Frontier Nursing Service materials, c.1984
Sub-Series (ap_afc_06_02)
- Extent
- 10 Video cassettes
- 1 Photo prints
- 1 Boxes
- Part of
- Appalshop Films Collection, 1969-2015 > Series VI. Appalshop Films/Headwaters Television, 1984-1990 > Frontier Nursing Service materials, c.1984
- Scope and Contents
- Contains material related to the color documentary Frontier Nursing Service, a 1984 release. The film documents the visit of Mary Marvin Breckenridge Patterson to Appalshop for a screening of “The Forgotten Frontier,” a silent film she made in 1929 about the Frontier Nursing Service, a nurse-midwife organization established by Mary Breckenridge in Perry County, Kentucky in 1925. Breckenridge’s 1925 film shows nurse-midwives riding on horseback through woods to deliver babies, treat gunshot victims, and innoculate schoolchildren. The documentary recounts the history of the service, the growth of the service into a hospital with a nurse-midwife training program. Present at the screening is Betty Lester, the thirteenth nurse-midwife to work with the Service, who is interviewed about her experiences. Subjects include Appalachian women, Kentucky history, midwives and midwifery, and rural health in the Appalachian region.