Lois Hatcher: Mary Breckinridge

Artist: Lois Hatcher
1946 -
Nationality: American
Artwork Year: 1988
Image Size: 12 by 14 inches
Overall Size: 20.25 by 20 inches
Medium: Water Color on Cold Press Illustration Board

"I rode through the Kentucky mountains ... staying where nightfall found me. Dysentery was carrying off the babies, and I stayed to care for them and to tell the mothers what to do." These words from nursing pioneer Mary Breckinridge reflect her sincere and heartfelt concern for the people of rural Appalachia. Born in 1881 in Memphis, Tennessee, she spent her childhood in Arkansas, but had strong family ties to Kentucky. In 1910, she graduated from St. Luke's Hospital Training School in New York. From 1919 until 1923, she lived in France, where she helped establish public health nursing services. In 1925, after training at the British Hospital for Mothers and Babies in Woolwich, London, Breckinridge became a certified midwife. Recognizing a need for rural midwifery in the Appalachian Mountains of Kentucky, she established a midwifery service there in 1925. Originally known as the Kentucky Committee for Mothers and Babies, the organization later became the Frontier Nursing Service (FNS). Nurses provided preventive and curative care to people in this isolated region, where midwifery had been practiced under primitive conditions for years. In fact, prior to the establishment of the FNS, Leslie County, Kentucky, had the highest rate of childbirth death in in the country. Under Breckinridge's direction, the FNS covered a thousand-square-mile area, and a nurse-midwife was no more than six miles away from any patient. In 1929, the FNS formed the beginnings of the American College of Nurse-Midwives.

This painting originally appeared on the Fleetwood® First Day Cover for the U.S. Mary Breckinridge stamp issue of November 9, 1998.

Artwork Copyright © 1988 Unicover Corporation. All Rights Reserved under United States and international copyright laws. You may not reproduce, distribute, transmit, or otherwise exploit the Artwork in any way. Images of the Artwork may be watermarked and/or digitally watermarked. Any sale of the physical original does not include or convey the Copyright or any right comprised in the copyright.

Our Stock Number (SKU): XB11440

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