Since its initial publication in 1989 by Garland Publishing, Karen Buhler Wilkerson’s False Dawn: The Rise and Decline of Public Health Nursing remains the definitive work on the creation, work, successes, and failures of public health nursing in the United States.

KAREN BUHLER-WILKERSON (1944-2010) was professor emerita, University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing and director emerita of the Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing.

JULIE A. FAIRMAN, PhD, RN is the Nightingale Professor in honor of Nursing Veterans at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing and chair of the Biobehavorial Health Sciences Department. 

SUSAN M. REVERBY is the Marion Butler McLean Professor in the History of Ideas and Professor of Women's and Gender Studies at Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts. She is also an historian of American women, medicine and nursing.

Foreword: Can there be a New Dawn for Public Health Nursing? by Susan Reverby and Julie A. Fairman
Preface
1          Trained Nurses for the Sick Poor: Care, Cleanliness and Character                           
2          Creating Their Own Domain: Ladies, Nurses and the Sick Poor      
3          The Hope and Promise of Public Health       
4          Preserving the Treasures of their Tradition: The Founding of the National Organization for Public Health Nursing and the Red Cross Rural Nursing Service      
5          The Decline of Public Health Nursing: Economical and Pragmatic, but No Longer Necessary
6          Conclusion
Acknowledgments
Bibliography  
Index