Dorothea Dix: New England Reformer (Harvard Historical Studies) [Hardcover]

Thomas J. Brown (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 30, 1998 | ISBN-10: 0674214889 | ISBN-13: 978-0674214880

Dorothea Dix was the most politically engaged woman of her generation, which was itself a remarkable tapestry of activists. An influential lobbyist as well as a paragon of the doctrine of female benevolence, she vividly illustrated the complexities of the "separate spheres" of politics and femininity. Her greatest legislative initiative, a campaign for federal land grants to endow state mental hospitals, assumed a central role in the public land controversies that intertwined with the slavery issues in Congress following the Mexican War. The passage of this legislation in 1854, and its subsequent veto by President Pierce, touched off the most protracted effort to override a veto that had yet taken place.

An activist who disdained the women's rights and antislavery movements, Dix, an old-line Whig, sought to promote national harmony and became the only New England social reformer to work successfully in the lower South right up to the eve of secession. When war broke out, she sought to achieve as Superintendent of Women Nurses the sort of cultural authority she had seen Florence Nightingale win in the same role during the Crimean War. The disastrous failure of one of the most widely admired heroines in the nation provides a dramatic measure of the transformations of northern values during the war.

Editorial Reviews

Review

[Dorothea Dix] is the story of a woman who held that 'a wholesome moral environment, with or without physicians, could restore the spiritual stability of the insane'...This 'moral treatment' of insanity was based on Miss Dix's religious view of life (she was a Unitarian). During her long life (1802-1887) she was an author of children's books, a teacher, a prison reformer, the moral and political force behind the creation of many mental hospitals, and superintendant of women nurses for the Union Army during the Civil War...[Dorothea Dix is] a sound scholarly biography of a formidable American woman. (Washington Times )

The strengths of Brown's biography are obvious: it is impressively researched and well written; it provides insights into Dix's career; and it offers a window into the complex cultural world of that era. The most original part of the book lies in the detailed analysis of Dix's failure to secure federal land grants to endow state mental hospitals and her abortive role as superintendent of nurses during the Civil War; both episodes illuminate the sources of her career and the fragility of her moral ideology. Brown's biography will appeal most to scholars seeking the define the character and ideology of mid-nineteenth-century social activism...It is clear that Brown has made in important contribution, and future scholars will profit from his insights.
--Gerald N. Grob (Journal of American History )

Dorothea Lynde Dix's singular career to improve the condition of the mentally ill has received a great deal of recent scholarly attention. Thomas J. Brown suggests that there is more to be said, and he traces her life in revisionist ways, quietly amending earlier accounts...Brown covers [her life] with rich insight and sensitivity to his subject. He writes convincingly and well. He is well versed in the historiography of American politics, gender relations, and social reform, and he uses them well to place Dix in her time and role. This is an excellent first book.
--Joel H. Silbey (Journal of Illinois History )

The most famous American woman reformer of her time, Dorothea Dix was a monomaniac, possessed of a personality and manner that made friends sometimes prefer sinners to a saint. Nevertheless, Brown declines to psychologize. Grounded in a persuasively sober reading of Dix's voluminous correspondence and the papers of her friends...Brown stresses her commitment to the moral imperatives of Unitarianism. His perspective is particularly helpful when he positions within antebellum sectional conflicts over federal land policy Dix's long campaign to get through Congress a land-grant bill to aid state mental hospitals. And he offers a sympathetic account of Dix's Civil War volunteer work, when her expectation of being the American Florence Nightingale came so sadly to naught...If one must choose just one biography, his book should have the edge.
--A. Graebner (Choice )

This biography of the great American reformer is a good reminder that not all influential women in nineteenth-century America were seething feminists who demanded revolution or nothing...This excellent biography uses an enormous range of materials and combines a balanced approach with a pleasant and readable style. (Contemporary Review [UK] )

