LETTER: ALS to Miss Wales.
Autograph Letter Signed
Dix, Dorothea. Autographed letter signed “D.L. Dix” to “Miss Wales.” Washington, D.C. and Trenton, New Jersey: April 1, 1874; one leaf graph paper, folded to make four pages, writing on two sides.
Dorothea Dix writes to “Miss Wales,” inquiring about her work to establish a nursing school. The short letter reads, in full:
Some months have passed since your endeavors for establishing a Home and School for nurses, was announced and carried forward. I write to ask if the initial steps have been successful and if you have the promise, through the fidelity of those who are being trained, if such final advantages as you plan possessed, and certainly as much as was evident. For any facts you may find it convenient to give me I shall hold myself obliged.
Dix (1802-1887) was an American social reformer and early champion for the mentally ill. Her professional work was entirely humanitarian, ranging from education to nursing. During the Civil War, she was appointed Superintendent of Army Nurses by the Union Army. Her work culminated in the proposed 1854 Bill for the Benefit of the Indigent Insane, legislation designed to set aside a large piece of federal land for the building of asylums and care centers for the
“insane” and the “blind, deaf, and dumb.” Despite passing both houses of Congress, President Franklin Pierce vetoed the bill, arguing that such social welfare was the responsibility of state, not national government. The present letter to “Miss Wales,” written in the later years of Dix’s life, hints at her perseverance to continue work on health and education.
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