Collection Summary
Information for Researchers
Administrative Information
Biographical Information
Scope and Content of Collection
Collection Summary
Collection Title: Margaret Hart Surbeck papers
Date (inclusive): 1916-1999
Collection Number: MSS 2002-07
Creators :
Surbeck, Margaret Hart
Extent:
Number of containers: 18 cartons, 5 boxes, 3 oversize folders
Linear feet: 28.75
Repository: The UCSF Library and Center for
Knowledge Management, Archives and Special Collections
University of California, San Francisco
530 Parnassus Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94143-0840
Phone: (415) 476-8112
Fax: (415) 476-4653
Email: http://www.library.ucsf.edu/collres/archives/contactform.html
URL: http://www.library.ucsf.edu/collres/archives/
Abstract: Collection of correspondence, research data, articles, reprints,
images, drawings, and artifacts produced and or collected by Margaret Hart Surbeck.
Languages Represented: Collection materials are in English
Physical Location: For current information on the location of these materials,
please consult the library's online catalog:
http://www.library.ucsf.edu/ .
Information for Researchers
Access
Collection is open for research. The UCSF Archives and Special Collections policy places access restrictions on material with
privacy issues for a specific time period from the date of creation. Access to records that contain personal and confidential
information about an individual or individuals is restricted for 75 years from date of creation or until the death of the
individual mentioned in the records, whichever is longer. Medical records are restricted for 50 years after an individual's
date of death, if known. If the date of death is unknown, access is restricted for 100 years from the individual's date of
birth or 100 years from the date of record creation, whichever occurs first. Access to student records is restricted for 75
years from the latest date of the materials in those files. All other restricted materials will be opened in 2019. Access
restrictions are noted at the series level. Please contact the Head of Archives and Special Collections for information on
access to these files.
Publication Rights
Copyright has been assigned to the UCSF Library and Center for Knowledge Management.
All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in
writing to the Head of Archives and Special Collections.
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], Margaret Hart Surbeck Papers, MSS 2002-07, The
UCSF Library and Center for Knowledge Management, Archives and Special Collections,
University of California, San Francisco.
Alternate Forms Available
There are no alternate forms of this collection.
Related Collections
MSS 2005-05 - Margaret Hart Surbeck Instruments Collection
Separated Material
37 monographs on consumer health, anatomy, homeopathy and alternative medicine, physics,
electromagnetic health or hazards, color therapy have been separated from the collection.
Indexing Terms
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the
library's online public access catalog.
Surbeck, Margaret Hart, 1915-2000
Surbeck, Leighton Homer,
1902-1997
Hart, Frederic J
Diagnosis, radioscopic
Administrative Information
Acquisition Information
The Margaret Hart Surbeck Papers were donated to the UCSF Library by INDNJC Inc. on
September 23, 2002. Additions were made in December, 2002, September 2004 and September
2005
Processing Information
Processed by Valerie Wheat, in 2003-2006. Processing completed by Josue Hurtado
in 2007
Biographical Information
Margaret Hart was born in 1915 in Salinas, California. Her father, Fred Hart, a proponent
of electronic medicine and an innovator, received patents for the Oscilloclast and other
treatment devices. He volunteered at the Electronic Medical Foundation, eventually becoming
president of the College of Electronic Medicine in San Francisco. After a ten-year battle
with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration over the validity of treatment with electronic
frequencies, the Foundation was dissolved. Fred Hart's other enterprises included running
for state senator and establishing the first radio station in San Jose, KQW.
Throughout her lifetime, Margaret maintained her interest in the agriculture business of
the Salinas Valley, overseeing the rich farmland that had been in her family for
generations. She also observed and recorded her father's therapeutic methods and inherited
his collection of Oscilloclasts and other devices. Events in Margaret's childhood
contributed to her later interest in applying contemporary engineering technology to the
original instrumentation developed by her father.
Margaret graduated from Stanford University in 1937 with a bachelor's degree in education.
She studied voice under Andres de Segurola in Hollywood and Lucy Valpey in Carmel.
Throughout her life she contributed to many public events as a soloist, appearing on radio,
television and before charity groups and conventions. She was guest soloist at many seminars
led by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale in New York. Margaret married Gordon Packard, an executive
with IBM, in 1960; Packard died in 1970.
Margaret was a member of the board of trustees of Golden Gate University in San Francisco,
Eastern Baptist College and Eastern Baptist Seminary in Pennsylvania, Judson College in
Elgin, Illinois, First Baptist Church in Menlo Park and American Baptist Seminary of the
West in Berkeley, California. She was an active member of the First Baptist Church in
Salinas where her grandfather, Robert Porter, was a founding member. She received an
honorary degree from Judson College. In 1988, the Surbeck Auditorium (named for Margaret and
Homer) at Dr. Norman Vincent Peale's School of Practical Christianity in Pawling, New York,
was dedicated.
Margaret's second marriage in 1976 to Leighton Homer Surbeck led to a shared commitment to
further investigate the potential of electromagnetic radiation therapy. Leighton Homer
Surbeck, had a 50-year career as a trial lawyer and an expert on antitrust law. With
undergraduate and graduate degrees from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, he
graduated from Yale Law School where he ranked first in his class. He served as law
secretary to Supreme Court Chief Justice William Howard Taft and then entered the law firm
of Charles Evans Hughes, later Chief Justice of the United States. He was a founding partner
of Hughes, Hubbard and Reed in New York City. During World War II, Surbeck was a
Colonel and Chief of the Economic Branch, Military Intelligence Service, War Department.
Leighton Homer Surbeck was a recipient of a number of awards and honors, including
membership in the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, and the Yale Medal
in 1974. In 1963, the Surbeck Student Union at South Dakota School of Mines and Technology
was named in his honor. Leighton Homer Surbeck died in 1997 at the age of 94.
After Margaret Surbeck's death in 2000, her will established INDNJC, Inc., to fund
health-related research. INDNJC, Inc. endowed the Margaret Hart Surbeck Program in Advanced
Imaging at UCSF in 2002.
Scope and Content of Collection
This collection of correspondence, research data, articles, reprints, images, drawings, and
artifacts was produced and collected by Margaret Hart Surbeck. It strongly reflects her
lifelong interest and research on electromagnetic radiation and its potential diagnostic and
therapeutic uses.
The collection consists largely of materials related to Margaret and Homer Surbeck's
research on medical applications of electromagnetic radiation, including correspondence,
reports, testimonials, and patent information.
There are also family portraits of Margaret Hart as a child, as well as photographs of her
father Frederic J Hart. The founding documents of INDNJC Incorporated are also found in this
collection.
Researchers interested in the history and development of medical technology, especially
with regards to the development of magnetic imaging, will likely find this collection
interesting and useful.
The materials are organized into the following 7 series and one sub-series:
-
Series 1: Biographical and Personal, 1916-1999
-
Series 2: Fred Hart and His Predecessors, 1923-1977
-
Series 3: South Dakota School of Mines and
Technology, Project and Research, 1976-1997 [Restricted]
-
Series 4: Published Research Materials, 1960-1997
-
Series 5: Human Subjects Research, 1979-1999 [Restricted]
-
Series 6: Patent Matters, 1946-1999 [Restricted]
-
Sub-Series 6.1: Schematics and Drawings,
1946-1992
-
Series 7: INDJNC Incorporated, 1998-2001 [Restricted]