This well written and copiously researched work presents a sympathetic and intimate portrait of one of the best-known reformers in antebellum America...What Brown presents is a surprisingly intimate portrait that still acknowledges Dix's many shortcomings--her limited view of women's rights, her blindness on the issue of slavery, and her lingering nativism. Despite Dix's personal limitations, however, Brown recognizes her many successes in convincing parsimonious legislatures to build asylums and putting the plight of the mentally ill on a national stage. Brown tells a story that is closely focused on Dix, but also manages to reveal valuable information about education, religion, medical professionalism, women's history and the political quagmire of antebellum America.
--Stephan D. Andrews (Journal of the Early Republic )

In his definitive biography of 'the country's most famous benevolent heroine,' Thomas J. Brown presents a compelling portrait of Dix's work as an advocate for the insane. No mere account of a New England 'busybody,' Brown's careful and thoughtful biography traces the life and times of a rigidly conventional woman who, through force of will, forged a most unconventional career. (New England Quarterly )

About the Author

Thomas J. Brown is Assistant Professor of History at the University of South Carolina.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 432 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press (October 30, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674214889
• ISBN-13: 978-0674214880
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,222,089 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Zero Originality, February 13, 2001

By 

Spencer Wright (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dorothea Dix: New England Reformer (Harvard Historical Studies) (Hardcover)

I've just read through all the available bios of Dorothea Dix for an upcoming film project, and this book really puzzles me. Why? Let me quote from a positive review, written in a professional historical journal: "What Brown presents is a surprisingly intimate portrait that still acknowledges Dix's many shortcomings--her limited view of women's rights, her blindness on the issue of slavery, and her lingering nativism. Despite Dix's personal limitations, however, Brown recognizes her many successes in convincing parsimonious legislatures to build asylums and putting the plight of the mentally ill on a national stage" (Stephan D. Andrews, Journal of the Early Republic). Sounds good, huh? But there's almost nothing original here; nothing that hasn't been written about by previous biographers. Honestly I can't figure out why Harvard Press spent the money to publish it. (The book seems to have been funded by some special endowment -- even the editors must've figured it would never sell.) To me -- What do I know? -- this is a classic example of academic logrolling, getting other historians to write good things about a book nobody will ever read. There's definitely nobody in Brown's book I can see to make a film of.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Thorough research betrayed by Brown's dislike of Dix, August 21, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Dorothea Dix: New England Reformer (Harvard Historical Studies) (Hardcover)

Somebody said that a biographer needs to the the constructive enemy of his subject (to balance writers' tendency to fall in love). Brown does a great job with the enemy part. He makes the case that Dix's vaunted reputation as a reformer is inflated, and that she had a hand in pumping it up, assuming credit for the works of others, exaggerating and mythologizing her work at every opportunity. To the degree he gets inside Dix, he presents her as a crabby, obsessive personality. She was more concerned, he argues, with taking credit for nominal accomplishments than with actually changing the lives of the mentally ill. (Why this should be surprising in any political figure, albeit a woman, is a question Brown passes over lightly.) It seems to me that Dix would have to have been a tough customer to take on the peculiar work she did: poking around under the rocks to expose the worst sorts of suffering. She would have to have been equally tough to thrust herself into the political realm against the ingrained prejudice of men. In short, I imagine that she was quite a difficult woman, a holy terror. This comes through in Brown's book; but what made her tick doesn't.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Good historical context, poor insight into Dix's inner life, January 17, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Dorothea Dix: New England Reformer (Harvard Historical Studies) (Hardcover)

Though Brown doesn't over-dramatize it (indeed, he doesn't dramatize it much at all), Dorothea Dix lived one of the most extraordinary lives in the 19th century, one that included the Boston Unitarian intelligentia during the 1820s and 30s, state politics in most state capitols throughout the North and South during the 40s and 50s, Washington, DC, and friendships with senators and presidents, the worst of the Civil War (when she headed up the women nursuing corps for the Union Army) . . . and then there were the insane. Brown is good, if dry and lapidary, on the exterior movement of her career. And he's good at the political context for her career. Yet, as other reviers noticed, his book is really a life and times, with emphasis on "times," not a nuanced and graceful biography. He never gets inside Dix's head, which leaves one feeling disappointed.