Early Life
Alan Lucille Hart was born October 4, 1890 in Halls Summit, Coffey County, Kansas to Albert L. Hart and Edna Hart (née Bamford). When his father died of typhoid fever in 1892, his mother reverted to her maiden name and moved the family to Linn County, Oregon where she cared for her own mother during a period of sickness. When Hart was five years old his mother remarried, to Bill Barton, and the family moved to Edna's father's farm. Hart wrote later, in 1911, of his happiness during this time, when he was free to dress and live as a boy, playing with boys' toys made for him by his grandfather. His parents and grandparents largely accepted and supported his gender expression, though his mother described his desire to be a boy as "foolish." His grandparents' obituaries, from 1921 and 1924, both list Hart as a grandson. When Hart was 12 the family moved to Albany. There Hart was obliged to dress as a girl to attend school, where he was treated as a girl. He continued to spend the holidays at his grandfather's farm, living there as a boy among his male friends, "teasing the girls and playing boy's games". According to a reminiscence piece in the Halls Summit News of June 10, 1921, "Young Hart was different, even then. Boys' clothes just felt natural. Lucille always regarded herself as a boy and begged her family to cut her hair and let her wear trousers. Lucille disliked dolls but enjoyed playing doctor. She hated traditional girl tasks, preferring farm work with the menfolk instead. The self reliance that became a lifelong trait was evident early: once when she accidentally chopped off her fingertip with an axe, Lucille dressed it herself, saying nothing about it to the family."
As a suppressed male during his school years, Hart was allowed to write essays under his chosen name "Robert Allen Bamford, Jr." with little resistance from his classmates or teachers. It was common at the time for writers to use pseudonyms, including to assume names associated with the opposite gender. Hart published work in local newspapers and in school and college publications under this name, or as "submitted by an anonymous boy", or using the neutral "A.L.H." or "A. Hart". He used his legal name "Lucille Hart" only under pressure from peers or seniors. His early work dealt with masculine subjects, even when he was asked to write on topics about life as a woman. When asked to write about female classmates or friends he portrayed them as prize fighters or boyish basketball players.
Hart attended Albany College (now Lewis & Clark College), then transferred with classmate and romantic partner Eva Cushman to Stanford University for the 1911-1912 school year before going back to Albany. Hart graduated from Albany College in 1912, and in 1917 obtained a doctor of medicine degree from the University of Oregon Medical Department in Portland (now Oregon Health & Science University); during this period, Hart also returned to Northern California to attend courses in the summer of 1916 at the Stanford University School of Medicine, then located in San Francisco. Hart was deeply unhappy that the medical degree was issued in his female name, limiting his opportunities to use it in any future life under a male name. College records show that at least one of the senior staff was sympathetic; his graduation records were indexed internally as "Hart, Lucille (aka Robert L.), M.D.". Nonetheless, Hart knew that if he presented himself as Robert, any prospective employer checking his credentials would discover the female name or find no records for him at all. After graduation he worked for a short while (as a woman) at a Red Cross hospital in Philadelphia.
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