Author Archives: Polina Ilieva

They Were Really Us, AIDS History Exhibit, Opens on October 1

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This is a guest post by exhibit curator Sabrina Oliveros 

When HIV/AIDS first seized the nation’s attention in the early 1980s, it was a disease with no name, known cause, treatment, or cure. Beginning as a medical mystery, it turned into one of the most divisive social and political issues of the 20th century.

On October 1, 2019, UCSF Archives & Special Collections is opening the exhibit They Were Really Us: The UCSF Community’s Early Response to AIDS. Featuring materials from the Archives’ extensive AIDS History Project Collections, the show highlights ways individual professionals affiliated with UCSF acted to address HIV/AIDS following its outbreak. Their responses included working in and with the larger San Francisco community – and continue to impact HIV/AIDS care and research today.

The exhibit title comes from a statement by Dr. Paul Volberding, who co-founded the country’s first dedicated AIDS Clinic in 1983; he now serves as the Director of UCSF’s AIDS Research Institute:

“The patients were exactly our age… all those other ways that we tend to separate ourselves meant very little when you realize that the patients had gone to the same schools, they listened to the same music, they went to the same restaurants. So they were really us… which added to the commitment that I think all of us had.”

Early milestones

The first proofs of that commitment are traced through displays on the main lobby (third floor) of the UCSF Library.

Here, papers, slides, photographs, and artifacts help outline early milestones in HIV/AIDS research and care. These include the foundation of the Kaposi’s Sarcoma Clinic at UCSF, which sought to understand the mysterious “cancer” that turned out to be AIDS; the discovery of the HIV virus in 1983 by Dr. Jay Levy; the establishment of the outpatient and inpatient AIDS clinics at San Francisco General Hospital; and the development of the holistic San Francisco Model of AIDS Care.

Pioneering and compassionate, this model treated people with AIDS not simply as patients requiring medical attention, but as complex individuals also in need of psychological, social, economic, and political support.

Excerpts from the diary of Bobbi Campbell – a UCSF nursing student who championed the People With AIDS Self-Empowerment Movement – help tell some of these individual stories. So do a selection of newsletters and other materials that lend voices to persons with AIDS.

A loaned section of the AIDS Memorial Quilt caps off the displays.

Community voices

The outbreak of HIV/AIDS devastated the city of San Francisco; it also mobilized the community. Exhibits on the first floor of the library showcase the work done by community organizations that, beyond the medical front, fought HIV/AIDS.

Reproductions of posters – mostly from UCSF’s longest-running partners, the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the Shanti Project – represent outreach and educational campaigns necessary to combat the disease. Materials from Mobilization Against AIDS and the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT-UP) speak to the political battle that AIDS became.

How much of an impact did these advocacy groups make? A selection of letters, written to the leaders of Mobilization Against AIDS and AIDS Treatment News, offer an idea.  

Continuing care

On the fifth floor of the library, displays touch on two more milestones following the 1980s.

The first, UCSF’s sponsoring of the 6th International Conference on AIDS, is one of the many examples of how physicians and researchers have expanded their work on a global scale. Revisiting this 1990 conference is timely, as the 23rd International Conference on AIDS will take place in Oakland and San Francisco in July next year – the first time the conference will be in the Bay Area in nearly three decades.

The second milestone, the founding of the AIDS Research Institute in 1996, puts a focus on the UCSF’s continuing efforts to find a cure, and end HIV/AIDS once and for all.

They Were Really Us will be on view until September 2020: https://www.library.ucsf.edu/archives/lectures-exhibits/

Happy Holidays (and 2018/19 Winter Closure)

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Photo by Elisabeth Fall

The archives team would like to express our gratitude to all our supporters, donors, users, collaborators, interns and colleagues for helping us grow our holdings, uncover, describe, and digitize previously hidden collections.

We hope to see many of you next year, please join us for the upcoming Archives Lectures and come view the recently opened new exhibit, Open Wide: 500 Years of Dentistry in Art.

The Archives & Special Collections will be closed from Saturday, December 22, 2017 through Tuesday, January 1st, 2018. We will reopen on Wednesday, January 2nd.

Best wishes for a wonderful New Year!

New Archives Assistant: Xavier Macy

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We are happy to introduce our new archives assistant, Xavier Macy who will be helping with diverse archival projects in the next few months.

Xavier is currently working on his PhD in African American History and the History of Science, Technology, Environment and Health at Rutgers University. He holds a Master’s Degree in American History with a concentration of the Civil Rights Movement, from James Madison University and has dedicated his academic career to understanding issues of race throughout American History.

Previously Xavier headed the creation of the Montgomery Bus Boycott Carpool Database, authored multiple entries for the Encyclopedia of Jim Crow, worked with the Institute of Visual Studies on numerous exhibits focusing on issues of race, gentrification, and urban renewal, and gave numerous papers at various academic conferences, the most recent being given at the Society for the History of Technology held in St. Louis, Missouri. He also has a significant amount of experience utilizing archives for his own historical research.

