ABSTRACT<\/strong>: Peoples Temple achieved impressive objectives as an \u00a0organization, the most impressive of which was establishing and maintaining \u00a0an agricultural community\u2014the Promised Land\u2014in the remote \u00a0jungle of Guyana. An activity theory analysis of work oriented to the \u00a0Promised Land reveals that texts\u2014everyday genres such as forms and \u00a0lists\u2014were important tools used by the group to achieve this objective. \u00a0A study of these textual tools helps us to understand how Peoples Temple \u00a0was able to meet its collective organizational goals and how individual \u00a0members achieved personal transformations within the organization. \u00a0Examining the group\u2019s textual practices adds depth to existing studies \u00a0of Temple history by showcasing the efficacy of organizational labor \u00a0that members themselves might have taken for granted. In addition, \u00a0this methodological approach provides a view of Peoples Temple work \u00a0unencumbered by the social problems paradigm, offering instead an \u00a0approach that is compatible with a social possibilities paradigm.<\/p>\n Plain and simple, we built a city out of nowhere. \u00a0\u2014Mike Touchette[1]<\/a><\/p>\n For wee must Consider that wee shall be as a Citty upon a hill. \u00a0The eies of all people are uppon Us, soe that if wee shall deale falsely \u00a0with our god in this worke wee have undertaken, and soe cause him to \u00a0withdrawe his present help from us, wee shall be made a story and a \u00a0by-word through the world.<\/p>\n \u2014John Winthrop[2]<\/a><\/p>\n Peoples Temple began in Indiana in the 1950s as a racially integrated \u00a0social gospel church. This was no small feat considering \u00a0the social climate at the time. Eventually Peoples Temple\u2014an integrated group of working class whites and blacks from Indiana\u2014migrated to Northern California, where membership grew considerably \u00a0and further diversified. Upper-middle class whites dedicated to community \u00a0activism found their way to Peoples Temple, as did urban youths \u00a0interested in political revolution. Older blacks were drawn to the social \u00a0gospel message offered by Peoples Temple, as well as to the social services \u00a0the organization provided, such as assistance with healthcare and \u00a0housing. The late Mary Sawyer characterizes members\u2019 motivations for \u00a0joining: \u201cPeople joined Peoples Temple for one of two reasons: in order \u00a0to give help, or in order to receive it. . . . In practical terms, Peoples \u00a0Temple was a movement that offered sanctuary from racial discrimination, \u00a0[and offered] opportunity for education and employment, and the \u00a0promise of lifelong economic security.\u201d[3]<\/a><\/p>\n Minutes from an 8 October 1973 meeting of the Peoples Temple \u00a0board of directors describe a report delivered on \u201cthe agricultural and \u00a0church extension\u201d and the board\u2019s decision to \u201cestablish an agricultural \u00a0mission in the tropics,\u201d and names Guyana, South America, as \u201cthe most \u00a0suitable place to do so.\u201d[4]<\/a> The minutes include a formal resolution to \u00a0establish the mission, and outline the financial and legal powers with \u00a0which the board authorizes \u201cJames W. Jones, pastor and president of said \u00a0corporation and church.\u201d[5]<\/a> The resolution would result in the community \u00a0variously known as the agricultural mission, Peoples Temple \u00a0Agricultural Project, freedom land, the Promised Land, and Jonestown.[6]<\/a><\/p>\n As noted by Rebecca Moore, the popular canon on Peoples Temple \u00a0is largely restricted to a limited set of images and narratives about the \u00a0group, and those images deal with the final events at the agricultural \u00a0community: photographs of bodies piled on the ground in Guyana, the \u00a0corrugated metal vat of poison nearby juxtaposed with images of the \u00a0group\u2019s dark-haired charismatic leader, eyes cloaked in aviator shades, hiding evil intent.[7]<\/a> Moore rightfully laments the stability of the reductionist \u00a0popular narrative and the difficulty that scholars confront in \u00a0widening this scope to allow for a more nuanced understanding of \u00a0Peoples Temple. Her concerns also invoke larger disciplinary conversations \u00a0about the need to shift the paradigm that unites research on new \u00a0religious movements. Sociologist David Feltmate uses the term \u201csocial problems paradigm\u201d to describe the current orientation, which arose as \u00a0researchers advanced counterclaims in response to arguments depicting \u00a0new religions as cults or social threats.[8]<\/a> It could be said, perhaps, that \u00a0researchers of new religious movements\u2014especially those seeking to \u00a0offer robust analyses of those movements\u2014were necessarily in a defensive \u00a0posture. To elbow out room for non-dominant stories to be heard, \u00a0they had to first push against existing dominant views of their objects of \u00a0study. The trouble with this, Feltmate explains, is that we cannot \u00a0\u201cunderstand these groups and find multiple ways to dignify the human \u00a0beings who engage with the worlds they create\u201d if our starting point is \u00a0rooted in the social problems paradigm.