Breaking the Chains-The Crusade of Dorothea Lynde Dix
This book is autographed by the author, Penny Colman.
Dorothea Dix was almost forty years old when she discovered that people, especially poor people, with mental illness were treated horribly. Outraged by this knowledge, Dix led a forty-year crusade for the humane treatment of people with mental illness. During the Civil War, she served as the Superintendent of the Female Nurses of the Army, as such she had more authority and power than any other woman had had in the military prior to and during the Civil War.  After the war, she resumed her crusade.  When she died in 1887, people around the world honored her.  A prominent American doctor wrote, "Thus had died and been laid to rest...the most useful and distinguished woman America has yet produced."