Searching Tobacco Archives: Sports and Chewing Tobacco

Posted on December 7, 2016 by Kelsi Evans

This is a guest post by Allen Smoot, UCSF Archives Intern.

As an intern for the UCSF Archives, I’ve been working on digitized state medical society journals and tobacco control collections. At UCSF, the Archives and the Industry Documents Library both house immense collections of tobacco-related material. In the Industry Documents Library there are millions of documents from tobacco companies about their manufacturing, marketing, and scientific research. I narrowed in on chewing tobacco and how it became popular in the sporting world.

Image from “The case against smokeless tobacco: five facts for the health professional to consider,” September 1980, page 4.

Smokeless tobacco gained popularity in the United States in part because many jobs prohibited workers from smoking on site. Advertising also played a role; for example, an article in 1980 outlined the various ways that tobacco companies targeted college campuses and youths through their advertising for chewing tobacco. A report in 1984 cited that in Atlanta, 11% of sample elementary and high school students regularly used snuff.

In the sports world, the numbers could be higher. The same 1984 report, for instance, noted that in a Texas sample, one in every three varsity college athletes on baseball or football teams took two to eight dips per day. Sports idols like Sparky Lyle, former ace pitcher for the New York Yankees and Texas Rangers, contributed to chewing tobacco usage by serving as spokespersons for tobacco companies. Lyle promoted Levi Garrett pouch chewing tobacco on TV by claiming, “Most ball players dream about making it to the Hall of Fame, but I’d be satisfied for people just to remember me as the guy with the great chewing tobacco.”

Image from “The case against smokeless tobacco: five facts for the health professional to consider,” September 1980, page 3.

Smokeless tobacco was advertised as “macho” by sports figures which led to the increase in use by younger people (“Smokeless tobacco is ‘burning’ young athletes,” 1981).

You can read more documents related to smokeless tobacco online in the Industry Documents Library and in the State Medical Society Journals Collection. You can also visit the UCSF Archives and view the Tobacco Control Archives.

New Faces in Archives: Fall 2016

Posted on November 7, 2016 by Polina Ilieva

We are continuing our collaboration with the University of San Francisco and in particular, Dr. Kathryn Nasstrom, chair of the History Department and her students. This fall semester we are hosting Joshua Dela Cruz and Allen Smoot who are enrolled in the History Internship Program. This program allows students to gain valuable real-world experience and course credit while helping archives staff to accomplish numerous projects that will benefit our patrons and general public.

Joshua Dela Cruz

Joshua Dela Cruz
Joshua is currently working on several projects including organizing and creating a metadata of a manuscript collection of AIDS periodicals and updating and digitizing a photograph collection of portraits. He has also assisted in smaller tasks such as taking inventory, organizing a digital list of metadata, and taking a survey of various other collections and items kept here in the archives.
Joshua is a 4th year undergraduate student from the University of San Francisco, who will be graduating in the upcoming Spring semester. His strong interest in old artifacts and ancient stories, but also in medicine and the natural sciences has lead him to pursuing a Bachelors of Arts degree in History along with a Natural Science Minor and a Chemistry Minor.
His hobbies are playing video games, watching anime, playing the piano, learning Japanese, and a little bit of creative writing. Although considering pursuing a career in medicine, Joshua plans to take a gap year. During that time, he intends to expand his experience in health care, to do research, to explore his other fields of interest, or possibly go to Japan.

Allen Smoot

Allen Smoot
Allen Smoot is a senior undergrad student at the University of San Francisco. He will be helping with collection processing, cataloging, and researching. Allen looks forward to working on arranging and processing smaller collections, such as Tobacco Control and photograph collections. Allen is also interested in learning the basics of archival theory and practice as well as digitalization and metadata creation. He will also be conducting quality control for digitized materials for the Medical Heritage Liberty state medical journals project.
Allen is a US history major while also playing baseball at the University of San Francisco. He was raised in Moraga, CA. Some of his hobbies include hanging out with friends, watching the San Francisco Giants, and Golden State Warriors. Allen is excited to begin working at the UCSF library and learning from the full time archivists.

Digitized State Medical Journals: Searching “Alcohol” and “Prohibition”

Posted on August 17, 2016 by Kelsi Evans

This is a guest post by Sophia Lahey, UCSF Archives and Special Collections Intern.

Recently, as part of a larger UCSF Archives and Special Collections digitization project, over 200 medical journals from various state medical associations were digitized and added to the Internet Archive. In order to ensure scan quality, I sifted through thousands of pages to make sure everything was clear enough so that the search function would work properly. As long as the scans are clean, you can search for any word in the entire collection! For instance, I searched the words “alcohol” and “prohibition” and came up with some fascinating results.