[9]<\/a> Feltmate seeks a solution in \u00a0a reorientation that takes \u201csocial possibilities\u201d as its unifying concept. \u00a0This new paradigm would align with the underlying existential inquiries \u00a0of these groups, which address a question fundamental to human activity: \u00a0\u201cHow then should we live?\u201d New religious movements, he observes, \u00a0\u201care experiments in addressing this question. Sometimes they are failed \u00a0experiments, but that does not mean we should dismiss them. When \u00a0religions are new they provide us with a wide variety of answers to the \u00a0question of how people have lived and how we should live. This is not \u00a0a social problem; it is an invitation to social possibility.\u201d[10]<\/a><\/p>\n For a number of reasons, Peoples Temple lends itself to being examined \u00a0from a social possibilities perspective. To begin with, researchers \u00a0have already made a good case that the scope of Peoples Temple, both \u00a0in form and function, is too capacious to be encompassed by the term \u00a0cult.[11]<\/a>In addition, when we look across the Temple\u2019s history, we see two \u00a0constants: a focus on social justice objectives and an organizational structure \u00a0that facilitated the Temple\u2019s internal and external work.[12]<\/a> As an \u00a0organization, Peoples Temple was generative, ambitious, forward-looking,\u00a0engaged with society, and productive. In describing the group\u2019s \u00a0overarching objective, one former member states, \u201c[W]e were going to \u00a0convert the world to brotherhood. And that was it. That was the \u00a0dream.\u201d[13]<\/a> Together, members pursued goals rooted in social justice \u00a0efforts meant to address class-, race-, and sex-based inequalities and were \u00a0a small part of a larger movement in the United States seeking to right \u00a0the course of history.[14]<\/a> They continually asked in word and deed, How \u00a0then should we live? The Peoples Temple Agricultural Project was their \u00a0most ambitious answer to that question. One of the most unfortunate \u00a0downstream consequences of the popular narrative\u2019s dominance is that \u00a0it cuts off the instructive capacity offered by a monumental project such \u00a0as Jonestown. Although it is understandable that a good deal of what has \u00a0been written about Peoples Temple takes as its starting point the group\u2019s \u00a0end\u2014much of it is threaded through the eye of the needle of 18 \u00a0November 1978\u2014this focus, whether overtly stated or implied, seems \u00a0to needlessly stymie lines of inquiry that could be more productive. After \u00a0all, Peoples Temple beat back the jungle to build a town in a foreign \u00a0country.[15]<\/a> In doing so, members reinvented themselves as a group and \u00a0offered a transformative experience to individuals. Mary Maaga captures \u00a0the awe inspired in some observers: \u201cJonestown as a physical site was \u00a0a miracle of construction and dedication, a fact that is not widely appreciated \u00a0when one only sees it in photographs with dead bodies strewn \u00a0about.\u201d[16]<\/a> The Rev. John Moore, father of two Temple members, visited \u00a0the Guyana settlement, and he described it in terms that convey the \u00a0scope of the group\u2019s achievement:<\/p>\n \u201cImpressive\u201d was the first word to come to mind when I was asked what I \u00a0thought of the project. The clearing of more than eight hundred acres \u00a0from the midst of the jungle, and the planting of crops is impressive. To \u00a0imagine more than a thousand Americans migrating to Guyana and \u00a0working in the project is impressive. Every aspect of the work and life \u00a0there I found impressive.[17]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n How did Peoples Temple achieve such an impressive feat? This is the \u00a0question that seeded my research. When I began to investigate the \u00a0building and maintenance of Peoples Temple Agricultural Project, \u00a0I discovered that the \u201chow\u201d was a matter of member contributions (labor \u00a0and money), timing, and\u2014significantly\u2014texts.<\/p>\n ANALYTICAL APPROACH<\/strong><\/p>\n To examine complex work within organizations, researchers have \u00a0made good use of activity theory, which despite its name is not a theory, \u00a0but a framework developed by Aleksie Leont\u2019ev, Alexander Luria, Yrjo \u00a0Engestrom, and others from Lev S. Vygotsky\u2019s distributed theories of \u00a0psychology.[18]<\/a> Activity theory takes as its object of study goal-directed \u00a0human labor, and defines that labor as social (conducted with\/in relation \u00a0to others), historical (developed over time), and mediated by the use of \u00a0artifacts (tools). Furthermore, because of its origins in Vygotsky\u2019s work, \u00a0activity theory conceives of consciousness not as \u201ca set of discrete disembodied \u00a0cognitive acts (decision making, classification, remembering),\u201d \u00a0but instead as \u201clocated in everyday practice: you are what you do. And \u00a0what you do is firmly and inextricably embedded in the social matrix of \u00a0which every person is an organic part.