Dix
Dix names 4 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Dix JOHN ADAMS, an American statesman and soldier
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
JOHN ADAMS, an American statesman and soldier; born in Boscawen, N. H., July 24, 1798. He was educated at Salisbury , Phillips Exeter Academy, the College of Montreal, and St. Mary's College. In 1812 he was appointed a cadet in the United States Army, and in 1813, ensign. He took part in the ations on the Canadian frontier during operthe War of 1812; afterward studied law and was admitted to the bar in Washington. In 1826 he was sent as a special messenger to the court of Denmark. He resigned from the army in 1828, and began practicing law in Cooperstown, N. Y. Later he was Secretary of State and Adjutant-General of New York, and was prominently associated with the "Albany Regency," the controlling power of the Democratic party. In 1841 he was elected to the State Assembly, and in 1845-1849 was a United States Senator. In 1861 he was appointed Secretary of the Treasury by President Buchanan, and his appointment led to the breaking of a financial deadlock in the affairs of the government. When he became secretary there were two revenue cutters at New Orleans, and he ordered them to New York. The captain of one refused to obey his order, and Dix telegraphed to put him under arrest, adding statement which has made him famous, "If any one attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot him on the spot." At the outbreak of the Civil War, he was elected president of the Union Defense Committee, and organized 17 regiments. He was commissioned a Major-General of volunteers, and through his active measures saved Maryland to the Union cause. He was elected governor of New York in 1872, but was defeated on a renomination in 1874. He died in New York City, April 21, 1879.
Dix MORGAN, an American clergyman
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
MORGAN, an American clergyman; born in New York, Nov. 1, 1827, son of Gen. John A. Dix. He was graduated at Columbia in 1848 and at the General Theological Seminary in 1852, being Episordained priest in the Protestant copal Church in 1853. After 1862 he was rector of Trinity Parish, New York City. He published "The Seven Deadly Sins"; "Sermons"; "Gospel and Philosophy," etc. He died April 29, 1908.
Dix JOHN ALDEN, an American public official
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
JOHN ALDEN, an American public official, born in Glens Falls, N. Y., in 1860. He graduated from Cornell University in 1883. He engaged in business and became identified with a number of important financial and industrial organizations. He was also active in politics and in 1908 was Democratic nominee for lieutenant-governor of New York. He was defeated, but was elected governor for the term 1910-1912.
Dix DOROTHEA LYNDE, an American philanthropist
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
DOROTHEA LYNDE, an American philanthropist; born in Worcester, Mass., in 1805. In her youth she supported herself by teaching, but in 1830 fell heir to some property , after which she devoted her life to the relief and betterment of lunatics, paupers, and criminals. She published several children's books, and, in 1845, "Prisons and Prison Discipline." She died in Trenton, N. J., July 19, 1887.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's in 1921 praised Dorothea Dix for her work among "lunatics, paupers, and criminals" and left it there; today she is remembered above all for the state asylum system she lobbied into being, and for having served as Superintendent of Army Nurses for the Union during the Civil War, which the 1921 notice omits. That asylum system has since been dismantled: deinstitutionalization, accelerated by the Community Mental Health Act of 1963 and new antipsychotic drugs, emptied the great state hospitals, and the Dorothea Dix Hospital in Raleigh, North Carolina, closed in 2012, its grounds becoming a public park. The vocabulary of the entry has gone too ow a term of abuse rather than a clinical description. John A. Dix's order "If any one attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot him on the spot" remains his best-known legacy, along with Fort Dix in New Jersey, absorbed in 2009 into Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst.
Written for this edition, 2026.