An influential lobbyist as well as a paragon of the doctrine of female benevolence, Dorothea Dix vividly illustrated the complexities of the "separate spheres" of politics and femininity. An activist who disdained the women's rights and antislavery movements, Dix, an old-line Whig, sought to promote national harmony and became the only New England social reformer to work successfully in the lower South right up to the eve of secession.