The first items that struck me when I started to read through the journals were the ads. In addition to the articles, the ads serve as evidence for historians about how people lived, what was socially acceptable, and what they were interested in buying. In these journals, most of the ads were geared towards doctors, advertising things like medicine, medical instruments, insurance, and even computer management systems.

Connecticut State Medical Journal, March 1952, page 226.

This ad for Dentocain Teething Lotion is from the 1950s. The infant teething medication advertised is 70% alcohol and includes chloroform! By modern medical standards, this product would definitely raise some red flags. As I kept looking through more journals, I noticed that the older ones featured alcohol in many of the medicines advertised.

Colorado Medicine, 1927.

In this ad, though the ingredients aren’t listed, you can see on the bottle that the medicine contains 7 1/2% alcohol. The ad was published in 1927, during prohibition. So how could medicine contain alcohol when it was illegal? Well, alcohol could still be prescribed by a doctor. Like other medications, a doctor had to fill out a prescription in order for a patient to get items, like whiskey, for medicinal reasons.

Prescription form for one pint of medicinal whiskey, March 17, 1930. Robert Day Collection, MSS 2011-23.

Some doctors wrote prescriptions for liquor off record and for a profit. This created a controversy – government legislation vs. the rights of the practitioner to prescribe as much as he or she felt was needed. This lead to court cases as well as strongly worded opinion pieces about said court cases and ethics in the medical community. These opinion pieces as well as other news stories can be read in the medical journals in the UCSF collection.

An Old-Fashioned Expedition into the Vault

Posted on July 18, 2016 by Kelsi Evans

This is a guest post by Kristin Daniel, UCSF Archives and Special Collections Intern.

Dear Reader, you may not be aware of the fact that most—if not all—archives must deal with the looming specter of unprocessed legacy collections haunting their vaults. Hark, what’s that I hear? The sound of researchers gnashing their teeth at the thought of virgin cartons, brimming with knowledge, just beyond their reach? In the name of Science and History, what can be done?

Inside the UCSF Archives vault.

I’ll tell you good Reader! An expedition is being undertaken at this very moment to survey those hidden but not forgotten boxes of lore that reside in the vault of the UCSF Archives. Possessing the requisite skills and patience, archivist David Uhlich and myself (your plucky and adroit, intern) are making our way through shelf after shelf of material – opening boxes, checking contents, and conferring with the notes of archivists gone by.

survey1

Sometimes we find what’s on the shelf matches what information we have, but sometimes we come across half-created records or material lacking adequate description. Despite these setbacks, we roll up our sleeves and soldier on, updating existing records with new information about content and location, or creating shiny new records of our own.

survey3

It’s a long process, but it is important work. Fear not, gentle Reader, for although the task seems Sisyphean in magnitude, the brave souls of the Archives and Special Collections are determined to succeed!

Summer 2016 Interns

Posted on June 29, 2016 by Polina Ilieva

This summer the UCSF Archives & Special Collections is hosting two interns who are working on diverse projects.

Sophia Lahey

Sophia Lahey is helping with the manuscript collections survey project, updating the metadata for historic photographs and documents that are posted on Calisphere, and assisting with quality control of volumes digitized for the State Medical Society Journals project.
Sophia is currently a student at Sonoma State University majoring in history and liberal arts. She lives with her parents in Marin county. In the fall she will be moving to Japan to study Japanese language and work towards a history major with concentration in Asian studies.

In her free time she pursues photography and spends time with her friends. She also enjoys video games as a hobby. She is excited to get experience working with historical documents and archives management systems to help her in the future with her history major.

For the first time we are working with the Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute (CHORI) Summer Research Program. “This program is designed to provide an opportunity for High School and Undergraduate students to immerse themselves in the world of basic and/or clinical research for three months during the summer. The program pairs students with one or two CHORI principal investigators who serve as mentors, guiding the students through the design and testing of their own hypotheses and methodology development. At the end of the summer, students present their research to their peers just as any professional researcher would do.” Our CHORI intern, Laura Schafer is co-mentored by Drs. Aimee Medeiros and Brian Dolan from the UCSF Department of Anthropology, History, and Social Medicine and Polina Ilieva, Head of Archives & Special Collections.

