Mary Breckinridge: The Frontier Nursing Service & Rural Health in Appalachia

About this book

In 1925 Mary Breckinridge (1881-1965) founded the Frontier Nursing Service (FNS) a public health organization in eastern Kentucky providing nurses on horseback to reach families who otherwise would not receive health care. Through this public health organization she introduced nurse-midwifery to the United States and created a highly successful cost-effective model for rural health care delivery that has been replicated throughout the world.In this first comprehensive biography of the FNS founder Melanie Beals Goan provides a revealing look at the challenges Breckinridge faced as she sought reform and the contradictions she embodied. Goan explores Breckinridges perspective on gender roles her charisma her sense of obligation to live a life of service her eccentricity her religiosity and her application of professionalized science-based health care ideas. Highly intelligent and creative Breckinridge also suffered from depression was by modern standards racist and fought