Linda Richards was the first professionally trained American nurse.
19 Facts About Linda Richards
2.
Linda Richards established nursing training programs in the United States and Japan, and created the first system for keeping individual medical records for hospitalized patients.
3.
Linda Richards was the youngest of three daughters of Betsy Sinclair Richards and Sanford Richards, a preacher, who named his daughter after the missionary Ann Hasseltine Judson in the hopes that she would follow in her footsteps.
4.
In 1845, Richards moved with her family to Wisconsin, where they owned some land.
5.
Betsy Sinclair Richards contracted tuberculosis, and Linda Richards nursed her mother until her death from the disease in 1854.
6.
In 1860, Linda Richards met George Poole, to whom she became engaged.
7.
Linda Richards was severely wounded in 1865, and when he returned home, Richards cared for him until his death in 1869.
8.
Linda Richards left that hospital after only three months but was undaunted by her experiences there.
9.
In 1872, Linda Richards became the first student to enroll in the inaugural class of five nurses in the first American Nurse's training school.
10.
Aware of how little she still knew as a nurse, Linda Richards began her quest to acquire more knowledge and then pass this on to others by establishing high quality nurse training schools.
11.
Linda Richards improved the program to such an extent that it was regarded as one of the best of its kind in the country.
12.
Linda Richards trained under Florence Nightingale and was a resident visitor at St Thomas' Hospital and King's College Hospital in London, and the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh.
13.
On her return to the United States with Nightingale's warmest wishes, Linda Richards pioneered the founding and superintending of nursing training schools across the nation.
14.
Linda Richards supervised the school at the Doshisha Hospital in Kyoto for five years.
15.
Linda Richards was elected as the first president of the American Society of Superintendents of Training Schools, and served as head of the Philadelphia Visiting Nurses Society.
16.
Linda Richards retired from nursing in 1911, at the age of seventy.
17.
Linda Richards wrote a book about her experiences, Reminiscences of Linda Richards which has been republished in 2006 as America's First Trained Nurse.
18.
Linda Richards suffered a severe stroke in 1923, and was hospitalized until her death on April 16,1930.
19.
Linda Richards was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1994.