Malinda
“Linda” A. J. Richards Builds American Nursing Programs
Malinda
Ann Judson Richards: 1841-1930 (Maternal Second Cousin 3x Removed)
While the
prompt “technology” may not, at first blush, seem to apply to someone who was
born in 1841, Amy Johnson Crow noted that there have always been technological
breakthroughs—just not the type of tech we think of today. The high-tech
breakthroughs of past centuries might have been new designs for shovels or
knitting needles, a new way of making shoes or hats, or a new field of study. When
I looked at the prompt from that perspective, I thought of Linda A. J.
Richards. While she is more my collateral ancestor than a direct ancestor (only
a second cousin 3x removed), her technological breakthrough was, in my view,
one of the most consequential of the late 19th century: she helped
to create the entire nursing profession in America. And I’m not the only one
who recognizes her importance. A simple Google search finds that she is the
subject of several biographies and encyclopedia entries, and has been honored
by everyone from the Smithsonian, the New York State Senate, the Florence
Nightingale Museum, the Women’s Hall of Fame, and a variety of nursing groups.
Malinda
Ann Judson Richards was the great-granddaughter of my fourth-great-grandparents
Francis Dane and Abiah Burt. She was born July 27, 1841 in Potsdam, New York,
to parents Sanford Richards and Betsey Sinclair (Betsey was the daughter of
Sarah Dane, and granddaughter of Abiah and Francis Dane). She was the second of
their four daughters.
Malinda,
or Linda as she came to be called, watched as both her parents succumbed to
tuberculosis. Her father died when she was only four years old. Linda, her
mother, and her siblings then moved to Vermont to live with her grandfather.
She helped to nurse her mother, who died when she was fourteen.
Linda
gained a reputation as a “natural nurse” and tried to learn as much as possible
from the doctor who treated her mother. At age fifteen, she enrolled in a
one-year teaching training program at the St. Johnsbury Academy near her
grandfather’s home. She taught school in Newbury, Vermont, and also worked at
the Union Straw Works, a hat-making factory, in Foxboro, Massachusetts. She
became engaged to a young man named George Poole, but he enlisted to serve in
the Civil War before they married. He was seriously injured in the war, and
Linda nursed him for several years until his death in 1869.
After his
loss, Linda sought out a nursing program, enrolling in a new programs at New
England Hospital for Women and Children in Boston. Linda described her training
in her memoir:
“We
rose at 5.30 a.m. and left the wards at 9 p.m. to go to our beds, which were in
little rooms between the wards. Each nurse took care of her ward of six
patients both day and night. Many a time I got up nine times in the night;
often I did not get to sleep before the next call came. We had no evenings out,
and no hours for study or recreation. Every second week we were off duty one
afternoon from two to five o'clock. No monthly allowance was given for three
months.”
She was
the first of the students to complete her training in 1873, so was the first
officially trained nurse in the United States. She took a position at Bellevue
Hospital in New York City, where she created a charting system to keep
individual patient records that could be consulted and updated by all the
doctors and nurses caring for a patient.
Only a
little over a year later, she was named the superintendent of the Boston
Training School for Nurses. The school had been in danger of closing due to
mismanagement, but her improvements led it to become one of the best nursing
programs in the nation.
In 1877,
Linda travelled to England to train under Florence Nightingale. When she
returned to the United States, she set about incorporating her new knowledge in
nursing programs. From 1886 to 1891, she lived in Japan where she served as a
missionary and opened the first nursing training school in the country.
 |
| Linda in Japan |
Linda’s
health began to fail after she returned to the United States. She briefly led
nursing programs in Philadelphia and Boston, and then turned her energy to
developing nursing programs for mental hospitals in Massachusetts and Michigan,
and improving the ways mental patients were treated. She also served as the
first president of the American Society of Superintendents of Training Schools.
Linda
retired from nursing in 1911 at the age of seventy. She went to live on a farm
in Lowell, Massachusetts. In 1923, she
suffered a stroke and was hospitalized until her death on April 16, 1930 at the
age of 88.
Linda A.
J. Richards was a true pioneer in the field of nursing, helping to develop it
as a profession in the United States and establishing patient charting systems
and standards of care for the mentally ill. Her determination, creativity and perseverance
are to be admired and remembered.
Sources:
American
Association for the History of Nursing. “Linda A. J. Richards.” https://www.aahn.org/richards
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_Richards
https://www.womenhistoryblog.com/2006/11/linda-richards.html#google_vignette
https://www.workingnurse.com/articles/linda-richards-1841-1930-the-first-graduate-of-americas-first-nursing-school/
https://www.womenofthehall.org/inductee/linda-richards/
https://www.si.edu/object/miss-linda-richards-americas-first-trained-nurse%3Anmah_1444535
http://www.potsdampublicmuseum.org/documents/Linda_Richards_text_apr24.pdf
Reminiscences
of America's First Trained Nurse. Linda Richards. Boston, Whitcomb &
Barrows, 1911.
“Linda
Richards at the Kalamazoo State Hospital”. R. C. Gordon. Journal of Psychosocial Nursing, Ment Health Serv. 1999 Nov;37(11):35-9. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10572854/
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