Laura Schafer

As an undergrad senior student of Psychology and more recently also Pedagogy at UC Berkeley, Laura Schafer is deeply interested in research fields related to pediatrics and healthcare associated to socioeconomic status (SES) factors. She believes that having grown up experiencing the consequences of Brazil’s developing societal reality while having juvenile diabetes plays a significant influence on what has developed into the focus of her academic career by far. She is mostly concerned with the consequences of low socioeconomic status (SES) factors potentially interfering with treatment affordability and proper healthcare practices for chronically ill children’s mental, emotional. and physical health.

Although Laura has had the chance to acquire some fundamental research-enabling skills through involvement as an RA at the UC Berkeley Emotion and Social Interaction Laboratory and also from participating in an honors’ thesis developing program through her University’s department of pedagogy, Laura seeks further training and mentoring in the principles underlying conducts of research through her internship at UCSF. She is very enthusiastic about the opportunity to work with the UCSF mentors. The project Laura is involved with during her internship this summer aims to assist with the digitization and creation of metadata for the historical patient data from the 1920’s to 1960’s which includes pediatric records.

Digitizing the UCSF Black Caucus Records

Posted on June 15, 2016 by Polina Ilieva

This is a guest post by Jessica Jones, former UCSF Archives & Special Collections Intern.

As an intern for the UCSF Library, Archives and Special Collections, I have worked on many different projects that utilize my skills as a professional administrative assistant, including the State Medical Journals Digitization Project, a collection survey, rehousing and inventorying the portrait photograph collection, and more. I also attended Library Updates meetings and listened to presentations about changes within libraries. Although this was a very new experience to me I adapted very quickly and I am proud to say I have learned so much and have enjoyed my time here with UCSF.

I would like to share a bit more about my most recent project working with the Black Caucus records. I really found this project to be interesting; I researched, digitized, and uploaded material from the collection to the digital asset management system and assisted in creating original metadata to facilitate discovery of these items. You can now access the UCSF Black Caucus Records digital collection on Calisphere.

Black Caucus members at the first Gala, 1991

The Black Caucus was first established on the UCSF campus in May 1968 in the wake of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This organization worked to provide more job opportunities for qualified minority applicants and lobbied for more minority students in all four professional schools. The organization engaged in many civil rights initiatives and social justice projects, like supporting custodial and technical staff in labor disputes and campaigning for more diverse hiring at all levels of the university. Beginning in the 1970s, the group shared personal stories, event updates, and project achievements in a newsletter named the Black Bulletin. There were many notable UCSF figures that helped found and lead the Black Caucus. For instance, UCSF Medal winner Joanne Lewis served as one of the organization’s first chairpersons and organized the publication of the Black Bulletin.

Black Bulletin, April 1978. Joanne Lewis: In retrospect.

The Black Caucus records help to demonstrate that African Americans have contributed remarkable achievements in the fields of science and medicine during the 20th century. To encourage future researchers and clinicians of color I think that it is essential for boys and girls to be given the academic tools to succeed in science and medicine, preferably long before college. There are several programs that help facilitate this, such as the White House initiative “My Brother’s Keeper” that helps young people reach their full potential. Medical schools should also continue to sponsor pipeline programs to encourage minority students to consider careers in medicine.

Affirmative Action protest at Laurel Heights, 1995

Jesse Jackson at Laurel Heights Affirmative Action protest, 1995

Cecil Williams at Laurel Heights Affirmative Action protest, 1995

I am very proud and excited to be a part of this amazing project. The Black Caucus has helped support and encourage people of color at UCSF through advocacy and community. The organization’s message of equality shows how important it is to have a diverse population of practitioners to address healthcare needs and to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in healthcare.

Remembering Helen Gofman

Posted on May 17, 2016 by Kelsi Evans

This is a guest post by Kristin Daniel, UCSF Archives & Special Collections Intern.

The UCSF Archives is pleased to announce the official addition of the Helen Fahl Gofman papers. This collection, spanning several decades between the 1950s and the 1980s, details a woman who was a much loved teacher, mentor, doctor, and leader. Dr. Gofman’s affiliation with UCSF pediatrics began in 1945 when she graduated from the School of Medicine and also completed her internship and residency on campus. Gofman received faculty status in 1953 and worked in various programs until her retirement in 1983. Gofman is best remembered as a founding member, and then director, of the UCSF Child Study Unit (CSU).

Helen Gofman playing the viola, circa 1950. MSS 2014-17, Gofman papers.

Helen Gofman playing the bass, circa 1950. MSS 2014-17, Gofman papers.

Helen Gofman was, by all accounts, a passionate and cheerful woman. She was dedicated to the care of the “total patient”—not just the physical or mental condition of the child, but also how that condition impacted their social, emotional, developmental, and behavioral well-being. Considered a national leader in the field of behavioral pediatrics, Gofman was involved with UCSF’s Child Study Unit (now known as the Division of Behavioral and Developmental Pediatrics) since its inception in 1948.

