Penobscot-Piscataquis-Hancock Counties
16
Dorothea Dix Remembered The Dorothea Dix Psychiatric Center by Charles Francis
I
n 1848 Hampden-born Dorothea Dix addressed the United States Congress. Her subject was one of the causes she devoted much of her life to, adequate funding for facilities and treatment for the insane poor. What Dix wanted from Congress was a federal land grant of 12,500,000 acres. The land was to be set aside as a public endowment to benefit not only the insane but the blind, deaf, and mute. While Congress did pass a bill in support of Dix’s request, it was vetoed by President Franklin Pierce. Dorothea Dix did not give up on her quest for government funding, however. The diminutive social reformer — she weighed ninety-five pounds and
was a lifelong sufferer of tuberculosis — continued her lobbying of federal authorities. In 1854 her request was signed into law. Dorothea Dix may just be Maine’s
most influential native. She is regarded by many as the most significant social reformer of the nineteenth century. While her renown centers on her work for psychiatric care, she is a member of the American Nursing Association’s Hall of Fame for recruiting more than two thousand women to work as nurses for the Union Army during the Civil War. North Carolina has a Dorothea Dix Hospital. The Unitarian Church, of which she was a member, recognizes her as one of the most significant Unitarians of all time. And these are just a few of her accolades. Unfortunately, Dix has been little remembered in her home state. Until recently, that is. Until 2005 the only visible memo-
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