Linda Richards

Linda Richards (1841-1930)

Malinda Ann Judson "Linda" Richards (born July 27, 1841 in West Potsdam, New York , USA , † April 16, 1930 in Boston , Massachusetts , USA) was an American nurse and the first registered nurse in the United States.

Life

Childhood and time as a "born nurse"

Linda Richards, actually Malinda Ann Judson Richards, was the youngest of four daughters of Betsy Sinclair Richards and Sanford Richards, a minister who named his youngest daughter after the missionary Ann Hasseltine Judson . Sanford Richards had come to America with six of ten brothers in 1630. Several of Richard's ancestors were doctors and ministers. The mother came from a family in the Orkney Islands. When Linda was four years old, her father died of tuberculosis. The mother also fell ill with tuberculosis nine years later and Linda, who was only thirteen, looked after the mother until she died. In 1860, Linda Richards became engaged to George Poole, who entered the " American Civil War " before the wedding and was wounded in 1865. Linda Richards nursed him until his death in 1869. Linda Richards called herself a “born nurse”, a nurse who was trained by experienced older women and the family doctor. But this was not enough for her. She wanted training that went beyond this instruction by women experienced in nursing and the general practitioner. She began working as a nursing assistant in the "Boston City Hospital", where she was only allowed to perform the job of a maid. She was very disappointed. The poor quality of care also bothered her. She found most caregivers to be thoughtless, heartless, and disrespectful. However, the nurses were also little respected, lived in shabby rooms, got little to eat and had little free time. These poor conditions fueled caregivers' cynicism. When the English book Una and Her Paupers, which told the story of nursing education at St. Thomas's Hospital in London by Florence Nightingale, was published, Linda Richards intensified her search for a place where she could be trained as a nurse. She was referred to one of the doctors at the New England Hospital for Women and Children in Boston, who told her about a nursing school that was to be established at the hospital.

Training as a qualified nurse

In 1872, the first General Training School for Nurses in the United States was established at the New England Hospital for Women and Children in Boston. The founding of the school was largely due to the commitment of the two doctors Susan Dimock and Marie Zakrzewska . On a trip to Europe, Susan Dimock also visited Florence Nightingale and Theodor and Friederike Fliedner in Kaiserswerth to get inspiration for a nursing education. Marie Zakrzewska had already got to know the nursing textbook of the doctor Johann Friedrich Dieffenbach during her training as a midwife at the Charité in Berlin . Linda Richards was one of the first five students at this nursing school to be accepted. Linda Richards was the first to enroll. In the first six months of training, the day began at 6:30 a.m. and ended at 9:00 p.m. in the evening. The patient also had to be checked during the night, and sleep was often interrupted several times. A night watch was hired after six months. School classes took place on just one afternoon every other week. The training lasted a year, also included outpatient assignments and completed without an own examination. Linda Richards earned her nursing diploma on October 1, 1873, at the age of 32. Since she was the first student to enroll, she was or is still considered the first qualified American nurse.

Professional background

From 1873 Linda Richards worked as the main night watch at Bellevue Hospital in New York City and trained the nursing students of the local nursing school in the night watch. The school was run by the English “Sister Helen” of the “All Saint Sisters of the Poor” community. Sister Helen had learned about the “Nightingale Style of Nursing” in London. Bellevue Hospital patients often came from New York slums. Linda Richards, who had worked mostly with private patients in Boston, quickly got used to this new situation. The night watch was difficult because the gas lamps were turned off at night and only two candles were available per dormitory. In collaboration with a doctor, Linda Richards introduced the first written reports on seriously ill patients. Isabel Hampton Robb (1859-1910) was one of the first students at the nursing school at Bellevue Hospital . However, there was resistance on the part of the patients and their relatives to the student nurses, some of whom, like Isabel Hampton Robb, came from the middle classes. Since Linda Richards had received the nursing diploma at the New England Hospital without a previous exam, she and two colleagues from the New England Hospital also took the first exam, which was held at the nursing school at Bellevue Hospital, and passed this exam without any problems.

