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Dorothea was born in Hampden, Maine as the first child of Joseph Dix and Mary Bigelow
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Dorothea grows up in an abusive home with an alcoholic father
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Dorothea grows up in Boston while helping other people
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When she is 12, Dorothea runs away from home to live with her wealthy grandmother in Boston.
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Dorothea opens a school for impoverished children in Boston
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Dorothea writes a book called "Conversations on common things" which educates parents with answers to common questions
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Dorothea visits England for a year and witnesses the British Lunacy movement, where mentally ill patients are given health care.
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Dorothea conducts a study of treatment of mentally ill patients in her native Massachusetts. She finds widespread abuse of patients and resolves to fix the system
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Dix travels to New Hampshire, Illinois, and Louisiana to study their treatment of the mentally insane.
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Dorothea visits Pennsylvania to examin their mental health facilities. While there, she helps found the country's first public Mental Health Hospital
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Dix's Bill for the Benefit of the Indigent Insane is vetoed by President on the grounds that the country has more pressing needs to attend to.
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Dorothea is appointed Superintendent of Army Nurses during the civil war and trains all army nurses. She alter resigns to more prominent women like Clara Barton.
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After the war, Dorothea's health deteriorated and she was confined to her bed. Even in her frail condition, she wrote letters on behalf of the mentally ill to protect them from other people.
