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.