Dorothea Lynde Dix was born on April 4, 1802 in the town of Hampden in Maine. She was the first child of three born to Joseph Dix and Mary Bigelow Dix. Her father was an itinerant Methodist preacher. Hampden was taken over by the British in the War of 1812, however, the Dix's took refuge in Vermont shortly before the war began. Her family life can be described as abusive and nonexistent. Her mother was not in good mental health and her father was an abusive alcoholic. Once the family was in Worcester they had two more children, Joseph and Charles. Almost immediately Dorothea began to care for her smaller brothers. Later in life she commented that "I never knew childhood". This was mainly because of her parents unstable household and her role of taking over the raising of her brother's. Many times when the fighting in her household got out of control she would take refuge at her grandmother's house, from her father's side, in Boston.
Even though her household wasn't the best she learned many things from her father that would influence many of her choices in life. When she was young he taught her how to read and write, thus when she entered school she was way ahead of everyone else. This developed a passion for reading and teaching, as she taught her brothers how to read as well. Soon after their move to Vermont her parents moved to Worcester, Massachusetts. At this time her mother was suffering from acute, incurable headaches and her father was drinking heavily. It was decided at this time that her parent's were no longer capable of caring for their three children. Madame Dix, Dorothea's grandmother, decided to take the three children to live at the Dix Mansion in Boston. Madame Dix sent her son and his wife off to live with relatives. At this time Dorothea was twelve and had already been accustomed to caring for her brothers, which is something that continued as she lived with her seventy-year old grandmother.
Life at the Dix Mansion was extremely different than Dorothea was accustomed to. Her grandmother was wealthy and demanded that Dorothea act and have interests of a wealthy girl. Her grandmother hired a dance instructor and a seamstress to cater to Dorothea's personal needs. However, Dorothea did not want any of these things. At one point her grandmother punished her severely when she was trying to give food and her new clothes to the beggar children who were standing at their front gate. At the age of fourteen, Madame Dix requested that her sister, who lived in Worcester, take care of Dorothea for a "while" and turn her into a "lady." Mrs. Duncan, Madame Dix's sister, agreed to this since she was always very fond of Dorothea. Once she arrived at her great aunt's house Dorothea immediately took on the role of "young lady" so she could return to her brother's. However, she was to stay with her Aunt for nearly four years.
During this time at her Aunt's house Dorothea attended several parties for her rich relatives and at this time met her second cousin, Edward Bangs. Edward was fourteen years her senior and was a well-known attorney. Edward took an immediate interest in Dorothea and often spoke to her about future plans. Dorothea told him that she planned on being a schoolteacher. He suggested that she start what was called "a little dame school". Dorothea asked what this was. He informed her that at the current time girls were not permitted to attend public schools. However, young girls could be taught by other women privately. Edward told Dorothea that if she was interested he would help get her started by finding her students and a place in which to conduct a school. Edward located a store on Main Street in which Dorothea could hold her classes. In the fall of 1816, at age fifteen, she faced her first twenty pupils between the ages of six and eight. She ran this school of sorts for three years. All this time Edward would continually visit her and keep her company. She was forever grateful to Edward for getting her dream of a school to become a reality.
When Dorothea was eighteen, Edward, who was thirty-one, told her that he had fallen in love with her. Frightened and scared she immediately closed down her school and returned to the Dix's Mansion in Boston. However, this did not deter Edward. He followed Dorothea to Boston and purposed marriage. Dorothea accepted his proposal but would not agree to a definite date of marriage. The obvious reasoning for resisting marriage with Edward was that Dorothea feared that she would become like her parents. Marriage to her meant desertion of children, emotional outbreaks, fights and heavy drinking.
Once Dorothea was back in Boston she began reading her grandfather's books that he had received as a student at Harvard University. She wanted to ask her grandmother to use the Dix Mansion as a new school but feared her reaction. However, one day she got the courage to write her grandmother a letter, even though they lived under the same roof, of her intentions. She told her that she wanted to open a school for poor girls to get an education. In addition she would open a separate classroom for wealthy girls, as they deserved an education as well. Madame Dix was thrilled with her granddaughter's plans and heartedly agreed to them, much to Dorothea's surprise. However in the spring of 1821 Dorothea's father died in New Hampshire. At this time in her life she knew that she was not supposed to marry Edward and returned his engagement ring. Her life, from there on, was devoted to teaching children and expanding her own horizons.
From 1822-1836 Dorothea managed to teach her two classes and began writing several books for children. However in 1830, she became very weak and ill. At this time she was asked by her good friend Dr. Channing, if she would accompany his family to St. Croix and be a tutor for his daughters. During this time she was able to fully recuperate and return to her school in Boston. Upon her return in the fall of 1831, when she was twenty-nine, she received news that her good friend, General Levi Lincoln, was elected the new governer of Massachusetts and his secretary of state happened to be her former fiance, Edward Bangs. These two individuals would later become influential in getting Dorothea's laws concerning mental health accepted as government policy.
In 1836 Dorothea began taking care of her sick grandmother and continued teaching at her school. However she became more and more drained and eventually had a complete breakdown and severe hemorrhages. Her condition was, what is now called tuberculosis, but then they had no name for it or a treatment. Upon her doctor's urging she gave up her school and took a long vacation set up by Dr. Channing to England. While she was recuperating her grandmother and mother died within a two days of each other. She stayed in England until January of 1841 when she returned to Boston in better health.
During the Civil War as she was a noted social reformer, Dix became the Union's Superintendent of Female Nurses. The soft spoken yet autocratic crusader had spent more than 20 years working for improved treatment of mentally ill patients and for better prison conditions. A week after the attack on Fort Sumter, Dix, at age 59, volunteered her services to the Union and received the appointment in June 1861 placing her in charge of all women nurses working in army hospitals. Serving in that position without pay through the entire war, Dix quickly molded her vaguely defined duties.
She convinced skeptical military officials, unaccustomed to female nurses, that women could perform the work acceptably, and then recruited women. Battling the prevailing stereo types-and accepting many of the common prejudices herself-Dix sought to ensure that her ranks not be inundated with flighty and marriage-minded young women by only accepting applicants who were plain looking and older than 30. In addition, Dix authorized a dress code of modest black or brown skirts and forbade hoops or jewelry.
Even with these strict and arbitrary requirements, relaxed somewhat as the war persisted, a total of over 3,000 women served as Union army nurses. Called "Dragon Dix" by some, the superintendent was stern and brusque, clashing frequently with the military bureaucracy and occasionally ignoring administrative details. Yet, army nursing care was markedly improved under her leadership.
Dix looked after the welfare of both the nurses, who labored in an often brutal environment, and the soldiers to whom they ministered, obtaining medical supplies from private sources when they were not forthcoming from the government. At the war's conclusion, Dix returned to her work on behalf of the mentally ill.
Not long after the war, she resumed her travels once again, actively aiding in the rehabilitation of facilities in the southern states which had been neglected or damaged during the war. The years passed and the crusader's work never slowed until she fell ill in 1881. At the age of 80, she retired to a private apartment set aside for her at the New Jersey State Hospital, the first of the hospitals that she had planned from the ground up. As an invalid during the last six years of her life, she continued to write letters from her bed to support her crusade for the mentally ill. She remained there until her death.
Her death on July 17, 1887 in Trenton, New Jersey ended a career that was unique in its singleness of purpose and magnitude of accomplishment, she is buried in Mt. Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusettes.