Waking Up Communities and Seeking Out the Sick in Town and Countryside, 1914 to 1917

Chapter 1 plants the roots of public health nursing in Jacksonville, home of the State Board of Health and the focal point for health reforms in the state. The chapter then defines the work of the new state nurses as they began to wake up Florida’s small towns and the neglected rural districts. When professionalization offered the nurses a means to make connections in communities, the Board’s choice of nurses became a lens to explore the problems of nursing outreach for both black and white women. The public health nurses’ connections with clubwomen and the black and white national nursing organizations offer contrasting stories of professionalization as the nurses illuminate their work to improve rural and black health. The state’s short-lived fledgling program lasted only through the fiscal years of 1914 to 1916, but public health nursing grew locally, sustained in part by the long reach of white and black national philanthropic organizations.