Xavier was born at UCSF and is a native of San Francisco and Pacifica, having taught throughout the Bay Area including heading a critical thinking program at San Mateo County Jail. He currently lives with his fiancé in Pacifica.

New Tobacco Control Archives Project Archivist

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Edith Martinez, our former intern who has been assisting with the NHPRC project to process the AIDS History Project newly acquired collections, has joined the archives team as a part-time Project Archivist for the Tobacco Control Archives.

The Tobacco Control Archives (TCA) was established in 1994 with the initial support from the University of California Tobacco Related Disease Research Program (TRDRP), the Centers for Disease Control, and private funding.  The TCA serves as a major resource for public policy research. The Project Archivist is responsible for processing the TCA collections stored onsite and offsite. Over the past twenty years, the UCSF Archives & Special Collections has amassed an extensive collection of organizational records of government agencies and activist groups, as well as papers of individuals active in tobacco control. Currently TCA contains almost 100 collection titles, however only 40 of them are cataloged and even fewer are fully processed. The Project Archivist will arrange and describe the remaining unprocessed material, create or update finding aids, upload them to the Online Archive of California, create catalog records, and update the TCA section on the archives website.

New Archives Intern: Lauren Wolters

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Lauren Wolters

Lauren Wolters is a rising junior undergraduate student at Skidmore College. She is double majoring in History and Psychology and is interested in learning the basics of archival theory and practice. Being a history major, Lauren is fascinated by old artifacts and is excited to have the unique opportunity to work with collections that are not always available to the public eye. Currently, she has been assisting by taking inventory of a collection of photographs and organizing a digital list of metadata. Eventually, she will be transitioning to aid on a project relating to the Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute Records. This project is perfectly tailored towards both of her interests as it combines her two majors.

Lauren was born and raised in San Francisco, CA. She plays volleyball at Skidmore College and enjoys photography as a hobby. Lauren is enjoying working in the library with the archivists and looks forward to learning even more about the archives.

Guest Curator: Sabrina Oliveros

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“Open Wide” exhibit poster

Sabrina Oliveros joined UCSF Archives & Special Collections in April 2018 as the guest curator for Open Wide: 500 Years of Dentistry in Art. Opening this summer, the show will feature selections from the collection of Dr. Morton G. Rivo, D.D.S. that were previously exhibited at the University at Buffalo. Together with artifacts, rare books, and other items in UCSF’s holdings, the artworks will show how perspectives on dentistry – and dentistry itself – have changed through the years.

Sabrina holds a master’s degree in Museum Studies from the University of San Francisco. She co-curated Reformations: Dürer & the New Age of Print at the school’s Thacher Gallery and was the curatorial intern for Company’s Coming: San Francisco Hosts the Panama-Pacific International Exposition at the San Francisco Public Library. She has also been a researcher, scriptwriter, and project assistant for Earprint, an award-winning creator of audio tours, interactives, and immersive sound experiences for museums. Lately, she has been working with the exhibits department at the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. Her main jobs are to shore up the Maritime Museum’s research on its WPA-era murals and to develop interpretation for exhibits.

Sabrina Oliveros

Born in New York City and raised in the Philippines, Sabrina has undergraduate degrees in Communication and History from the Ateneo de Manila. She worked for a publishing house and an online marketing firm before venturing into the museum field. Nowadays, when she’s not on exhibit-related projects, she ghostwrites articles for professionals ranging from kitchen remodelers and accountants to dog trainers and, yes – dentists.

New Faces in Archives: Fall 2017

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Starting this fall we will be hosting two new volunteers: Edith Martinez and Seth Cotterell.

Edith Martinez

Edith will be working with Kelsi Evans and assisting with processing collections in the NHPRC grant, Evolution of San Francisco’s Response to a Public Health Crisis: Providing Access to New AIDS History Collections, an expansion of the AIDS History Project.

She is a graduate student at Wayne State University concentrating in Archival Administration. Edith graduated from San Jose State University with a BA in History. While at SJSU, she volunteered at History San Jose where she got interested in archives. Previously she interned with the Santa Clara County Archives and helped with the Santa Clara County Fair photo project. Currently she works at the Redwood City Public Library as a Library Assistant and enjoys helping patrons. Edith was born and raised in Santa Clara, in her spare time she enjoys gardening, baking, and trying new cuisines.

Seth Cotterell

Seth completed a Masters Degree in Library and Information Science from San Jose State University in 2011, but has been working in another career field ever since. He’s excited to get back into a field that aligns with his passions and is eager to refresh and enhance his on-the-job understanding of archival standards and best practices, learn new archives management systems, and utilize other archives technologies. He will assist the archives staff with collection processing, cataloging, digitization, outreach, and other projects.

Originally from Boise, Idaho, where he earned undergraduate degrees in English Literature and Business Management, Seth moved to San Francisco in 2001. Hobbies include reading, stop motion animation, and nature walks. He lives with his husband and one fur baby.

