Asylum, Prison, and Poor, and Poorhouse: The Writings and Reform Work of Dorothea Dix in Illinois

Asylum, Prison, and Poorhouse: the Writings and Reform Work of Dorothea Dix in Illinois. By David L. Lightner. (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1999. Pp. xi, 161. Illustrations, notes, index, $19.95).

Dorothea Dix (1802-1887) from age 39 until her death traveled extensively in the United States and several foreign countries imploring legislative bodies to provide better facilities for the insane, the poor, and prisoners. By 1846 her work was so well known that when she came to Illinois she attracted a large following of citizens and public officials who worked to promote these types of institutions in the early years of the Prairie State.

David L. Lightner, a Professor of American History at the University of Alberta, gives us a detailed account of Miss Dix's efforts in Illinois. He had access to the Dorothea Dix papers in Harvard's Houghton Library. These papers have only recently been generally available and are the basis of two recent biographies: David Gollaher's Voice for the Mad: the Life of Dorothea Dix (1995), and Thomas J. Brown's Dorothea Dix: New England Reformer (1998). Dix's efforts to establish a state mental hospital in Illinois have been previously discussed in Miroslav Velek's monograph on the history of the Jacksonville State Hospital published by the Pearson Museum at the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine (1982), and in my recent article, "Dorothea Dix and the Founding of Illinois'...