Breckinridge, Mary (1881–1965)

American nurse and midwife who founded the Frontier Nursing Service. Born on February 17, 1881, in Memphis, Tennessee; died on May 16, 1965, in Hyden, Kentucky; first daughter and second of four children of Clifton Rodes (a cotton planter and commission merchant, U.S. congressional representative, and American minister to Russia, 1890s) andKatherine (Carson) Breckinridge ; granddaughter of John Cabell Breckinridge (vice president under James Buchanan); attended Rosemont-Dézaley School, Lausanne, Switzerland, 1896–98; Low and Heywood School, Stamford, Connecticut; earned nursing degree, Saint Luke's Hospital School of Nursing, New York City, 1910; married Henry Ruffner Morrison, in 1904 (died 1906); married Richard Ryan Thompson, in 1912 (divorced 1920); children: (second marriage) Breckinridge (1914–1918); Mary (died in infancy).

Born into a distinguished Southern family, Mary Breckinridge had just taken her place as a young society matron when a series of tragedies changed the course of her life. Following the devastating death of her first husband, a promising young lawyer, and the subsequent loss of her two young children by a second marriage, Breckinridge turned to nursing as an outlet for her grief and committed herself to saving the lives of young mothers and children in the remote mountains of southeastern Kentucky.

In 1918, after receiving her credentials as a registered nurse, Breckinridge left her second husband (they divorced in 1820) and volunteered for wartime duty with the American Red Cross, where she was eventually assigned to the American Committee for Devastated France, headed by Anne Morgan . Breckinridge went to work in Vic-Sur-Aisne, caring for the infant victims of war as well as pregnant and nursing women. Through her work in France, and several trips to England, Breckinridge formulated a plan by which nurse-midwives could serve the needs of women and young children in rural America. Returning from France in 1921, she trained as a midwife in England and Scotland, and joined the Midwives Institute in 1924.

In 1925, with support from prominent citizens and capital inherited from her mother, Breckinridge founded the Kentucky Committee for Mothers and Babies, which in 1928 became the Frontier Nursing Service (FNS), modeled after the Highlands and Islands Medical and Nursing Service that Breckinridge had observed in Scotland. At the core of the operation was Hayden Hospital and Health Center, opened in June 1928, which would provide 12 beds and a physician for more serious medical emergencies. Flanking the hospital were six outpost nursing centers, each housing several nurses who traveled mostly by horseback to provide home care to the more remote rural families. In 1929, FNS became the American Association of Nurse-Midwives, from which Breckinridge established the Frontier Graduate School of Midwifery in 1939, a training program for nurse-midwives.

Breckinridge received many honors for her work, including the Harmon Fanton Prize for public health work in 1926 and the National League of Nursing Mary Adelaide Nutting Award for Distinguished Service, in 1961. She remained director of FNS and editor of its quarterly bulletin until she died of leukemia and a stroke at the age of 84.

sources:

McKown, Robin. Heroic Nurses. NY: Putnam, 1966.

Read, Phyllis J., and Bernard L. Witlieb. The Book of Women's Firsts. NY: Random House, 1992.

Sicherman, Barbara and Carol Hurd Green, eds. Notable American Women: The Modern Period. Cambridge, MA: the Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1980.

suggested reading:

Breckinridge, Mary. Wide Neighborhoods: The Story of the Frontier Nursing Service. (1952).

Barbara Morgan , Melrose, Massachusetts