DIX‚ DOROTHEA LYNDE (1802-1887)‚ American humanitarian‚ crusader for the reform of the treatment of the insane. Throughout the Civil War she served as a superintendent of women nurses.
Significant Autograph Letter Signed, four 8vo pages, with address panel. Washington D.C.‚February 9,1858.
To Mary Carpenter‚ the English philanthropist‚ expressing sympathy for her “heavy task”‚ explaining that “Houses of Refuge or Reformatory Institutions like them have these last few years multiplied in the United States”‚ then discussing in detail the progress she is making in several States in the reforms of the Hospitals for the Insane. “Much is done and to be still accomplished.” In this letter she says that she has been too busy since her return “to secure time for writing & publishing accounts of European Institutions as I had designed…At present I am securing of the Pennsylvania Legislature an added appropriation for an Idiotic School. Also of the Legislature of Maryland Appropriations for two Hospitals and for reforming and relieving a Prison. In Washington I have been giving some attention to the Prisons. These will still occupy me for a month or six weeks - and then I intend to review Hospitals in the Southern States.” She encourages Mary Carpenter with examples of progress in the reform of schools for the poor in the United States. “the farm-schools sustained by individual liberality do great good - and I hope to see such yearly multiplied.” Signed, “your friend‚ D.L.Dix.” (Item ID: 1760)
$750.00
Mary Carpenter (1807-1877) campaigned to improve the principles of the ragged schools and reformatories and issued many publications on these causes. Between 1854 and 1857 Dorothea Dix traveled in England and on the Continent. A significant letter.