\u201d[19]<\/a> This matrix, what researchers \u00a0refer to as the activity system, includes not just people pursuing an outcome, \u00a0but also the tools they use as part of their work. Thus, activity theory is \u00a0a systems-based approach to studying human labor that privileges human \u00a0intention and views cognition as being embodied, tool-mediated, and \u00a0distributed. We don\u2019t work alone; we work with others through tool use \u00a0in pursuit of achieving some end. Work is governed by rules relevant to \u00a0the community or communities involved. This framework is appropriate \u00a0for investigating Peoples Temple\u2019s work from a social possibilities perspective because of its focus on goal-directed action; people are assumed to have agency and intention. \u00a0Figure 1, Activity System, depicts \u00a0the components of the activity system.<\/p>\n Key to this framework is the definition of tools as \u201cinstruments, signs, \u00a0procedures, machines, methods, laws, [and] forms of work \u00a0organization\u201d that mediate the work in a given activity system.[20]<\/a> Tools \u00a0are not only the things we might traditionally think of (hammers, paintbrushes, \u00a0bulldozers, saws), but also abstract \u201cobjects\u201d (frameworks, customs, \u00a0language, methodologies) that facilitate our work with other \u00a0people. Texts are one tool used by humans in the pursuit of achieving \u00a0goals, and some would even say texts are the most important tool.[21]<\/a> That \u00a0is, to research the work of an organization is to research the communication \u00a0produced by that organization. Although participants in an organization \u00a0might be unaware of the complex meaning embodied in the \u00a0mundane, routine texts they produce in the course of \u201cdoing business,\u201d \u00a0there is, in fact, great value in our examining the texts not just for what \u00a0they say, but also for what they do\u2014what they permit, proscribe, or make \u00a0possible. This outlook rests on the claim that to separate out \u00a0\u201ccommunication\u201d from \u201cwork\u201d is faulty; communication is a fundamental \u00a0part of the organization\u2019s work. Maryan Schall, in her oft-cited article on \u00a0the social nature of organizational communication, makes this point \u00a0when she explains that \u201clike cultures, [organizations] have been considered \u00a0communication phenomena, that is, entities developed and maintained \u00a0only through continuous communication activity\u2014exchanges and \u00a0interpretations\u2014among its participants. Without communication and \u00a0communicating, there would be no organizing or organization.\u201d[22]<\/a> This \u00a0is true for collective work (writers and readers coming together as \u201cwe\u201d) \u00a0and individual work (individuals carving out space for the \u201cI\u201d). The benefit \u00a0of activity theory is that it requires us to account for tool use, and this \u00a0allows us to arrive at new understandings of how work is accomplished. In \u00a0this case, it highlights the important role that texts\u2014paperwork of many \u00a0stripes\u2014played in building and maintaining the Promised Land.<\/p>\n Indeed, even a cursory examination of the Peoples Temple archives \u00a0at the California Historical Society (CHS) makes it clear that Temple \u00a0members made use of writing in pursuit of their organizational goals.[23]<\/a> \u00a0The collection of texts they left in their wake is an entity unto itself. \u00a0According to the CHS, the collection of Peoples Temple records alone \u00a0occupies 145 linear feet. Fielding McGehee\u2019s description of the variety \u00a0of items contained in the collection suggests its heft and richness:<\/p>\n [T]hey saved everything. There are the business records of Peoples \u00a0Temple as a corporation, including receipts, tax records, bank accounts, \u00a0and internal memoranda. There are the trappings of the Temple as \u00a0a church, ranging from Jim Jones\u2019 robes to donation envelopes, from \u00a0prayer requests to testimonials of Jones\u2019 healing powers. There are the \u00a0ephemera from the community at large, such as copies of Peoples Forum<\/em>, \u00a0the Temple\u2019s newspaper, membership and passport photos, handwritten \u00a0requests for extraordinary purchases, and of course, more receipts. There \u00a0are individual writings, such as the private journals of at least one Temple \u00a0member, confidential memos to Jim Jones and other Temple leaders, \u00a0papers with signed confessions to unbelievable crimes and just as many \u00a0pages which are blank except for a signature at the bottom. There are \u00a0flyers for political demonstrations protesting the treatment of minorities \u00a0in capitalist America, and brochures heralding a new life in Jonestown. \u00a0There are letters to the editor condemning the approaching police state \u00a0in America, and internal surveillance reports of Temple members.