Dorothea Dix Park Conservancy Historic Places Planning Grant

FAIN: BP-285354-22

Dorothea Dix Park Conservancy (Raleigh, NC 27611-8575)
Nick Smith (Project Director: August 2021 to present)

Creation of a site-wide cultural interpretive plan for Raleigh’s Dorothea Dix Park.

Dorothea Dix Park Conservancy in Raleigh, N.C., seeks an NEH Historical Places planning grant to create a site-wide cultural interpretive plan to bring new meaning and reconciliation through humanities activities to those experiencing the park with its complex past. Dix Park, the former 308-acre Dorothea Dix Hospital campus for the mentally ill, was purchased in July 2015 by the City of Raleigh from the State of N.C. with the intent of creating a great urban destination park within view of the downtown core. Dix Park has a sensitive, layered history on this piece of land, and we are intentionally learning, acknowledging, and working to apply its history to our present and future. In collaboration with our scholar advisors and community resources, we will explore how the themes of human mental illness and human struggle and perseverance support a foundation for understanding the uses of the land, existing buildings, and local history that reflects broader themes in U.S. history.