase prisoners proportion strengthen terrors
While we diminish the stimulant of fear, we must increase to prisoners the incitements of hope, in proportion as we extinguish the terrors of the law, we should awaken and strengthen the control of the conscience.