[24]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The size of the collection is not as important as the types of documents \u00a0contained within. Specifically, this collection is replete with examples of \u00a0\u201chomely discourse,\u201d such as internal memoranda and the like, that are \u00a0examples of \u201c\u2018de facto genres,\u2019 the types we have names for in everyday \u00a0language\u201d (e.g., memos, letters, progress reports, applications).[25]<\/a> These \u00a0genres function as \u201ca typified rhetorical way of recognizing, responding \u00a0to, acting meaningfully and consequentially within, and thus participating \u00a0in the reproduction of, recurring situations.\u201d[26]<\/a> The important words \u00a0here are \u201ctypified,\u201d \u201crhetorical,\u201d and \u201crecurring.\u201d By typified, we mean \u00a0that genres have identifiable features that allow us to recognize them. \u00a0For example, the appeals for money I receive from nonprofit groups \u00a0tend to arrive in a United States business-sized envelope decorated with \u00a0images of dire situations (caged, abused animals in need of my assistance; \u00a0downtrodden children who are hungry). The appeal letters contained \u00a0within also carry physical markers that would allow me to \u00a0immediately identify the texts, without even reading them, as appeal \u00a0letters from a specific kind of organization: letterhead with an organizational \u00a0logo; use of short paragraphs with certain passages emphasized \u00a0through the use of bold, underlining, italics, and\/or uppercase letters; \u00a0a detachable portion with pre-selected contribution amounts to assist me \u00a0in replying; and a self-addressed, postage-paid envelope (in most cases) \u00a0to make my return reply as easy and painless as possible. I know what \u00a0these items are as soon as I pull them from the mailbox.<\/p>\n However, genres cannot be defined simply through reference to \u00a0their physical features. Any given genre needs to be understood in terms \u00a0of the \u201cthe action it is used to accomplish.\u201d[27]<\/a> That is, when we identify \u00a0a genre, we consider the rhetorical function it serves in conjunction with \u00a0its features to make that identification. All texts are rhetorical, but genres \u00a0are rhetorical in a special way. Specifically, they are recognizable \u00a0textual tools that help us to respond to recurring needs (as in the case \u00a0of funding an organization by soliciting money through the mail). The \u00a0specifics of how one makes the appeal will depend on one\u2019s audience, \u00a0purpose, and context, and this is why we see variety when we look at \u00a0instances of genres (an appeal letter from a nonprofit group looks and \u00a0\u201csounds\u201d different from the appeal letters from my alma mater), but \u00a0there are essential similarities across instances that allow us to identify \u00a0them as belonging to a specific genre\u2014in this case, the appeal letter.<\/p>\n Because of their rhetorical nature, genres are social \u201csites\u201d where \u00a0writers and readers gather to conduct work\u2014where writers and readers \u00a0\u201crely on shared texts and knowledge\u201d to participate in the co-creation of \u00a0meaning. For writers, this involves \u201cassert[ing] meaning, goals, actions, \u00a0affiliations, and identities within a constantly changing, contingently \u00a0organized world,\u201d[28]<\/a> which is made a bit more predictable due to the \u00a0relative stability that genres offer through design and discourse conventions. \u00a0For readers, this means piecing together meaning from their interpretations \u00a0of texts. For both writers and readers, genres provide a guide \u00a0that invokes\u2014but cannot require\u2014social rules and reader responses. \u00a0The appeal letter might suggest certain actions to me, but I am in no \u00a0way bound to fulfill those actions. In addition, although the genres afford \u00a0certain actions (such as mailing in a contribution), they do not preclude, \u00a0necessarily, all other actions; I can, for example, choose to use the postage \u00a0paid envelope to mail something other than a contribution to the group.<\/p>\n All of this is to say that genres are not just forms of writing: they are \u00a0discursive spaces that \u201csituate and distribute cognition, frame social \u00a0identities, organize spatial and temporal relations, and coordinate \u00a0meaningful, consequential actions within contexts.\u201d[29]<\/a> Writing Studies \u00a0scholar Charles Bazerman sums this up nicely when he states that \u00a0\u201c[g]enres typify many things beyond textual form. They are part of the \u00a0way that humans give shape to social activity.\u201d[30]<\/a> He also emphasizes that \u00a0because writing \u201cpartakes of and contributes to\u201d the contexts and cultures \u00a0from which it arises, it \u201cbears the characteristics of the cultures it \u00a0participates in and the histories it carries forward.