In November 1874, Linda Richards was appointed principal of the nursing school at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. At that time, this school had existed for a year and was only indirectly connected to the hospital, because the medical staff had initially spoken out against the opening of a nursing school. Such a school was deemed superfluous. Therefore the school was subordinated to its own supervisory board. At that time, nursing activities followed a strict division of labor. For example, the nurses were used in the laundry on the first day, in the dining room on the second day, in the hospital wards on the third day to wash the patients and on the fourth day in treatment care. Then came a night watch and finally a day off. As early as 1875, the medical service, headed by Norton Folsom, dropped its concerns about the new school. A modern nurses' home with a dining room and diet kitchen was built and the school was connected directly to the hospital.

Journey to England to Florence Nightingale

Linda Richards toured Europe and Japan. In 1877 a long-cherished dream came true and she received an invitation from the nursing school at St. Thomas's Hospital in London. Florence Nightingale founded this school in 1860. Once in London, she also received a personal invitation from Florence Nightingale for a private visit. Nightingale was already ill at the time of the visit and received Richards lying down. The visit left a lasting impression on Linda Richards. Nightingale recommended that Richards visit the “Sisters of St. John” at King's College Hospital and the “Royal Infirmary” in Edinburgh . Linda Richards was given the opportunity of a four week hospital stay at King's College Hospital. Here she got to know the uniforms of the nuns and was made familiar with the strict rules of the hospital, which she did not know in this form from the USA. For example, nurses were not allowed to use the same stairwell as the doctors. From King's College Hospital, Linda Richards traveled to Edinburgh, where she arrived in mid-August 1877 in fog and rain. The director of the Royal Infirmary School of Nursing, Miss Angélique Lucille Pringle, was a student of Florence Nightingale. Linda Richards was introduced to the methods of Joseph Lister (1827–1912) for treating wounds. A student of the father of antiseptic surgery Joseph Lister, the physician Joseph Bell (1837-1911), gave the nursing staff every Sunday the opportunity to take part in a bedside teaching. Two nurses were used as "house surgeons". Joseph Bell absolutely required qualified training for the nursing staff. In his opinion, "night nurses were failed laundresses" and the day service personnel were recruited from the best of these generally poor night nurses.

On the way back from Edinburgh, Linda Richards stayed for a few days in Florence Nightingale's country house. There was time for talks between the two women. After an additional visit to Paris, Linda Richards left the "old world."

Establishment of nursing education in Japan

Linda Richards in Japan

After working as headmaster of the nursing school at Boston City Hospital, Linda Richards followed a call from the American Board of Mission to Japan on December 14, 1885 to set up a nursing school there. The cruise began in San Francisco and led to Yokohama with a stop in Honolulu. Shortly after her arrival, the cholera broke out and she was initially quarantined. Linda Richards stayed in Japan for five years and organized an initial nursing training course in Kyoto . She was supported by the married couple Jō and Yae Niijima. Jō Niijima worked as a missionary for the "American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions", the oldest US American mission company for Christianity. He had also stayed in Germany for a while to study. The "Kyōto Nursing School" (Kyōto kanbyōfu gakkō) could be founded as part of the Dōshisha University Hospital. Linda Richards was very impressed with the patience of the aspiring Japanese nurses in dealing with patients and in learning their new profession. In June 1888, the first Japanese nurses received their nursing diplomas. There were prayers, music and speeches at the ceremony to mark the presentation of the certificates. The house and garden were nicely decorated and there were far more visitors than expected.

Since Linda Richards was sent to Japan as a missionary, she was expected to do the same. In addition to her work as a nursing teacher, she also gave Bible studies to older women in Japan. Linda Richards returned to the United States in the fall of 1890. The voyage took her across the Suez Canal to Paris, where she visited friends. Shortly after her departure from Japan, the nursing school in Kyoto was handed over to Japanese hands.

Last years working in the USA

Back in the USA, Linda Richards went through several stations, where she was involved in the organization of modern nursing training. For example, she worked at "Kirkbride's Hospital for Insane" in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at the "Methodist Episcopal Hospital" in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at the "Brooklyn Homeopathic Hospital" in Brooklyn, NYC, and at the "Taunton Hospital for the Insane" in Taunton , Massachusetts. Richards dealt with mental health issues. The use of hydrotherapy in nursing was another concern.

Like Florence Nightingale, Richards believed that care was an art. However, it cannot yet be spoken of as a nursing theory. Richards saw herself as a practitioner rather than a theorist. Linda Richards recorded her memoirs in the book "Reminiscences of Linda Richards - America's first trained nurse". This work became an important historical and ideological document for nursing.

