The AIDS Quilt

The Library recently released a groundbreaking new online collection, the AIDS Memorial Quilt Records, that makes one of the most poignant symbols of the AIDS epidemic in the U.S. available to a global audience.

As the largest communal art project in the world, the AIDS Memorial Quilt honors the lives of Americans who have died of AIDS since 1981, the year the disease was first identified.

Housed in San Francisco, the physical quilt consists of 55 tons of fabric and holds hundreds of stories of love, loss and resilience. In 2019, records accompanying the quilt were entrusted to the Library’s American Folklife Center for safekeeping.

The newly digitized collection includes more than 125,000 items — letters, diaries, photographs and other materials — offering an intimate glimpse into the lives and communities affected by the AIDS crisis. Now, researchers, policymakers and families of those who died from AIDS can access both the records for the quilt and the folk art of the quilt panels online, the latter on the National AIDS Memorial website.

The AIDS Memorial Quilt was conceived in 1987 by a group of San Francisco volunteers led by LGBTQ+ activist Cleve Jones, who lost a friend, Marvin Feldman, to AIDS in 1986.For Jones, the quilt “is not a shroud or a tombstone” but a tool of remembrance for Feldman and other friends who died of AIDS. The quilt also serves as a testament to the broader cultural impact of the disease.

Digitization of the archive was made possible by the support of the Ford Foundation. In total, the archive holds 200,000 records. With 125,000 of them now available online in the new collection, the public can more easily engage with and reflect on this important piece of history.