Dorthea Lynde Dix, New England born American humanitarian and noted social reformer, started a school for girls at the age of 19 and then devoted her life to prison reform and care of the insane. During the Civil War she served as superintendent of women nurses in the army, a position for which she volunteered for four years. In this position she overcame many stereotypical obstacles to grow the Union nursing corps to over 3,000 women. Army nursing care was dramatically improved under her leadership.

Dix waged a one-woman national campaign for reform of asylums and prisons that eventually took her to every state east of the Rocky Mountains. In 1848 she found existing care for the insane barbaric. The mentally ill were often housed in jails, chained up, or locked away in cellars. Dix crusaded for improved conditions for these patients. Being a woman in the mid-nineteenth century, Dix had no political clout, but she lobbied strenuosly. The Whigs were supportive of her mission; the Democrats were not. While in Raleigh she stayed at the same hotel as politician James Dobbins, a Cumberland County Democrat. She nursed and befriended his terminally ill wife. Her dying wish was that Dobbins champion Dix's cause. Hours after his wife died, Dobbins lived up to a promise and in an impassioned address to the general assembly he won funding for the first hospital in North Carolina that provided special care for the mentally ill. The State Hospital for the Insane at "Dix Hill" opened in 1856. Dix refused to affix her name to the institution; however, upon her death in 1889, the name was changed to honor her.

The hospital property had a colorful history during the Union occupation of Raleigh during the Civil War. As General Sherman and his troops ravaged the South their reputation preceded them. Governor Vance chose to deal directly with Sheman in an attempt to save the city of Raleigh. A delegation appointed by Vance met the advancing Union troops at the summit of the hill south of Walnut Creek with a white flag of surrender and a request for protection for its noncombatants and public and private property. General Judson Kirkpatrick, the notorious Federal calvary commander, agreed to protect all that complied and to destroy all that resisted. Union soldiers occupied the city on April12. The only resistance came from a hotheaded Texas Lieutenant that fired five shots at the Union troops. They chased him around the Capitol grounds, caught him on Hillsborough Street, and promptly hung him in Burke Square.

References:

"Dorothea Dix." Home of the American Civil War. Available: http://www.civilwarhome.com/dixbio.htm

Metz Beal, Candy Lee. Raleigh: The First 200 Years. Published under the auspices of the Bicentennial Task Force for the Bicentennial (1792-1992) Celebration with the generous support of Glaxo, Inc. IBM Corp., Branch Banking & Trust, the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association, and the cooperation of the Wake County Public School System, 1992.

Perkins, David. Raleigh, A Living History of North Carolina's Capital. The News and Observer, 1994.

Related Internet Resources:

"Dorthea Dix." The Women's Civil War. Available: http://www.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/score/bull/cwwomen.html

Dorthea Dix & New Jersey's First Lunatic Asylum. Available: http://njtimes.rutgers.edu/dix.htm

The Hall of Fame Inductees: Dorothea Lynde Dix Available: http://www.ana.org/hof/dixxdl.htm

Dorothea Dix & Franklin Pierce Available: http://iris.npr.org/programs/disability/ba_shows.dir/work.dir/highlights/dixfrank.html

Photo courtesy of the Library Congress Collection: Women's Activities During the Civil War: A Select List of Photographs Avaiable: http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/print/107_civw.html