One Glorious Ambition: The Compassionate Crusade of Dorothea Dix, A Novel

Name: One Glorious Ambition: The Compassionate Crusade of Dorothea Dix, A Novel
Price: 15.19 USD
Availability: InStock
Author: Jane Kirkpatrick
ISBN: 9781400074310

Born to an unavailable mother and an abusive father, Dorothea Dix longs simply to protect and care for her younger brothers. But at just fourteen, she is separated from them and sent to live with relatives to be raised properly. Lonely and uncertain, Dorothea discovers that she does not possess the ability to accept the social expectations imposed on her gender and she desires to accomplish something more than finding a suitable mate.

Yearning to fulfill her God-given purpose, Dorothea finds she has a gift for teaching and writing. Her pupils become a kind of family, but long bouts of illness end her teaching and Dorothea is adrift again. It's an unexpected visit to a prison housing the mentally ill that ignites an unending fire in Dorothea's heart — and sets her on a journey that will take her across the nation, into the halls of the Capitol, befriending presidents and lawmakers, always fighting to relieve the suffering of what Scripture deems the least of these.

In bringing nineteenth-century reformer Dorothea Dix to life, author Jane Kirkpatrick combines historical accuracy with the gripping narrative of a woman who recognized suffering when others turned away, and the call she heeded to change the world.