Historical figures that contributed to the evolution of nursing. * Two important figures that changed the evolution of the history on nursing. Linda Richards considered the first trained nurse and Lillian Wald considered the precursor of public health nursing. * * Linda Richards, who's the actual name, was Melinda Ann Judson Richards, was born on July 27, 1841, in Potsdam, New York. Linda was the daughter of Sanford Richards and Betsy (Sinclair) Richards. * Considered the first trained nurse in the United States. * 1873, she graduate of New England Hospital for Women and Children nursing school and started working at Boston Training School until 1877, later called Massachusetts General Hospital School of Nursing. In the same year, she traveled to England to observe at the training school set up by Florence Nightingale. * * 1878 she opened a training school for nursing at Boston City Hospital, where she was the matron and superintendent of the school. * 1866 volunteered at America Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions and she was sent to Japan, where she founded the first Japanese school of nursing at Doshisha Hospital in Kyoto. * 1892 In Philadelphia founded a school at Methodist Episcopal Hospital. * * Headed nurses' training schools at New England Hospital for Women and Children, Taunton Insane Hospital in Massachusetts, Michigan Insane Asylum in Kalamazoo. * Also worked at Brooklyn Homeopathic Hospital, Hartford Hospital, and the University of Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia. * 1894 Became the 1st president of America Society of Superintendents of Training School. * Finally after a long active and productive life, Linda died on April 16, 1930. * * Born in 1867 into a prosperous German-Jewish family in Ohio. * At the age of 16 applied to Vassar College, but was rejected due to