It has been almost 40 years since the Centers for Disease Control published the first case report on a then-mysterious disease seen in gay men in Los Angeles and New York. In the intervening decades, HIV/AIDS has become a worldwide pandemic killing at least 70 million people and infecting millions more. Although the introduction of antiretroviral treatments in the mid-1990s slowed the disease’s mortality rate in the developed world, HIV/AIDS remains one of our most serious health challenges, with almost 38 million persons living with HIV/AIDS – a total being added to by about 1.7 million each year[1].
Archives & Special Collections at the Health Sciences Library have acquired significant holdings documenting the response to this ongoing health crisis. Among them are these materials:
Mathilde Krim Papers, circa 1948-2016 (65 cubic feet, 182 boxes). Research scientist and co-founder of the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR), Krim helped raise millions for AIDS research and was an outspoken champion of the human rights and dignity of persons living with HIV/AIDS. Her papers largely document her work with amfAR in the 1980s and 1990s. For more information, consult the finding aid.
Michael Merson Collection on the Global AIDS Response, circa 1987-2001 (circa 11 cubic feet, 14 boxes). Papers documenting Merson’s leadership of the World Health Organization’s Global Programme on AIDS (GPA) in the 1990s. Included are correspondence, reports, meeting minutes, speeches, press clippings, and printed material. In addition, there are the full transcripts and audiotapes of the interviews Merson did with his GPA collaborators. For more information, consult the finding aid.
New York State Psychiatric Institute/Columbia University. HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies, 1987-2012 (circa 19 cubic feet, 19 boxes). This joint Columbia University-NY Psychiatric Institute center was established in 1987. The Center has conducted research on HIV prevention and treatment through the lens of gender, sexuality, and mental health, with a goal of designing effective interventions to reduce risk for HIV infection for a wide variety of populations. Records include newsletters, brochures, grant applications and reports, photographs, DVDs, training and intervention manuals, workshop materials, and reprints of scientific articles by HIV Center staff members. For more information, consult the finding aid.
Zena Stein Papers, circa 1980-circa 2010 (circa 14 cubic feet, 14 boxes). Stein was the co-founder of the HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies and was active in its work until her retirement in 2004. Included are correspondence, grant project records, talks and lectures, records of symposia and meetings, and published articles. For more information, consult the finding aid.
Mervyn Susser Papers, 1907-2008 (26.6 cubic feet, 80 boxes). Though the bulk of Susser’s papers document his distinguished career as a professor of epidemiology at Columbia, two boxes hold records of the Committee for Health in Southern Africa (CHISA), an organization he helped found to combat unequal health conditions in apartheid-era South Africa, including efforts against AIDS. For more information, see the finding aid.
Mailman School of Public Health. Office of the Dean. Records, 1945-2007 (23.25 cubic feet, 55 boxes). Allan Rosenfield, Dean of the Mailman School of Public Health, 1986-2008, was deeply involved in combating AIDS, both in the U.S. and in the developing world, and he was active in the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR), one of the most important American organizations fighting the epidemic. His records include correspondence, subject and conference files, lectures, and audiovisual materials. For more information, see the finding aid.
Community Research Group records, circa 1940-2010 (bulk 1980s-2010) circa 30 cubic feet (34 cartons). Records of the Community Research Group which was created by Mindy Fullilove (M.D., Columbia, 1978) and Robert Fullilove (EdD, Teachers College, 1984) while faculty members of the Columbia University Department of Psychiatry and the School of Public Health. The records document various CRG projects including AIDS, the crack epidemic, 9/11 trauma, school violence, and the effect of the built environment on health. Included are correspondence, reports, background materials, project literature, interview transcripts, and photos. This collection is unprocessed; for more information, consult the finding aid.
Kristine M. Gebbie papers, circa 1964-2010 (10.33 cubic feet (10 cartons, 2 boxes). Correspondence, general biographical information, manuscripts of speeches, lectures and presentations, newspaper and magazine clippings, reprints, undergraduate student notebooks, photographs, videotapes, and certificates. Much of the material documents her work with AIDS policy and her time at the Columbia University School of Nursing. This collection is unprocessed; for more information, consult the finding aid.
Neil Coogan student notebooks and papers, 1981-1983 .5 cubic feet (1 document box, 1 half box). Student notebooks and course papers created by Neil Coogan while enrolled at the Columbia University School of Nursing, 1981-1983. Besides his own notes, extensive course outlines created by his instructors are included. In addition, there are two papers relating to the health of gay and bisexual men. One, entitled “A community health assessment: The gay male population in the Village,” for which Coogan was one of the co-authors, is dated November 1981 and has an early mention of what would later be named HIV/AIDS. The second, dated November 25, 1982, is entitled “Risk factors for Kaposi’s Sarcoma in homosexual men.”
Longitudinal Harlem Adolescent Health Study records, 1967-1999 33 cubic feet (34 boxes). The Longitudinal Harlem Adolescent Health Study (LHAHS) studied for over 25 years the health needs and problems of 668 African-American adolescents who were 12 to 17 years old initially and lived in the Central Harlem Health District of New York City. The first survey was conducted in 1968-69 with funding from the U.S. Department of Maternal and Child Services. It aimed to provide a comprehensive description of the health and the health care needs of minority adolescents with the goal of establishing an adolescent health service at Harlem Hospital. There were four subsequent surveys of as many of the original participants as could be located. These "waves," as they were called, were conducted in 1975/76, 1983, 1989/90 and 1993 and were funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The 1989/90 and 1993 waves added questions designed to trace of the history of HIV/AIDS in the cohort. The discovery by the 1993 survey that over 8% of the participants were HIV positive - and that most weren't aware of it - was the first significant documentation of infection rates in a minority neighborhood. For more information, consult the finding aid.
[1] Kaiser Family Foundation. Global Health Policy – The Global HIV/AIDS Epidemic, accessed August 13, 2024.