#the aids quilt

[killer-wizard]

some screenshots from the aids blanket

you can find it here. please go check it out. images below the cut.

"our sylvester" and all of the names

i enjoyed the art on this quilt a lot.

"I WILL ALWAYS BE HERE!"

the pride flags shows how recent this is :( we are warriors we fight until the end

i like this clown a lot. you are loved and missed.

all these flowers are so pretty

[queersatanic]

Happy birthday, Duane.

[caligulalotus]

sorry i got asked about the themes of discipline today and one of the ones i said was “how remembering the dead can sometimes be the most meaningful act of resistance and love a person can do” and now i’m just thinking about it.

the shelled one’s first appearance featured a taunting string of the names of every player who had died above him. he was defeated by some of the most well remembered players in the league, in a last ditch attempt. idk man maybe it’s a little on the nose but it means a lot to me.

[magicfemme]

"let love replace fear through you."

AIDS QUILT SERIES  |  VIEW THE QUILT

[kiwi]

whats your favorite vintage queer art? looking for stuff from old magazines/publications

[lunasinfuego]

I need someone to explain the Tim Laughlin Beyond Measure Christian fish on the Quilt. I know the white cloth use for the fish was Hawks short from their first Christmas together, (the tie and HF cufflink scene). The Fish is obviously for Tim’s faith, but I don’t understand the background and the red string for the embroidery of Beyond Measure. Was the background some of Tim’s old clothes/ties? Somebody said it was an old quilt he had but I don’t remember it? And does the red ribbon symbolic or was it just there to make the name it pop? Or was it and AIDS reference? Please help.

[halfd3af]

I’d never really gotten a chance to look before, but I had the urge to look at the AIDS quilt after remembering Duane Puryear, and I was just browsing around when one caught my eye in particular on block #2336.

I��m a sucker for the night sky, and upon further inspection…

Greg Kyper would have been 70 years old today, February 2nd 2024, if not for AIDS, and ohhhhh I’m gonna cry. I can't believe the chances of me stumbling upon his name today of all days. I'm going to try finding out more information about him and his life if possible.

I never met you Greg, but I love your quilt design. It's beautiful.

[scrollsofhumanlife]

Milagros "Millie" Barris

B. November 4th 1945 in Gurabo, Puerto Rico

East Hartford, Connecticut

[thatkindamusicjustsoothesthesoul]

If y’all aren’t watching fellow travelers I don’t know what you’re doing

[copper-dragon-in-disguise]

Ik you like talking about this and I’m actually like rly interested so what’s the aids quilt and triangle shirtwaist factory fire?

(It’s in your bio and as you probably know I hate looking stuff up and prefer talking to people-you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to)

*jumps up like the human equivalent of !!! and sprints to the computer to answer this properly with sources and shit* !!!!!!!!!!!

YOU WANT TO KNOW ABOUT THE TRIANGLE SHIRTWAIST FACTORY FIRE AND THE AIDS QUILT?????????? !!!!!!!!!!!! YOU ARE GOING TO REGRET THIS SO MUCH ASTER I'M SO EXICTED I'M NOT GOING TO SHUT UP FOR LIKE AN HOUR THIS IS AMAZING

(you have unlocked the Special Interests and now i won't shut up ever. :DDDDDDDDDD)

....well. I wasn't going to put a cut and then it got really, really long, so there's a cut about halfway through for the sake of peoples dashboards.

first up:

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

(tw/cw: intentional endangerment of workers, death, suicide (unplanned/unintentional), graphic depiction of death)

short version: the triangle shirtwaist factory fire was one of the deadliest industrial disasters in US History and, I believe, the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of New York City. It was a key point in labor rights & union movements, and 146 people died, almost all recently immigrated women and girls between the ages of 14-23.

long version: at ~4:40 pm on march 25th, 1911, a fire broke out in a scrap bin under a cutting table in the triangle shirtwaist factory, which occupied the 8th, 9th, and 10th floors of the Asch building in new york city (manhatten, greenwich village specifically).

the factory produced shirtwaists, a popular kind of women's blouse. (it was a sweatshop, which is relevant for future reasons). It was owned by Max Blanck and Issac Harris, who had previously had four (? possibly 3) fires at other factories, and been investigated for them (it was suspected that one or more of those said fires were the result of arson by the owners). the workers were, for the vast majority, recently immigrated jewish & italian women and girls, from age 14 and up, but most were between 14 and 25. The oldest victim was 43. (of the victims whose ages are known). They earned $7-12 a week (approx. $190-326USD in 2020 dollars), or approx. $3.65-6.29 per hour in today's money. at the time of the fire, there were approx. 600 workers in the building.