Helen Gofman and child, circa 1980. Photograph collection, portraits, Gofman.

Dr. Gofman and the rest of the CSU staff of doctors, nurses, social workers, speech pathologists and special education experts sought to help children whose conditions might have otherwise been misdiagnosed or gone untreated (including cases of dyslexia or ADHD) by other healthcare professionals. The goal of the CSU was not only to help these children and their families, but also to develop a new generation of pediatric health professionals; the CSU trained clinicians to value their patients and focus on finding personalized treatments that take into account all aspects of the child’s life, not just their condition.

Helen Gofman at her retirement party, 1984. MSS 2014-17, Gofman papers.

The Helen Gofman papers (MSS 2014-17) include research subject files, restricted patient files, and personal correspondence. Also included are some of Dr. Gofman’s published works, such as The Family is the Patient: An Approach to Behavioral Pediatrics for the Clinician, which is considered a classic work in the field. Multimedia artifacts (such as lecture slides, teaching toys, and film reels) are also included. The Archives is proud to house this material and make it available to researchers.

New Interns in Archives

Posted on March 8, 2016 by Polina Ilieva

During the 2016 Spring semester the UCSF Archives & Special Collections is hosting two interns:

Jessica Jones

Jessica Jones is our first EXCEL program intern. The UC San Francisco Excellence through Community Engagement & Learning (EXCEL) Program is a clerical/administrative training program which aims to develop the potential workforce in UCSF’s surrounding communities and provide San Francisco residents with access to health-field related employment opportunities. It is a work-based program that uses both classroom and on-the-job training to prepare participants for career path jobs in the healthcare sector. In the past month Jessica who works in the Archives four days a week has successfully completed the State Medical Society Journals assessment and Cholera pamphlets cataloging projects. She is working on rehousing and creating detailed inventory for the Photo Portraits collection which will help preserve these photographs and facilitate their discovery. Jessica will help organize, rehouse and create inventories for newly acquired papers and also learn how to scan and create metadata for materials in diverse formats.

Here is what Jessica wrote for the blog: “I am a mother of two beautiful children ages 1 and 4. I am a San Francisco native and a current intern through the EXCEL Cycle 10 UCSF Medical Administrative Internship. After becoming a mother I realized what I was inspired and motivated by. I have many talents and desires but my main four passions in life are Children, Happiness, Self Love, and Fashion. Due to my natural spirit to connect and adapt with people so well I have a goal to become a professional as a Clinical Social Worker in Pediatrics. I am one step closer to my future by getting my foot in the door within my internship at UCSF. I plan to reach out and advocate for families that lack social and emotional support. I want to make a difference within children and actually give and instill in them extra love, support, and mentoring . Currently I am interning for the Archives and Special Collections, I plan to enrich my own knowledge and gain plenty experience to become an unparalleled asset. I also plan to look into the development of pediatrics department within UCSF. Finally, I am so thankful for this amazing opportunity. My dream is becoming a reality.”

Kristin Daniel

Kristin Daniel first became interested in library science when she was young; when her curiosity, more often than not, led her to find answers in books. The importance of information availability stayed with her throughout her schooling. Her passion was put on hold after she graduated high school in 1998, as economic necessities led her to a decade of service in the retail and hospitality industries. She got the opportunity to return to school and pursue her dream in 2008.

She graduated cum laude from San Francisco State University with a Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature and is currently in her last semester of San Jose State University’s iSchool Masters in Library and Information Science program. Her coursework at SJSU reflects her interest in public librarianship with an emphasis in archives and preservation. Kristin is hopeful that she can serve her community’s information needs with the skills she can learn at her internship at UCSF: practical experience in cataloging, collection processing, and digitization. With so many people turning to digital means of finding information she is a firm proponent of a global library network.

Between being a stay-at-home-mom and a full time grad student, Kristin doesn’t have a lot of time for hobbies. When she can find a few moments to relax, however, she can usually be found reading sci-fi/fantasy novels, exploring San Francisco’s numerous events/attractions, and daydreaming about winning the lottery so she can build a craft studio. A lifelong California resident, Kristin currently resides in San Ramon with her husband and two-year-old son.

Kristin is continuing the project started by previous interns – organizing and creating an inventory of biographical files. She also helps with Quality Control of digital files for the State Medical Society Journals project.

Both Jessica and Kristin are assisting with the survey of the Archives and Special Collections manuscript and university records collections. The inventory and reorganization of these collections will greatly increase intellectual control, department efficiency, and user access.

