One Glorious Ambition by Jane Kirkpatrick, 382 pages

I'd chosen to review this for Night Owl Reviews because it was a historical biography about a woman that I knew almost nothing about. Dorothea Dix was a name I knew only as head of nurses during the Civil War because of my love of Louisa May Alcott and her books, and Alcott encountered her during her nursing time in the Civil War. Miss Dix actually devoted her life to creating hospitals for the compassionate care of the mentally ill. For a time period that expected women to be silent and serve only as decorations, she impacted the United States in an amazing way. The author did an outstanding job of bringing this woman to life.