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Finding Aid to the Margaret Hart Surbeck Papers, 1916-1999
MSS 2002-07  
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Collection Details
 
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  • 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]