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Overview: Life Of Dorothea Lunde Dix By Francis Tiffany

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Life of Dorothea Lunde Dix by Francis Tiffany
Francis Tiffany’s biography of Dorothea L. Dix, Life of Dorothea Lunde Dix, shares the life of a remarkable woman who never gave up advocating for the mentally ill who could not help themselves. Dix was born in Maine in 1812. She had an unhappy childhood, being that her parents were alcoholics, prompting her to leave home and to move in with her grandmother at the age of twelve. After becoming a schoolteacher, in 1821—at the age of nineteen—Dorothea opened a school for young girls in her grandmother’s mansion; in 1831, she also opened a home for underprivileged children. Even though Ms. Dix was an ambitious woman of faith, she suffered from a severe cough and fatigue, causing her depression. …show more content…

When she came to Europe, Dorothea met social reformers Elizabeth Fry and Samuel Tyke. Fry passed a new legislation calling for more humane treatment of mentally ill prisoners, and Tyke founded the York Retreat for the mentally ill. There works inspired Ms. Dix, so she resolved to try to help change the treatment of mentally ill prisoners in the United States. While visiting a jail in East Cambridge, MA, she witnessed the harsh conditions in which the insane female prisoners lived. Because these women struggled with mental illness, just as Dorothea did, some were held in pens and cages while others were starved, beaten, chained to beds, and treated like criminals. This greatly disturbed Ms. Dix, so she started visiting prisons and workhouses in Massachusetts, taking care to document the horrible treatment of the mentally ill. Dorothea presented her findings in a Memorial to the Legislature of Massachusetts in 1843. The memorial was successful, and this was the first victory in her fight to advocate for the mentally

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Dorothea Dix was born in Hampden, Maine in 1802. Her father was an itinerant Methodist preacher, so he wasn’t really at home. Her mother suffered from debilitating bouts of depression. With these harsh family conditions, Dorothea was the “mom” of the house, being the oldest of three, she had to start caring for her family at a young age. She had a hefty passion for books and loved to learn new things, her teacher was her dad, an alcoholic and volatile man, he taught her to read and write.

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However, not only were popular reforms used, but also lesser known ones, as shown in George Ripley’s letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson that talks about his experimental community, Brook Farm, and reasons that the hard work necessary at his community allows for further internal though, leading to personal religious revelation(Doc 5). Furthermore, a somewhat smaller reform, the cause for rights for people in mental institutions and prisons which is demonstrated in Dorothea Dix’s “Remarks on Prisons and Prison Discipline in the United States” and she talks about how workers in the aforementioned practices should be of a high moral standard and have good Christian values(Doc 6). These traits would exponentially increase the standard of living in the hospitals/prisons. This was a very intelligent method, as it played on people’s pride, and it ended up working as conditions did end up improving from her efforts. While movements that were small did use this method often, it’s also seen in famous ones as well.

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She said that they has been living on frozen vegetables from surrounding fields, and birds that the children killed.'' She also sold her tire from her car to buy food for her and her children. Her children seem very shy and scared because they would huddled around their mother. I agree with Dorothea taking a photograph of the woman and her children one it could be use to get attention to help them and with the food and clothes as well to have charities

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