It was not a good idea to be mentally insane in New Jersey 150 years ago. The state had no mental hospitals. People who went mad were just lockedup in poor houses and jails, or farmed out to who ever would care for them cheapest. But in 1844 the Yankee reformer Dorothea Dix came to New Jersey to agitate for the construction of a modern state asylum. Her life, including her genuine care for the mentally ill and other issues, reflects the theme of Rachel Bakers biography which is that sick people must never become cases receiving only efficient treatment; they need love.Dorothea Dix was fourteen when she opened her first school for young children in 1816. For the next twenty years, she combined teaching with writingtextbooks, poetry, and religious tracts for young readers. At the age of forty, she began teaching Sunday school classes for women in the East Cambridge jail. As a noted social reformer, Dorothea Dix became the Unions Superintendent of Female Nurses during the Civil War. A week after the attack on Fort Sumter, atthe age of fifty-nine, she volunteered her services to the Union and received the appointment in June 1861 placing her in charge of all women nurses working inarmy hospitals. Serving in that position without pay through the entire war, she quickly molded her vaguely defined duties. She convinced skeptical militaryofficers, unaccustomed to female nurses, that women could perform the work acceptably, and then recruited women. Battling the prevailing stereo types - andaccepting many of the common prejudices herself - Dorothea Dix sought to ensure that her ranks not be inundated with flighty and marriage-minded youngwomen by only accepting applicants who were plain looking and older than thirty. Even with these strict and arbitrary requirements, relaxed somewhat asthe war persisted, a total of over 3,000 women served as Union army nurses. Called Dragon Dix by some, the superintendent was stern and brusque, cla...
