Only Plain Looking Women

The Superintendent of Union Army Nurses during the Civil War, Dorothea Lynde Dix was born April 4th 1802.

Dorothea Lynde Dix was born April 4th 1802 in Hampden, Maine, the daughter of Joseph and Mary [Bigelow] Dix. When she was 12 when she moved to Boston, Massachusetts to live with her grandmother. Dix opened a school in Boston in 1821. The school catered to the well-to-do, but Dix also taught the less fortunate in her home. Her health was not good, and in an attempt in 1836 to cure herself, Dix traveled to England. It was while living in England that Dix became involved in the reform of insane asylums and the treatment of inmates. Upon returning to America in 1841, Dix continued her crusade for those with mental disorders. She published a report for the Massachusetts legislature that said, "I proceed, Gentlemen, briefly to call your attention to the present state of Insane Persons confined within this Commonwealth, in cages, stalls, pens! Chained, naked, beaten with rods, and lashed into obedience." The State expanded their mental hospital in response to her lobbying. Dix continued to spread her cause to other states including North Carolina, and Pennsylvania.

When the Civil War began Dix was appointed to be the Union Army’s Superintendent of Army Nurses. She set the rules for the women who would be allowed to nurse, including that they be between the ages of 35 and 50, be plain in looks, and wear un-hooped black or brown dresses. She often fired volunteers if she hadn’t hired or trained them herself. Her actions made her rather un-popular, and after the passing of Order Number 351 in October 1863 which gave most of the control over the nurses to the Surgeon General Joseph K Barnes, Dix became little more then a figurehead. Dix resigned August 1865, considering her stint as the Superintendent of Nurses to be a failure.

When the war ended Dix went back to her reform movement, now including the care of prisoners as well as mentally disabled. The legislature in New Jersey designated a private suite for her used in the New Jersey State Hospital in Morris Plains, for as long as she lived. She lived there for 6 years. Dix died July 17th 1887 and is buried in the Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.