Richards (Linda) is born in West Potsdam, New York.

The daughter of an itinerant preacher, Linda Richards arrives in Boston in 1870 to work as an assistant nurse at Boston City Hospital, then graduates from America’s first professional nursing school, at the New England Hospital for Women and Children, in 1873.* She is the first professionally trained nurse in the nation. After a year as night superintendent at Bellevue Hospital in New York, she returns to Boston to direct the nurse training program at Massachusetts General Hospital, then goes on to direct the nurses training school at Boston City Hospital and reorganize or establish schools in New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Michigan and Japan. Richards dies in Boston on April 16, 1930.