The Forgotten Frontier

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Mary Breckinridge founded the Frontier Nursing Service in 1925 as a project to demonstrate the delivery of accessible and affordable health care in a rural population of Kentucky. Breckinridge's cousin, Mary Marvin Breckinridge, was an accomplished photographer and used her artistic talents to aid her cousin's mission. Beginning in 1928, Mary Marvin traversed the Appalachian back roads of Eastern Kentucky to produce a documentary showing nurse-midwives as they race on horseback through the wooded hills to deliver babies, treat gunshot victims and inoculate schoolchildren. Named to the National Film Registry in 1996.