Lecture: 50 Years of the Haight Ashbury Free Clinics

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Date: Friday, October 6, 2017
Time: 12 pm – 1:15 pm
Lecturer: David E. Smith, MD
Location: Lange Room, 5th Floor, UCSF Library – Parnassus
530 Parnassus Ave, SF, CA 94143

This event is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be provided.
REGISTRATION REQUIRED: http://calendars.library.ucsf.edu/event/3555516

 

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love. Born in the Summer of Love, the Haight Ashbury Free Clinic, founded by UCSF alumni David E. Smith, MD, and staffed by volunteer medical providers from UCSF, celebrated its 50th anniversary on June 7, 2017.

Join Dr. Smith as he tells the story of the clinic’s founding and the 1960’s Haight-Ashbury luminaries who kept the clinic alive in its early days. He will discuss the clinic’s role in the birth of addiction medicine as a specialty, and the lessons the free clinic movement holds for healthcare reform efforts in the 21st century.

David E. Smith, MD, founder of the Haight Ashbury Free Clinics

David E. Smith, MD, is a medical doctor specializing in addiction medicine, the psycho-pharmacology of drugs, new research strategies in the management of drug abuse problems, and proper prescribing practices for physicians. He is the Founder of the Haight Ashbury Free Clinics of San Francisco.

About the UCSF Archives & Special Collections Lecture Series
 UCSF Archives & Special Collections launched this lecture series to introduce a wider community to treasures and collections from its holdings, to provide an opportunity for researchers to discuss how they use this material, and to celebrate clinicians, scientists, and health care professionals who donated their papers to the archives.

Exhibit Opening: HIV: A Plague of Violence Against Women

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Exhibit Reception: October 4th, 2017, 12 pm to 2 pm

Opening Remarks at 12 pm by Drs. Arthur J. Ammann and Paul Volberding, Larkin Callaghan, PhD

Location: UCSF Parnassus Library, 530 Parnassus Avenue, San Francisco, 1st Floor Lobby (take the elevator or the stairs to the ground floor), UCSF Shuttles & Parking, Public Transportation

This event is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be provided.
REGISTRATION REQUIRED: http://calendars.library.ucsf.edu/event/3527701

This exhibit will be on view at the UCSF Library from October 4th, 2017 through March 30th, 2018.

Dr. Ammann. No One Is Listening.
Montage: Jiří Cernicky, Schizophrenia. (1998)
Edvard Munch, Maiden and Death. (1894).
Edvard Munch, The Scream. (1893)
Edvard Munch, The Sun. (1912)
Out of the Void, Pacific Ocean
Liquidambar styraciflua (seed pods)

Join UCSF Archives & Special Collections for the exhibit opening and reception of “HIV: A Plague of Violence Against Women”. This exhibit features a collection of photo montages by Arthur J. Ammann, M.D., a pediatric immunologist and advocate known for his research on HIV transmission and his role in the development of the first successful vaccine to prevent pneumococcal infection in 1977.  Dr. Ammann is also the founder of Global Strategies (http://www.globalstrategies.org/) , a nonprofit organization that serves women and children in the most neglected areas of the world where he witnessed not one but two epidemics affecting women —sexual and physical violence and HIV.

Through his surrealist lens, Dr. Ammann’s photo montages document the suffering he witnessed during his time working with HIV infected women in Africa. The world of art has been a refuge for Dr. Ammann since his childhood. The creations of great artists spoke to him about the unrelenting violence against women, the struggle between good and evil, and the valley of the shadow of death. Paintings by Blake, Bosch, Giotto, Kahlo, Munch, Caravaggio, Titian, Dali, Freud, Nerdrum, and Picasso, resonated with what he felt from his experiences.

For over a decade he put the images together, took them apart, and put them together again. The title of each photo montage is accompanied by a quote or words, many derived from the stories women told. These images are a collective demand that “Violence against women must be stopped.”

Dr. Ammann with collagues

The exhibit is also a call to action for Dr. Ammann: “We must never accept violence and injustice nor ignore its enduring wounds. We can create new voices and images for advocacy. We can move to repair the physical, emotional, and spiritual scars that remain. We can provide inexpensive and easy to use medicines to prevent the complications of rape―HIV, other sexually transmitted infections, and unwanted pregnancy.”

We invite you to explore this visually arresting exhibit in support of Dr. Ammann’s efforts to end violence against women.

 

New Intern

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Anida Hodzic

Anida Hodzic is a senior undergrad at the University of San Francisco, who will be graduating in the fall, 2017. She was born in Bosnia and spent time in Berlin before moving to San Francisco.  She is majoring Art History and Arts Management with a minor in Classical Studies. She enjoys antiquity, from art to literature, with a strong interest in Greco-Roman culture and society. Before studying art history, she was working towards an International Business degree. Her time as a teacher’s assistant for her art history professor at City College of San Francisco helped her figure out that business was not her calling. Since then she has interned at Schein & Schein, an antique map and rare book gallery. Currently she is looking forward to delving into historical medical artifact at UCSF. She is extremely excited to spend time at the UCSF archives and hopes to soak up as much information as possible. Anida will be designing and building the online component for the archives exhibit, University of California Medical Service in World War I.