Student Sophia French Palmer

One of Linda Palmer's students was the American nursing teacher and nursing organizer, Sophia French Palmer (1853-1920), who graduated from the Massachusetts General Hospital School of Nursing in 1878 as a nurse. Sophia French Palmer's demands for nursing found expression in 1903 in the so-called Armstrong Act, which for the first time also stipulated the three-year training period for nurses.

publication

• Reminiscences of Linda Roberts , autobiography 1911.

literature

• Karin Wittneben : The development of professional and scientific nursing training in the USA from 1872–1990 , in: Maria Mischo-Kelling and Karin Wittneben: Pflegebildung und Pflegetheorien , Urban & Schwarzenberg 1995, pp. 11–15.
• Karin Wittneben: Richards, Linda , in: Horst-Peter Wolff (Ed.): Biographical lexicon for nursing history “Who was who in nursing history” , Volume I, Ullstein Mosby Berlin / Wiesbaden 1997, p. 163.
• Reinald Schmidt-Richter ( Nurse School of the University of Heidelberg ): A Review of the Introduction of Systematic Training for Nurses at the Royal Infirmary Edinburgh 1872–1879. Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Degree of Master of Science in Nursing and Health Studies, University of Edinburgh 1993.
• Michael Schneider: Niijima (nee Yamamoto), Yae . In: Hubert Kolling (Ed.): Biographical Lexicon for Nursing History - Who was Who in Nursing History , Volume nine, Hpsmedia GmbH Nidda, 2020, p. 136 f.

Web links

• WorkingNurse: Linda Richards and Nursing Education , accessed November 16, 2018.
• Women of Courage Profile: Linda Richards. America's first trained nurse , accessed November 16, 2018.
• Internet Archive. WaybackMachine: Linda Richards. America's First Trained Nurse , accessed March 1, 2020.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Linda Richards: Reminiscences of Linda Richards, America's First Trained Nurse. Classic Reprint Series, Forgotten Books FB & cLtd., London 2018, p. 1 f.
2. ^ Johann Friedrich Dieffenbach: Instructions for the maintenance of the sick , Hirschwald Berlin 1832.
3. ↑ Christine R. Auer: History of the nursing professions as a subject. The curriculum development in nursing education and training , dissertation Institute for the History of Medicine, University of Heidelberg, academic advisor Wolfgang U. Eckart , Heidelberg 2008, pp. 74–78.
4. ↑ ^{a b c} Linda Richards: Reminiscences of Linda Richards, America's First Trained Nurse. Classic Reprint Series, Forgotten Books FB & cLtd., London 2018, p. 10 f.
5. ↑ ^{a b c} Linda Richards: Reminiscences of Linda Richards, America's First Trained Nurse. Classic Reprint Series, Forgotten Books FB & cLtd., London 2018, p. 25 f.
6. ↑ ^{a b c d} Linda Richards: Reminiscences of Linda Richards, America's First Trained Nurse. Classic Reprint Series, Forgotten Books FB & cLtd., London 2018, p. 40 f.
7. ^ ^{A b c} Reinald Schmidt-Richter ( sister school of the University of Heidelberg ): A Review of the Introduction of Systematic Training for Nurses at the Royal Infirmary Edinburgh 1872–1879. Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Degree of Master of Science in Nursing and Health Studies, University of Edinburgh 1993, p. 11 f. R. Schmidt-Richter
8. ^ Angélique Lucille Pringle: A Study in Nursing , Macmillan & Co London, 1905.
9. ^ Reinald Schmidt-Richter (sister school of the University of Heidelberg): A Review of the Introduction of Systematic Training for Nurses at the Royal Infirmary Edinburgh 1872–1879. Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Degree of Master of Science in Nursing and Health Studies, University of Edinburgh 1993, p. 39 f.
10. ↑ Michael Schneider: Niijima (nee Yamamoto), Yae . In: Hubert Kolling (Ed.): Biographical Lexicon for Nursing History - Who was Who in Nursing History , Volume nine, Hpsmedia GmbH Nidda, 2020, p. 136 f.
11. ↑ encyclopedia-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps: Sophia French Palmer , accessed April 14, 2020.
12. ↑ Volker Klimpel : Sophia French Palmer . In: Hubert Kolling (Ed.): Biographical lexicon on nursing history “Who was who in Nursing history” , Volume seven, hpsmedia Hungen 2015, pp. 208 f.