ABSTRACT
Dorothea Lynde Dix (1802–1887) is celebrated for her tireless efforts to secure humane and therapeutic accommodations for the insane poor, for her early work as an educator, for her advocacy of prison reform, and for her work as superintendent of United States army nurses in the Civil War. These most visible contributions were complemented by a host of less famous humanitarian projects. During the Civil War, she often took dictation from wounded and dying soldiers. Following the war, she worked for 18 months completing a massive backlog of correspondence with families of soldiers. She helped wounded survivors secure pensions, and she updated and corrected statistical records. She helped raise the funds and personally selected the granite for a magnificent 75-foot monument erected in a cemetery in Hampton, Virginia, near Fortress Monroe to honor union soldiers who had died to “maintain the laws.” Dix is also remembered for her work to equip Sable Island, located off the shores of Nova Scotia, with adequate rescue facilities. The treacherous submerged sandbars near the island had been responsible for over 40 shipwrecks between 1830 and 1848.
