The courage of a woman devoted to a cause shines through the pages of this well-written biography of the famous humanitarian who made helping others her life's work.

Dorothea Dix learned the meaning of hard work at an early age, caring for her younger brothers, doing housework, weeding the garden, and helping her minister father. At the age of 14, she opened a school in Worchester, Massachusetts, where she was living with relatives.

While teaching a Sunday school class at a women's prison, she became horrified at the treatment of the mentally ill people at the institution. From that time through the rest of her life, Miss Dix devoted herself to the improvement and enlarging of existing mental hospitals and worked with the state legislatures in nearly every state of the Union.

This is the inspiring life story of the woman whose hard work and devotion brought about better treatment for the mentally ill, more and better hospitals, and hope for many people who had formerly been treated with neglect.

From the dust jacket