Haven on the Hill: A History of North Carolina's Dorothea Dix Hospital

Haven on the Hill tells the story of Dix Hill (or Dorothea Dix Hospital, as it became known in 1959) from Dorothea Lynde Dix's investigative trip to North Carolina in 1848 to the debate over the property's future following the proposed closing of the hospital in the early 21st century.

This is both the story of a community where patients and employees lived, learned, worked, and died and of an institution that reflected over a century and a half of social, scientific, and political change.

For many years Dix Hill, with its own farm, water supply, and power plant, was largely self-sufficient. Outside forces began to shape the hospital. Psychiatric care evolved from simply providing a safe place for patients to the psychopharmacological breakthroughs of the late 20th century. Societal shifts, such as the increasing role of women in the work place and racial integration, produced fundamental changes in how the hospital operated. And, as a state agency, the hospital was constantly subject to the tumult of North Carolina politics.