Future families and nurses of the future as seen in 1948

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary celebration of the Community Service Society (CSS) of New York, Ruth Weaver Hubbard, president of the National Organization for Public Health Nursing, addressed the audience with a talk about "Nursing for Health in Tomorrow's Family." The full text of her speech was printed in the original Public Health Nursing in June 1948. This article presents excerpts of her forecast of the future of the American family and the role of the nurse in helping to achieve health. Predictions from the past provide an unusual historical perspective, one of peering into a future now some 50 years past. The fabric of life in the United States has changed dramatically since 1948, but Hubbard's opinion that nursing is integral to a team approach to helping individuals and communities address their own needs was articulated with profound conviction.