\u201d[31]<\/a> Consequently, \u00a0when we examine any given instance of genre use within an activity \u00a0system\u2014that is, when we look at how writing mediates activity\u2014we can \u00a0begin to understand how we connect our \u201cprivate intentions\u201d with \u201cthe \u00a0public\u201d and singular experiences with collective, recurrent experience.[32]<\/a><\/p>\n In studying the kinds of texts the Temple used to achieve its objectives \u00a0and in analyzing the ways that individual Temple members used \u00a0these texts to navigate the Temple\u2019s structures, we can see more clearly \u00a0how the Temple was so effective at accomplishing the ambitious objectives \u00a0it set for itself. This type of analysis is significant because it forces us \u00a0to look at items (or characteristics of items) that we normally look past, \u00a0such as layout, font, or connections to other texts. Furthermore, because \u00a0genres are social sites that connect individuals with larger social structures, \u00a0we can gain insight into personal agency, the possibilities and \u00a0promises, available to Temple members as they participated in building \u00a0and maintaining the Promised Land.<\/p>\n TEXTUAL TOOLS: MEDIATING COLLECTIVE AND \u00a0INDIVIDUAL ACTIVITY<\/strong><\/p>\n Almost any project involving Peoples Temple texts needs to carry \u00a0a qualification similar to that provided by Rebecca Moore in \u00a0Understanding Jonestown and Peoples Temple<\/em>. She uses the word \u00a0\u201cproblematic\u201d to describe the source materials available. This has to do \u00a0with the conflicting views of Temple life\u2014those who left the Temple have \u00a0a different view of it than those who remained\u2014and the fact that survivor \u00a0accounts are \u201cwritten looking backward, through the prism of the deaths \u00a0in Jonestown. The event altered memories and reflections so that people \u00a0saw things in a different light.\u201d More to the point is the fact that there are \u00a0not nearly enough survivor accounts; all those who died were silenced, \u00a0and it is impossible to reconstruct their thoughts from the materials left \u00a0behind. Still, this analysis is useful because it examines items intended for \u00a0routine business use or internal Temple work, which means that some of \u00a0the concerns about truth and audiencemight be less central. However, we \u00a0do confront the distance of time and the limits of text.[33]<\/a><\/p>\n To understand how the work of building and maintaining the \u00a0Promised Land offered possibilities to Peoples Temple members, I provide \u00a0an analysis of emigration texts used in the process of deciding who \u00a0to \u201csend over.\u201d Although it would be possible to focus on any number of \u00a0texts from the Temple\u2019s history by way of conducting this analysis,[34]<\/a>\u00a0those dealing with the Promised Land are compelling because they \u00a0involve a turning point in the Temple\u2019s history.<\/p>\n A formal lease for 3,853 acres was signed with the Guyanese government \u00a0on 25 February 1976, although work on finding an appropriate \u00a0location had begun in 1973.[35]<\/a> Timing was important. The contract with \u00a0Guyana moved quickly because the country felt that having a United \u00a0States presence on the unsecured border with Venezuela could be beneficial \u00a0in preventing encroachment. The influx of United States citizens \u00a0into the remote jungle territory would bring with it other benefits, including proof that the interior could be developed for the economic \u00a0benefit of Guyana and its citizens.[36]<\/a><\/p>\n Much physical labor was needed to build and maintain the Promised \u00a0Land. Even if we set aside all of the stateside work that supported \u00a0the agricultural community\u2019s development, we still find cause to be \u00a0impressed. Mike Touchette, one of the settlers, recalls:<\/p>\n When we started . . . we went out with our surveyor. I\u2019ll never forget it. \u00a0They had a little footpath that they were following. There were so many \u00a0trees. They had maybe three or four Amerindians in front of us, and \u00a0there was three or four of them behind us. All of them had machetes. \u00a0And what they did, as we\u2019re walking in, they were cutting, making \u00a0a trail. . . . When you walked through that jungle, you could turn 360 \u00a0degrees and have no clue where you\u2019re at. That\u2019s what I saw. . . . At the \u00a0end, we had over fifteen hundred acres in cultivation of every type of tree, \u00a0plant, food, anything that we could eat was growing. . . . Plain and simple, \u00a0we built a city out of nowhere.[37]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n And build a city they did, one that included all of the trappings we would \u00a0recognize as being necessary to a community, including those providing \u00a0education, policing, housing, medical care, consumables (food, soap, \u00a0clothing), and utilities (including power and communication).[38]<\/a><\/p>\n However, from the beginning of the project, textual labor was important \u00a0to introducing and building the agricultural community. In fact, the \u00a0quote in the title of this article\u2014\u201cVerbal orders don\u2019t go\u2014Write it!