Mary Carson Breckinridge
Mary Carson Breckinridge (February 17, 1881 – May 16, 1965) was an American nurse midwife and the founder of the Frontier Nursing Service (FNS), which provided comprehensive family medical care to the mountain people of rural Kentucky. FNS served remote and impoverished areas off the road and rail system but accessible by horseback. She modeled her services on European practices and sought to professionalize American nurse-midwives to practice autonomously in homes and decentralized clinics. Although Breckinridge's work demonstrated efficacy by dramatically reducing infant and maternal mortality in Appalachia, at a comparatively low cost, her model of nurse-midwifery never took root in the United States. Early childhood and family Mary Breckinridge was born February 17, 1881, in Memphis, Tennessee, the second of four children, into the wealthy southern family of Katherine Carson and Clifton Rhodes Breckinridge. As the granddaughter of Vice President John C. Breckinridge, who served under President James Buchanan, and the daughter of an Arkansas congressman and U.S. Minister to Russia, Mary Breckinridge grew up in many places that included estates in Mississippi, Kentucky, and New York; seats of government in Washington, D.C., and Saint Petersburg, Russia; and schools in Lausanne, Switzerland, and Stamford, Connecticut. These political and family