Collection Guide
Collection Title:
Collection Number:
Get Items:
Peoples Temple Publications Department Records
MS 3791
View entire collection guide
Search this collection
Table of contents
Contributing Institution:
California Historical Society
Title: Peoples Temple Publications Department Records
Creator:
Peoples Temple
Identifier/Call Number: MS 3791
Physical Description:
28.25 linear feet
(29 o-ring preservation box albums, 9 legal document boxes, four
albums with slipcases, 2 record storage cartons, 1 oversize flat print box Q, 1 shallow
lid cabinet card box, 1 flip top cabinet card box, 1 oversize print box B, 1 oversize
legal document box, 1 large capacity CD box)
Date (inclusive): circa 1965-1978
Abstract: Records mainly consist of photographs
created or collected by Peoples Temple members in order to support the Temple's public
relations efforts, including the publication of the
Peoples
Forum
newspaper. The collection includes approximately 53,500 black-and-white 35mm
negative images; 3,500 color slides; 30,000 individual contact prints; and hundreds of
photographic prints, representing over 56,000 unique images of Peoples Temple. Images
extensively document Peoples Temple's activism, particularly during the critical years of
1976 to 1978. The collection contains a wealth of imagery depicting the demonstrations,
rallies, and events organized by Peoples Temple in support of prominent public officials,
activists, and organizations in California, as well as images of Jonestown, Guyana. In
addition to photographs, the collections includes 43 film and video recordings of Peoples
Temple in California and Guyana; 49 audio recordings of sermons and interviews given by Jim
Jones; and publications, ephemera, and manuscript material, including the "Conspiracy Book,"
compiled by the Publications Department to document alleged media and government
conspiracies against Peoples Temple, and mailers illustrating Peoples Temple's religious
outreach to the African American community.
Language of Material: Collection materials are in
English.
Some materials in this collection are restricted to protect the privacy of living people.
Medically sensitive materials have been restricted for 75 years after their last possible
date of creation; others have been restricted for the lifetimes of their subjects.
All researchers must sign the Access Agreement form, confirming that they have read and
understood the restrictions outlined in the document Restricted Materials in the Peoples
Temple Publications Department Records, MS 3791. This document, and the Access Agreement
form, are available at the reference desk or can be sent electronically.
Restricted Materials in the Peoples Temple Publications Department
Records, MS 3791
Open but subject to restrictions on disclosure:
Records throughout the collection may contain personally identifiable information of a
personal or confidential nature such as medical information and social security numbers.
Publication or disclosure of such information is strictly prohibited, unless researcher can
show proof that the person is deceased, or has provided proof of permission by the party
named to CHS.
Sealed and closed until 2046: [Peoples Temple meeting], Thanksgiving meeting, Nov. 25,
1971, Reel 1, Video Tape 04, Box 43. [Peoples Temple meeting, Los Angeles], 11-27-71, #2,
Video Tape 10, Box 43. [Peoples Temple meeting], Reel #3, 11/27/71, L.A. meeting, Video Tape
03, Box 43.
Sealed and closed until 2050: [Peoples Temple meeting], March 5, 1975, Wed nite, Video Tape
01, Box 43. [Peoples Temple meeting], 3/14/1975, Video Tape 02, Box 43.
Sealed and closed until 2051: Testimony Photographs (Found with Disappearing Photographs),
Box 51, Folder 19
Sealed and closed until 2052: Visitor Information Cards, Box 51, Folders 4-5.
Sealed and closed until 2053: Portraits [restricted], Box 51, Folders 1-2. Restricted
Contact Sheets from 90220-91399, Box 51, Folder 6. Medical Photographs, Box 51, Folders 7-8.
Restricted Contact Prints and Negatives, Box 51, Folder 9. Disappearing Photograph
Correspondence, Box 51, Folder 10. Disappearing Photograph Envelopes, Box 51, Folders 11-12.
Disappearing Photographs, Box 51, Folder 13. [Medical, Restricted], Box 51, Folder 14.
Conspiracy Book [restricted], Box 51, Folder 15. [Psychic surgery on unidentified woman's
abdomen and neck], Film Reel 40, Box 44. [Peoples Temple meeting], L.A. Saturday, Video Tape
07, Box 43 Restricted Slides, Box 51, Folder 16 People Who Left the Temple, Box 51, Folder
17 Photographs of People Who Left Peoples Temple, Box 51, Folder 18
Sealed for the lifetimes of the subjects: Temple Member Biographies, Box 51, Folder 3
(Timothy Carter and Lee Ingram) "Jim and Marcie respond to John Stoen suit from Jonestown,"
Film Reel 01, Box 44 (Timothy Stoen and Grace Jones)
Immediate Source of Acquisition
The Peoples Temple Publications Department Records were donated to the California
Historical Society in 2010 by Tim and Jean (Brown) Clancey. The donors were members of
Peoples Temple until its tragic end in 1978. Both had lived and worked at the San Francisco
Temple headquarters. The collection mainly consists of materials used in the Temple
Publications Department, which Tim Clancey managed. The collection was in their possession
from the closing of Peoples Temple until it was gifted to CHS.
