Alan L. Hart
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 with the suffix "(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 (presenting as a woman) at a Red Cross hospital in Philadelphia.
Alan L. Hart
Hart's will, written in 1943, stipulated that his personal letters and photographs be destroyed, and this was done on his death in 1962. Hart had acted all his life to control the interpretation of his private and emotional life, and the destruction of his personal records at his death were commensurate with this goal. Believing that the secret of his personal history was safe he made no attempt to account for his own life. His identity as the pseudonymous "H" in Gilbert's notes was discovered posthumously by Jonathan Ned Katz, and his identity described as lesbian. Katz's attempts to learn more about Hart's life by contacting Hart's widow were discouraged by Edna Ruddick Hart. The message passed on by her friend in Albany was: "Let that all be passed now. She is older and does not want any more heart ache now."