\u201d \u00a0appears on a memo pad used by Temple members during the construction \u00a0of the Promised Land. Internal Temple documents were used to \u00a0formalize intention, such as the resolution to establish the agricultural \u00a0community. Texts also allowed the Temple to coordinate with outside \u00a0entities, such as members of the Guyanese government, in securing the \u00a0land and taking other legal steps to safeguard the community\u2019s presence.[39]<\/a> Progress reports written by Temple leadership and settlers communicated \u00a0key information to establish future plans. Some of the early \u00a0textual work provided not only a report on progress, but also an indication \u00a0of the satisfaction and joy settlers felt. One of the best examples of \u00a0this in the records\u2014one of the most genuinely joyful texts in the entire \u00a0collection\u2014is the short missive from Guyana depicted in Photo 1, \u00a0Things constructed by us.<\/p>\n The function of this passage\u2014at once a progress report and an evocation \u00a0of many good things to come\u2014is suggestive of the potential the \u00a0move to the Promised Land offered to members.<\/p>\n The fact that the Temple attracted members from different walks of \u00a0life indicates that people were able to find what they needed at the \u00a0time.[40]<\/a> Odell Rhodes\u2019 experiences reflect those who were encouraged, \u00a0and perhaps for the first time invited, to find value as a productive \u00a0member of an industrious group effort. Not only was he able to address his substance abuse problems through his participation in Peoples Temple,[41]<\/a> he also found a new identity as a worker whose contributions \u00a0were valued. Recalling his early work with the Temple as a helper in the \u00a0day care center and the subsequent praise he received for this work from \u00a0Jim Jones, Rhodes reflected,<\/p>\n I guess at that point, I couldn\u2019t even remember the last time somebody \u00a0told me I was doing good at anything, and for Jones to take the time from \u00a0everything else he had to think about to notice me\u2014well, it meant a lot to \u00a0me right then.[42]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Other Temple members, people who were no stranger to past praise \u00a0from teachers or supervisors, found relief from themselves. Dick Tropp, \u00a0a Temple member who collected oral histories from members for \u00a0a never-completed book about the history of the group, offered the \u00a0following assessment of how his perspective had changed and what he \u00a0gained from that change:<\/p>\n I have found a place to serve, to be, to grow. To learn the riddle of my own \u00a0insignificance, to help build a future in the shadow of the apocalypse \u00a0under which I felt I was always living. . . . I look back on the past as if to \u00a0another world, a dead and dying world. A new center of gravity has been \u00a0established in my life\u2014and, to my great relief and happiness, it is not me.[43]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n In speaking about their experiences, many former members offer \u00a0descriptions that reveal a tension between something gained and something \u00a0lost. Jean Clancy recounts her own reluctant transformation, \u00a0which was prompted by aspects of the Temple that spoke to her sense \u00a0of personal responsibility regarding social justice:<\/p>\n So why did I stay? I stayed. I got gradually re-formed or reshaped into this. \u00a0Also there were some very heavy pulls. . . . Such a sense of good committed \u00a0people really trying to establish an alternative way of being together\u2014 \u00a0economically, socially\u2014it really did have a strong pull. It was not an easy \u00a0integration on my part, but I felt like I was supposed to be there. This is \u00a0my job. This is my duty.[44]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n In the end, though, she experienced this process as one of submission: \u00a0\u201cPretty soon you are no longer thinking your own thought or being your \u00a0own person: you are a penitent in this process of becoming the socialist \u00a0entity.\u201d[45]<\/a> Another member, Janet Shular, describes the \u201cdichotomies\u201d of \u00a0the \u201cPeoples Temple experience.\u201d On the one hand, most members \u00a0\u201cwere the \u2018living dead\u2019 until they were on that final tract [sic] that led \u00a0them to becoming the \u2018dead dead,\u2019\u201d but on the other hand, \u201c[m]ore \u00a0people, just as a result of meeting and joining PT, had a true rebirth in \u00a0terms of a greater zest and love for living than you could possibly imagine. \u00a0I mean, they were energized to serve their fellow man at every \u00a0level.\u201d[46]<\/a><\/p>\n Participating in the Promised Land was an opportunity that distilled \u00a0and concentrated the possibilities of the Peoples Temple experience. \u00a0According to Tanya Hollis, a former archivist at the California Historical \u00a0Society, \u201cThe move to Guyana might have encompassed, on the part of \u00a0the rank and file, both their aspirations for self-determination and their \u00a0loss of faith in the secular democratic system, with its legal assurances of \u00a0their rights and systematic denial of those rights.