More historic images brought to you this week in honor of National Hospital Week! Celebrated May 11-17, Hospital Week serves to recognize the dedication of all hospital professionals.
Operating Room at City County Hospital, circa 1890
UC Hospital Men’s Ward, circa 1920s
UC Hospital, circa 1918
UC Hospital Lobby, 1920s
UC Hospital Kitchen, 1924
Read more about the history of San Francisco’s hospitals on the UCSF History website.
This season’s issue of UCSF Magazine, Fall 2013, includes a story inspired by a photograph in our collection and features an audio clip from one of our oral histories.
Robert Stone with Synchrotron, circa 1956
This compelling photograph (which, despite appearances, is not a scene from a sci-fi movie) depicts Dr. Robert Stone with the machine he created, the 70MeV electron synchroton. The synchrotron was a type of particle accelerator used to treat cancer patients with radiation from 1956 to 1964. Stone’s work contributed greatly to the safe clinical use of radiation.
The article in UCSF Magazine goes on to elaborate on Stone’s impact here at UCSF and on the wider medical community. The online version of the article also highlights a clip of Stone’s oral history, OH 23, taken in 1964. Be sure to check it out to hear Stone’s story in his own words!
View the issue as an online flipbook, download a pdf, download the iTunes app, or download the Android app. “Robert Stone and the Synchrotron” appears on page 50 of the Fall 2013 issue.
You can read more about Stone’s role in the history of Radiation Oncology at UCSF from 1928-1962 here.
You may know that the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education here at UCSF is an internationally respected collaborative effort dedicated to reducing deaths associated with tobacco and the tobacco industry, conducting research in the areas of how to treat tobacco addiction, the effects of second hand smoke, and other tobacco-related topics. The Center works closely with the UCSF Library on the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library to collect and preserve documents created by major tobacco companies related to their advertising, manufacturing, marketing, sales, and scientific research activities. Our next activity together? Processing the UCSF Tobacco Control Oral History Collection – interviews with 150 physicians, epidemiologists, public health officials, community-based activists and educators, lobbyists and policy makers – all working in the area of tobacco control.
An interview with Stanton Glantz, Ph.D. Center Director and the American Legacy Foundation Distinguished Professor of Tobacco Control at UCSF revealed that the Oral History project, conducted between 1994-2001, was an integral part of his National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded project to travel to 24 states and complete detailed histories of tobacco control policymaking and efforts by the tobacco industry to thwart these policies. As Dr. Glantz and members of his research group travelled the country, they found key informants and recorded the interviews that would become part of this collection. In part, these interviews helped inform the resulting Reports on State Tobacco Policy Making. And the project goes on. As state reports are continually researched, written and published, more interviews with individuals who can shed particular light on political activities and state tobacco control programs are conducted and recorded.
So, check back here next month to see how you can find out what is available, and how you can access and listen to this collection of cassette tapes!
René Radusky
UCSF Archives intern and student at San José State University, School of Library and Information Science concentrating in Archival Studies and Records Management
Bob Day: An Oral History
When Robert (Bob) Day retired from UCSF in 2012, his legacy could be measured not only in the number of years of service, students taught, and jokes cracked but also in pounds, volume, and linear feet. Readers of this blog know from recent posts that Bob Day was an inveterate collector of material related to the history of pharmacy in general and the UCSF School of Pharmacy in particular, and the material he accumulated over his 50 years with the university was donated to the UCSF Library’s Archives and Special Collections. The materials processed by archivists totaled 40 linear feet, over 45 boxes, and an untold number of individual items. You might be asking yourself, what does all of this material tell us? What is its significance? And what kind of person would be compelled to collect all of these items?
Robert Day and wife Dorothy, UCSF School of Pharmacy Commencement, 1958.
All of those questions were asked – and many of them answered – in a long, detailed, interesting, and rollicking oral history interview I conducted with Bob in the first three months of 2013. In partnership with the UCSF School of Pharmacy and the UCSF Library’s Archives and Special Collections, the Regional Oral History Office of the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley planned and conducted this interview. In all, a little over 12 hours of interviews were committed to videotape, which were then transcribed, edited, and, now, made available to you here: http://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/roho/ucb/text/day_bob_public.pdf.
What transpired in those dozen hours? Continue reading