The records are arranged in six series, divided by format, with the audiovisual materials
series further divided into moving images and sound recordings. The contents of the
photographs, contact prints, and slides series are arranged in their original order as found
within their original containers (except in the case of the Photographic Prints series,
which has been rearranged by subject, and the Negatives series, which has been rearranged
numerically). The containers themselves were not found in any particular order, and the
order in which they appear on the finding aid should not be taken as canonical. Original
titles were used wherever possible. The manuscripts series had no original order and was
arranged by archival staff.
The series and subseries arrangement of the records is as follows:
Series 1: Contact prints, circa 1965-1978
Series 2: Slides, 1967-1978
Series 3: Negatives, circa 1965-1978
Series 4: Manuscripts, ephemera, publications, and other materials, 1961-1978
Series 5: Photographic Prints, circa 1965-1978
Series 6: Audiovisual Recordings, 1972-1978, undated; further subdivided into Subseries 1: Moving Images, and Subseries 2: Sound Recordings
Series 1: Contact prints, circa 1965-1978
Series 2: Slides, 1967-1978
Series 3: Negatives, circa 1965-1978
Series 4: Manuscripts, ephemera, publications, and other materials, 1961-1978
Series 5: Photographic Prints, circa 1965-1978
Series 6: Audiovisual Recordings, 1972-1978, undated; further subdivided into Subseries 1: Moving Images, and Subseries 2: Sound Recordings
The Peoples Temple Publications Department was responsible for publicizing the Temple's
activities, publishing the
Peoples Forum newspaper (which was
distributed by members on the street), releasing newsletters and calls for donations,
keeping up contact with members and visitors, and maintaining a large photographic library.
Donor Tim Clancey took over the Publications Department after the defection of its former
head, Deanna Mertle. A candlemaker who joined the Temple along with his wife MaryLou and his
close friends Tim and Terry Carter, Clancey retrained as a printer within the Temple and
operated a print shop in Redwood Valley for both commercial and Temple use. In the
mid-1970s, he and his shop moved to the San Francisco Temple. The Publications Department
eventually grew to include several full-time staff: Bryan Kravitz, Don Jackson, graphic
artists Kathy Barbour and Patti Chastain, typesetter Gloria Rodriguez, and teenage
photographer Mike Rozynko. Professor and former journalist Dick Tropp edited the
Peoples Forum itself. Although Jim Jones would suggest stories and
give broad directives, he did not closely manage the department, and it was largely left to
its own devices.
The collection's other donor, Jean Brown Clancey, was not considered a member of the
Publications Department, but she was involved in Temple communications. A former high school
teacher, she moved to the San Francisco Temple in the mid-1970s to accept a job with the
Housing Authority which had been offered to her by the new Moscone mayoral administration.
She also wrote for the
Peoples Forum and acted as a contact
for the mainstream press.
In its heyday, the Temple pursued a very ambitious program of political action: defending
marginalized activists, getting out the vote for candidates, working with mainstream media,
maintaining relationships with other churches within its denomination (the Disciples of
Christ), recruitment trips across the country, letter-writing campaigns, radio appearances,
marches, and alliance-building with celebrities and politicians. The Publications Department
and its photographic library supported all of these activities, as well as the Temple's
bureaucratic needs, such as passport and membership photographs.
The Publications Department declined in scope and reach after several of its key staff were
sent to Jonestown. Many of those who had distributed the
Peoples
Forum
also left for Guyana, and by November 1978, department activity in San
Francisco was very limited. Rodriguez, Rozynko, Tropp, and Jackson died in Jonestown, as did
Tim Clancey's wife MaryLou and Tim Carter's sister Terry (Carter and Rodriguez had also
since married). Tim Clancey and Jean Brown were married in 1979, survived the dissolution of
the Temple together, and donated the Publications Department materials to the California
Historical Society in 2010.
Audiovisual recordings formerly cataloged under the call number MS 3800.
Original analog copies of all audiovisual material are restricted. Use digitial access
copies.
Photo negatives in Box 45 are restricted due to vinegar syndrome.