\u201d[47]<\/a> The textual tools \u00a0used by the Temple to process members\u2019 emigration applications reflect \u00a0the transformative possibilities present in Temple life and the tensions \u00a0of being reshaped into the image of a productive member.<\/p>\n Applying to \u201cGo Over\u201d: Pledges and Preferences \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Travel to Guyana was not possible\u2014quite literally\u2014without texts. At \u00a0the very least, travelers would need a passport, proof of immunizations, \u00a0and the required immigration forms.[48]<\/a> To apply for emigration to the \u00a0Promised Land, members also needed to make use of documents that \u00a0served Temple needs. Figure 2, Activity System: Applying to Emigrate to \u00a0the Promised Land, depicts the activity system of members seeking to \u00a0\u201cgo over\u201d to the Promised Land, with a focus and emphasis on texts \u00a0internal to the organization. Subjects are Peoples Temple members \u00a0involved in the emigration process, either as applicants or as reviewers \u00a0of applications. The community would include the larger organization. \u00a0The object\/motive of their goal-directed activity is to facilitate emigration \u00a0to the Promised Land, and the tools used to mediate their activity \u00a0include a core set of texts developed by Peoples Temple over time and in \u00a0response to the group\u2019s needs.<\/p>\n For members \u201cgoing over\u201d a standard set of texts was used. This set \u00a0included applications for travel, forms that collected information about \u00a0travelers\u2019 health, paperwork that limited the liability of the organization \u00a0in case of adverse events occurring during travel or in Guyana, forms \u00a0that assigned power of attorney to Temple leadership, and forms that \u00a0collected work-related background information on applicants. Taken as \u00a0a whole, this set of texts required members to express their commitment \u00a0to the Temple and validate its mission, offered members the opportunity \u00a0to express a desire for the kind of work they hoped to contribute to \u00a0agricultural community, and provided the organization with ways of \u00a0surveying and managing the human capital available.<\/p>\n To an outsider, the amount of paperwork\u2014and the personal nature \u00a0of the paperwork\u2014required for consideration as a Promised Land \u00a0\u00b4emigr\u00e9 might seem daunting. Yet, Temple members were used to information \u00a0being collected about their personal lives, including financial \u00a0and medical information. Such information was used to guide members \u00a0through government bureaucracies involving Social Security \u00a0Administration (SSA) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI), obtain \u00a0health care outside of the Temple, apply for and attend college or \u00a0certificate programs, and manage communal living arrangements. To \u00a0a great extent, personal identity was part of the group\u2019s collective \u00a0resources. People\u2019s lives were managed by the group, including aspects \u00a0typically assigned to nuclear family structures, such as the care of children. \u00a0These arrangements of members\u2019 personal lives were bound up \u00a0with the organization\u2019s textual practices. For instance, the legal responsibility \u00a0for Temple children was signed over by parents to other Temple \u00a0members through guardianship paperwork.<\/p>\n Figure 2. Activity System: Applying to Emigrate to the Promised Land. Courtesy of \u00a0Heather Shearer.<\/p>\n As we consider the textual work used in conjunction with emigration \u00a0to the Promised Land, it is worth remembering that when the project \u00a0was proposed, a mass migration was not intended. Because it was, at least \u00a0initially, believed to be something to which not all had access or equal \u00a0access\u2014yet something that for many was desirable\u2014it is interesting to \u00a0consider the ways that members used the means of persuasion available \u00a0to them in completing the application paperwork. Additionally, because \u00a0the Promised Land was viewed as the apotheosis of Peoples Temple work \u00a0(the name is telling), the texts used for emigration purposes are interesting \u00a0in what they reveal about Temple values and what they might \u00a0disclose about the aspirations of individual members.<\/p>\n The document titled \u201cApplication To Go Abroad\u201d is a useful place to \u00a0start (see Photo 2, Application To Go Abroad).