the asch building was 10 floors in total, and the top 3 were occupied by the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. The doors leading to the staircases were locked, to prevent workers leaving early or taking breaks. There were supposed to be 3 staircases, but there was only two; the city had allowed the owners to build a single fire escape in lieu of the third staircase. this fire escape may have been broken before the fire, and it was certainly broken afterwards. one of the staircases managed to be unlocked, but it became impassible either up or down within 3 minutes of the fire's start.

when the fire flared up, the first alarm was sounded by a passerby outside, who saw smoke coming out the windows at 4:45 pm.

the fire department arrived shortly after, but their ladders could only reach the 7th floor (the fire start on the 8th). some workers excaped via the roof (several years ago I heard a story about a guy who was teaching in the building next door and him and his students saw the people on the roof and were able to help them get over to the building the professor was in and not ontop of the burning one, but I can't find it again to validate it so take that with a grain of salt), and some got into the elevators while they were still working. the elevator operators were able to make 3 trips before the elevators stopped working from the excessive heat (the steel beams holding them bent and made it impossible to attempt).

inside the building, people on the 8th floor were able to warn people on the 10th floor by means of a telephone, but with the staircases locked there was no way to warn those on the 9th floor, and a survivor said (paraphrasing): ''the first warning of the fire arrived at the 9th floor at the same time the fire did''.

146 people died. 123 women and girls, the vast majority between the ages of 14-23, and 23 men and boys (I cannot find a clear age for them). 61 people died from jumping to their death or falling to their death out of the windows of the building. the fire department had nets meant to catch people, but velocity is velocity and the nets did nothing. people jumped out the windows hoping that the nets would catch them or they might survive, or that at least that had a better chance of survival than remaining inside the fire. 20 of these were on the fire escape & attempting to use it when it collapsed, dropping them 100ft to the sidewalk and killing them.

36 people died in the elevator shaft, after it started to break. (they attempted to jump/slide down the cables, and it did not work).

49 people burned to death or suffocated in the smoke.

the entire fire took 18 minutes.

The bodies of the victims were taken to Charities Pier (aka Misery Lane) to be identified. All but 6 were, and those 6 were buried together in the Cementer of the Evergreens in brooklyn (they were later identified by a historian named michael hirsch in 2011, after 4 years of research). they are now all buried together there, underneath a monument to the tragedy.

it caused a surge in the efforts of the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union, and eventually resulted in the passing of ~38 new york state labor laws.

The AIDs Quilt

(tw/cw: regan (referenced), death (nowhere near as bad as above))

The AIDs quilt is a memorial quilt commemorating those who have died of AIDs (at any point, not just during the AIDs crisis (fuck you ronald regan)), with panels sewn by family members and friends. It was begun in 1987 in San Fransisco by Cleve Jones. It is considered the largest community folk arts project in the world, and consists of nearly 50,000 panels honoring approx. 110,000 people.

Each panel is 6' by 3' (about the size of a standard grave), and four of them are sewn together to make large blocks that are then sewn/tied together. sometimes it goes on display, the most recent time in june 2022.

there is an interactive online version of the quilt, which you can find here.

here it is zoomed out as far as I could get

here are some of the larger blocks of the quilt

and here are some individual panels.

that's mostly all I have to say about it, but its incredible, and my favorite art project of all time.

(i don't have the spoons to add image descriptions to the photos, I am sorry, I will try to do it later when I remember)

[queerism1969]

[selkiecoded]

reading poetry is fun because sometimes youll be like this is pretty but i dont really get what i should be feeling and other times youll come to a realization so strong that you can feel your heart fall to the bottom of your stomach.

[magicfemme]

“cry a lot & say wonderful things about me.“

AIDS QUILT SERIES | VIEW THE QUILT

[morhath]

the insane whiplash of "tee-hee I have a girlfriend (gay joy)" to "boo hoo my dead gay uncle (gay grief and longing)" is... kind of a lot

[deadlydelicious]

Oh god I just watched Fellow Travelers and I'm broken now

[blairpfaff]

unsurprisingly seeing bobby reynolds' 'we look for you in the rainbows' panel at the end of fellow travelers got me 💔