Frontier Nursing Service

Anne Lewis. 1984. 3/4" U-matic. 

How do you provide accessible, affordable, and competent health care for a rural population? That's a question we still ask today, but in 1925 the answer was Mary Breckinridge's Frontier Nursing Service, which she founded to bring nurse-midwives to Hyden, Kentucky. The Frontier Nursing Service established outpost nursing centers that provided primary health care over 700 square miles of mountain terrain, growing into a hospital that today serves one of the few training programs for nurse-midwives in the entire country. In Frontier Nursing Service, comments by Betty Lester, one of the first nurse-midwives, are intercut with scenes from The Forgotten Frontier, a 1930 film about FNS which was made by Breckinridge’s cousin, Mrs. Marvin Breckinridge Patterson. In this rarely-seen film, nurse-midwives race on horseback through the wooded hills to deliver babies, treat gunshot victims, and inoculate schoolchildren.

“A delightful portrait of the Frontier Nursing Service as it was in its infancy … equally interesting is the pictorial history of the people and culture of rural Eastern Kentucky during the early 20th century.”— Now and Then Magazine

“A wonderful montage of actual footage and recent interviews.”— Rush University

“Outstanding! A most effective way to introduce the dynamics of the region.”— Berea College

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