[Identification of item], Peoples Temple Publications Department Records, MS 3791,
California Historical Society
Processed by Isaac Fellman and Lynda Letona, 2018-2019, with funds from the National
Historical Publications and Records Commission.
Materials were placed in new acid-free sleeves, folders, and boxes. Original caption
information, when available, was transcribed onto negative sleeves; original titles of files
were kept where possible, with archivists' own titles written in square brackets.
The Peoples Temple Publications Department records form part of the California Historical
Society's Peoples Temple Collection, comprising over twenty collections of records, personal
papers, photographs, audiovisual recordings, and artifacts documenting Peoples Temple and
Jonestown.
The Peoples Temple Publications Department Records mainly consists of photographs created
or collected by Peoples Temple members in order to support the Temple's public relations
efforts, including the publication of the
Peoples Forum
newspaper. The collection includes approximately 53,500 black-and-white 35mm negative
images; 3,500 color slides; 30,000 individual contact prints; and hundreds of photographic
prints, representing over 56,000 unique images of Peoples Temple. Images extensively
document Peoples Temple's activism, particularly during the critical years of 1976 to 1978.
The collection contains a wealth of imagery depicting the demonstrations, rallies, and
events organized by Peoples Temple in support of prominent public officials, activists, and
organizations, including San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk, San Francisco Mayor George
Moscone, California State Assemblyman Willie Brown, California Lieutenant Governor Mervyn
Dymally (California's first Black state senator and lieutenant governor), Vice President
Walter Mondale, Black Panther Party founder Huey P. Newton, radical activist and scholar
Angela Davis, American Indian Movement founder Dennis Banks, and the Nation of Islam. These
photographs illuminate the connections between Peoples Temple and local, regional, national,
and international political and activist networks, situating the Peoples Temple movement
within the 1970s context of urban politics, radical activism, communalism, internationalism,
and Black Power.
As Peoples Temple was building its political connections and influence in California, a
small group of settlers was establishing a cooperative colony in Guyana called the Peoples
Temple Agricultural Mission, later known as Jonestown. In response to the publication of an
exposé of Temple abuses and other pressures, nearly one thousand Peoples Temple members
immigrated to Jonestown in the summer of 1977. The Publications Department Records provide
the most extensive visual documentation of Jonestown extant, from the settlement's
establishment in 1974 to the penultimate days of 1978. Reflecting the public relations
interests of the Publications Department, images of Jonestown present an interracial utopian
agricultural society in the heart of the South American jungle. The new collection includes
photographs of Jonestown residents of all ages, working, attending school, and participating
in communal activities, as well as imagery of the site itself and construction of the
settlement.
In addition to photographs, the collection contains forty-three film and video recordings
of Peoples Temple in the United States and Guyana, thirty-eight of which have been digitized
and made available online via the Internet Archive as part of the California Audiovisual
Preservation Project. These moving pictures poignantly capture daily life in Jonestown,
including children's parades, work projects, and musical performances. Forty-nine sermons
given by Jim Jones, previously digitized, have also been put online as part of the project.
The Publications Department records also contain publications, ephemera, and manuscript
material documenting Peoples Temple efforts to tighten control over public opinion amidst
mounting concerns over abuse, child custody issues, and living conditions in Jonestown.
These materials include the "Conspiracy Book," compiled by the Publications Department to
document alleged media and government conspiracies against Peoples Temple, and statements
written by public officials in support of the Temple. Other publications and ephemera,
including meticulously organized mailers, illustrate Peoples Temple's evangelical roots and
religious outreach to the African American community.
The California Historical Society (CHS) is the lawful owner of Peoples Temple documents and
photographs, by orders of the California Superior Court and of the Guyana High Court. CHS is
unaware of any other copyrights or other rights associated with this material. Reproduction
or publication of materials in this collection beyond that allowed by fair use requires the
written permission of CHS. Please contact rights@calhist.org.
The California Historical Society permits researchers to take photographs of materials from
the Peoples Temple Publications Department Records for research and reference use only. All
researchers must sign the Peoples Temple Collection Camera Use Agreement. Collection
restrictions, copyright, and preservation needs determine if an item may be photographed.
The library reserves the right to deny permission to photograph collection materials at its
discretion. Photographs from the Peoples Temple Publications Department Records may not be
photographed.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Jonestown (Guyana)
Social movements -- California
Demonstrations -- California
Slides
Negatives
Contact prints
Audiotapes
Motion pictures
Photographic prints
Newspapers
Direct mail
Utopias
Peoples Temple
Jones, Jim, 1931-1978