Biography

During the Civil War, Dorothea Lynde Dix volunteered as a nurse in Washington, D.C. Dix became the superintendent of nurses, with responsibilities including organizing first-aid stations and field hospitals, recruiting nurses and organizing medical training. Dix never married. In Frances Miller Seward's letter to Frederick William Seward, she relays that a few women wish to be employed in a hospital in Washington DC.  

Provided by National Institute of Health/National Center for Biotechnology Information:
"Dorothea Dix played an instrumental role in the founding or expansion of more than 30 hospitals for the treatment of the mentally ill. She was a leading figure in those national and international movements that challenged the idea that people with mental disturbances could not be cured or helped. She also was a staunch critic of cruel and neglectful practices toward the mentally ill, such as caging, incarceration without clothing, and painful physical restraint. Dix may have had personal experience of mental instability that drove her to focus on the issue of asylum reform, and certainly her singular focus on the issue led to some important victories."