Library of Congress Launches Digitized Collection of National AIDS Memorial Quilt Records

Featuring letters, diaries, and photographs, the Library of Congress has released an online collection of the National AIDS Memorial Quilt Records, making one of the most poignant symbols of the AIDS epidemic in the United States available to a global audience. 

As the largest communal art project in the world, the AIDS Memorial Quilt honors the lives of all Americans who have died of AIDS since 1981 when the disease was first identified. The newly digitized collection offers a unique window into the deeply personal stories behind the 55-ton quilt and its panels. The digitized collection, totaling more than 125,000 items including manuscript letters, greeting cards, notebooks, diaries, pamphlets, photographs and other materials documenting the lives of those represented in the Quilt. 

The digitized archive is now reunited online with the communal folk art of the quilt panels. Together, these digitized collections will be publicly available. While the Quilt is housed at the National AIDS Memorial in San Francisco, its voluminous records have been entrusted to the American Folklife Center at the Library since 2019. 

“The digitized AIDS Memorial Quilt Records collection is a major milestone not only in our preservation efforts but also in ensuring that the stories, lives, and collective memory of those lost to the AIDS epidemic remain accessible to future generations around the world,” said Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden. “In the digital age, we have the responsibility and privilege to safeguard this history so that, through every pixel, it can continue to educate, heal, and inspire people for generations to come.”

The AIDS Memorial Quilt was first created by a group of community volunteers in San Francisco in 1987. Digitization of the archive was made possible by the support of the Ford Foundation.