We are grateful to our interns for their dedication and help!

Archiving and the Frontier

Posted on November 13, 2015 by Kelsi Evans

This is a guest post by Phoebe Jones, UCSF Archives and Special Collections Volunteer.

In the couple of months that I have volunteered with the Archives and Special Collections, I have had the opportunity to survey the Committee on Arts and Lectures collection (AR 2015-17). From 1957-1968 UCSF’s Committee on Arts and Lectures organized and facilitated lectures, art exhibitions, and musical events for the UCSF community. This collection is comprised of audiovisual components, photographs, programs, announcements and books upon books of lecture transcripts.

Program for the 1971 Winter Quarter evening cultural classes. Note tuition prices for these classes ranged from $4.00-$24.00. AR 2015-17.

One lecture series in this collection is titled, “Noon Topics.” For this series, the Committee would bring in a speaker about every week to address the community. Various speakers over the decade included Ansel Adams, Barnaby Conrad, and Arthur Russell Moore. Lecture topics ranged from Chinese philosophy to jazz music, from Italian culture to humankind’s existential significance.

The Noon Topics Fall 1966 program. Ansel Adams opened the season. Unfortunately his lecture was not transcribed. AR 2015-17.

The Noon Topics program of events of 1960 captures the intention behind establishing this lecture series:

“‘Noon Topics’ are designed to promote an interest in Human Ecology: the science of man in an ever-changing environment which is influenced by the geography, sociologic structure, and the biologic species therein. These lectures present “frontier thinking” in many fields of science, philosophy, literature, and human affairs- areas which influence directly or indirectly, the physical and psychological environment and the well-being of man.”

What I love most about this mission statement is the phrase, “frontier thinking.” I find the notion that each lecture was in some way revelatory of the great un-thought and unknown, humbling. But here we are in 2015 reading these transcripts and the question, “have we yet forged this lecturer’s frontier,” remains.

I tend to think that it is too easy to frame ideas and concepts from the past as mere stepping stones to “true” advancement or achievement; “thank goodness person x discovered y or else we would never have later produced z.” While this line of thought is not necessarily patronizing- it acknowledges the significance of such a piece in the grander puzzle- it ultimately strips the initial discovery of its frontier quality.

“Frontier” suggests a future that is beyond what has been revealed but not beyond the hope and potential of it one day being unveiled. To describe something as “frontier” suggests an element of wonder, movement and the unexpected. Therefore, “frontier thinking” may be the most apt term for the Noon Topics’ celebration of the present discoveries in Human Ecology and humanity’s continued pursuit of the “greater.”

The Spring Quarter 1967 Noon Topics Program title page. AR 2015-17.

As an individual new to the world of archiving, I have been thinking a lot about what it means to honor the past as a composite of the present and the future. How can I respect the past (whether in the form of an individual’s life, an ideology, even an event preserved in a newspaper headline) for both what it was at that moment in time and what it will be or can be?

On the first day of volunteering at the archives I could not help but wonder, how do we decide what is worth keeping around? It did not take me long to realize that the act of archiving is an active and constant mediation of the past, present, and future. In working through this collection and thinking about its concept of “Frontier,” it seems that we can only begin to look at a lecture transcript and make a holistic interpretation of its worth if we first consider the complex contexts in which it developed and evolved.

New volunteer – Phoebe Jones

Posted on September 22, 2015 by Polina Ilieva

UCSF Archives volunteer Phoebe Jones

The archives team is happy to introduce our newest volunteer, Phoebe Jones. During the fall semester Phoebe will be learning the basics of archival work and will become familiar with diverse aspects of librarianship, including cataloging, arrangement, processing and digitization. She will assist with processing smaller collections, in particular, the records of the UCSF Committee on Arts & Lectures. Phoebe will also help with the collection survey and research for the upcoming exhibit.

Phoebe Jones recently graduated from Earlham College, a Quaker affiliated, liberal arts school in Richmond, Indiana, where she received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Religion. Phoebe graduated Phi Beta Kappa and with College Honors. She hopes to return to school in the near future.

Originally from Southern California Phoebe has enjoyed spending the past few years living in the Midwest and studying abroad in Northern India. Today, she can often be found on the wrong MUNI train with her head stuck in a good book.

Phoebe looks forward to working with the collection survey project and biographical files collection. She is very excited to learn about the exhibit research and design process and archiving processes so that she may one day handle sacred texts and manuscripts with an informed understanding of their preservation and archival history.

Brought to Light

Stories from UCSF Archives & Special Collections

Category Archives: Internship