{"id":15177,"date":"2018-09-20T11:00:25","date_gmt":"2018-09-20T15:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/?p=15177"},"modified":"2023-05-25T15:11:03","modified_gmt":"2023-05-25T19:11:03","slug":"the-forgotten-frontier-nursing-done-in-wild-places","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/2018\/09\/20\/the-forgotten-frontier-nursing-done-in-wild-places\/","title":{"rendered":"The Forgotten Frontier: Nursing Done in Wild Places"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Emma Carter ~<\/em><\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
Saddlebag Baby, 1937
Photo by Marvin Breckinridge. Published in <\/em>Wide Neighborhoods: A Story of the Frontier Nursing Service<\/a>, by Mary Breckinridge. Lexington KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 1981. Original edition 1952<\/a>.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWhere do babies come from?\u201d Children have been asking this question for as long as humankind has populated the Earth, and parents have offered many answers: I found her in a cabbage patch, God sent him, the stork dropped by. For many decades, the most likely answer given by mothers and fathers in the Appalachian hills of Leslie County, Kentucky was…the ladies from the Frontier Nursing Service (FNS). The proof is in the picture, a swaddled newborn tucked in a saddlebag.<\/p>\n

The FNS was more than just a cute reply to inquisitive children. Launched in 1925 in Leslie County, the service delivered thousands of babies over many decades in remote hill country where people were poor and doctors were scarce. By the 1980s, the number of births in Leslie County had dropped significantly, but show that 95 percent of the 20,000 births since the 1920s had taken place without a doctor in attendance, with an infant mortality rate consistently below state and national averages.<\/p>\n

Fourteen years after FNS began its work, its founder, Mary Breckenridge, started the Frontier Graduate School of Midwifery, sending its graduates all over the country to assist underserved communities. The graduate school evolved into Frontier Nursing University<\/a>, still operating in Kentucky today.<\/p>\n

\"Photograph<\/a>
Mary Breckinridge, 1937
Photo by Marvin Breckinridge. Published in <\/em>Wide Neighborhoods: A Story of the Frontier Nursing Service<\/a>, by Mary Breckinridge. Lexington KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 1981. Original edition 1952.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Mary was born in 1881, in Memphis, Tennessee, to a wealthy family of statesmen\u2014including members of Congress, ambassadors, and a U.S. vice-president, her grandfather John C. Breckinridge. She also suffered great loss, including the deaths of a husband and two children. These experiences, combined with an interest in infant care and a thirst for adventure, led her to service in France post-World War I, then midwifery training in England, and eventually back to Appalachia to serve the communities there. She gave back as much as she was given.<\/p>\n

In 1923, Mary undertook, on horseback, an information-gathering trip to assess the availability and skills of midwives in three Kentucky counties (Leslie, Knott, and Owsley), and to determine what they and the childbearing women they served most needed. NLM holds Mrs. Breckinridge\u2019s original manuscript, Midwifery in the Kentucky Mountains: An Investigation<\/a>, <\/em>and it makes for remarkable reading. Included in the manuscript is a data table listing the age, birthplace, literacy status, number of years in practice, cleanliness, and number of children reared for each practicing midwife in the region to whom Mary was able to speak.<\/p>\n

\"Blue <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Typed <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
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\"Typed <\/a> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

How did I myself learn about the FNS? I was lucky enough to work with a primary source, the film The Forgotten Frontier<\/a><\/em>. Interning at the National Library of Medicine during summer 2018, I was tasked with determining the copyright status of films that had been most frequently requested by library patrons over the last two decades. I watched part of each film to see if it had a copyright symbol and did further research to determine whether or not the title was in the public domain. The Forgotten Frontier<\/em> made my list, and once I began watching it, I did not stop until I\u2019d seen the entire picture. I started my research after the final scene rolled, trying to learn the story behind the film and its galloping, seemingly fearless nurses.<\/p>\n