Memory and stigma. Archives of HIV/AIDS

To commemorate December 1st as the International Day of the Fight Against HIV/AIDS, today we will approach three archival experiences that try to recover the memory of the disease from its beginning in 1981 to the present day.

First of all we visit the HIV/AIDS Archive of the National Library of Medicine (National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland). Coinciding with the 40th anniversary of the health crisis, the NLM launched three years ago a virtual tour of the historical collections and related resources they keep. The website offers an extraordinary perspective about the first years of the pandemic, focused mainly on the medic and scientific aspects of the topic. The resources include a video with declarations by Dr. Fauci in 1984, and two virtual exhibitions: Surviving and Thriving: AIDS, Politics and Culture, and Against the Odds: Making a Difference in Global Health.

The second proposal is the Philadelphia AIDS Oral History Project. This project is a collaborative effort led by a Community Advisory Committee under the leadership of the John J. Wilcox, Jr. Archives (William Way LGBT Center) with the support of key institutional partners including the AIDS Library of Philadelphia (today the Critical Path Learning Center at Philadelphia FIGHT), the Dornsife School of Public Health at Drexel University, and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. The project strives to collect and make accessible to the public stories of early responders to the AIDS epidemic in Philadelphia, both individuals with HIV/AIDS and those who developed support and services from the mid-1980s through the early 1990s. The project places an emphasis on capturing stories that have traditionally not been heard. The goal of the project is to collect multiple oral history interviews and make them accessible online through digital recordings and searchable transcripts.

To close this short trip we can visit a teaching initiative about the HIV/AIDS health and social crisis by the American Archive of Public Broadcasting. Under the title The AIDS Crisis, 1981-1993, you will find a very complete educational set of documents, videos, activities and proposals addressed specifically to students and teachers by Ben Leff, Teaching Associate, University Laboratory High School (Urbana, Illinois).