[49]<\/a> Based on the layout of the document and the nature of the information collected, we see that \u00a0this one-page document clearly belongs to the genre of \u201capplication,\u201d \u00a0and, like most instances of that genre, serves the needs of the applicant \u00a0and those reviewing the application. For the applicant, it was a way to \u00a0begin the emigration by signaling interest to those who shared power for \u00a0authorizing that travel. The form also offered opportunity for persuasion. \u00a0For example, there was opportunity to signal greater integration in \u00a0or commitment to the group in the section of the form that solicited \u00a0information about the applicant\u2019s spouse. Not only was spousal information \u00a0requested, but if the spouse was not a member, a characterization of \u00a0his or her attitude toward the member\u2019s emigration was also solicited: \u201cIf \u00a0not a member, how does he\/she feel about your going?\u201d<\/p>\n For reviewers, especially before the mid-1977 rush to send as many \u00a0members as quickly as possible to Guyana, the information collected \u00a0through the application allowed the organization to prioritize based \u00a0on applicants\u2019 integration in the organization, financial means, health \u00a0profile, and existing ability to travel. For instance, the form allows applicants \u00a0to indicate if they have a passport or birth certificate (the former \u00a0would be needed for travel and the latter to secure a passport). Spousal \u00a0information could certainly be useful in avoiding (or perhaps heading \u00a0off) unnecessary conflict. Questions about finances could assist the \u00a0Temple in identifying those with a desire to go who could provide financial \u00a0support to the project. The issue of finances is directly invoked in the \u00a0bottom portion of the form, which contains a warning about health \u00a0concerns and the cost of emigration:<\/p>\n \u00a0I understand that if I am seriously overweight or have serious medical \u00a0problems I will not be able to go on the short-term trips because of the \u00a0hazard to my health and the additional strain my condition will create.\u00a0I also understand that air travel is extremely expensive and that I will \u00a0have to donate my fair share of the cost for transportation, food and \u00a0lodging.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Photo 2. Application To Go Abroad. Alternative Considerations of Jonestown&Peoples \u00a0Temple. http:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/04-05-GoabroadApp. \u00a0pdf[CW1] .<\/p>\n As with many Temple forms, a signature of the member was required, \u00a0which created a potential textual link to a network of legal practices. \u00a0This form allowed members to signal interest, to maneuver for consideration, \u00a0and to indicate commitment to Temple rules (including the \u00a0handing over of personal information). In addition, the form, taken \u00a0in consideration with a host of other texts, sanctioned the Temple to \u00a0facilitate the emigration process.<\/p>\n Still more interesting is a small cluster of documents represented by \u00a0the following texts: \u201cInformation to be supplied by persons desirous of \u00a0immigration into Guyana\u201d; \u201cQuestionnaire\u201d; \u201cSkills Inventory\u201d; and \u00a0\u201cPromised Land Work Preference.\u201d[50]<\/a> The first of these (\u201cInformation \u00a0to be supplied . . . \u201d) appears to have a direct external audience: the \u00a0Guyanese government. The form\u2019s title includes the phrasing \u201cdesirous \u00a0of immigration,\u201d which sounds odd to those who speak American \u00a0English. And some of the questions are strange, if indeed the form was \u00a0created by the Temple and intended mainly for internal use. For example, \u00a0the form asks for \u201ccountry of origin\u201d of applicants, but Temple \u00a0members were from the United States. Moreover, it includes a request \u00a0for the applicant to \u201csubmit . . . a certificate from the police authority of \u00a0the country (or countries) where he (she) has been resident during the \u00a0last ten (10) years, to the effect that there has been no conviction against \u00a0him (her).\u201d At the same time, the form does include questions that \u00a0seemed to target Temple members specifically, such as its question asking \u00a0applicants to \u201c[s]tate whether [they] are prepared to work and live in \u00a0the interior of Guyana,\u201d details of applicants\u2019 farming experience, and \u00a0information about \u201cassets (including cash).\u201d With reference to the latter, \u00a0one standard response, generally typewritten\u2014which means that it \u00a0could have been prepared ahead of time for those completing the \u00a0form\u2014is this phrase: \u201cAll assets are to be imputed to the Peoples \u00a0Temple Agriculture Project which has leased land from the government \u00a0of Guyana under the F. C. H. Program.\u201d[51]<\/a> Each of these items directly \u00a0speaks to the Temple\u2019s work at the agricultural community in Guyana\u2019s \u00a0interior and to the Temple\u2019s ongoing financial needs.<\/p>\n By comparison, the document titled \u201cQuestionnaire\u201d[52]<\/a> seems to be\u00a0intended wholly for an internal audience. The two-page document \u00a0contains forty-four questions and, like many Temple forms, solicits \u00a0detailed information about the general demographic, health, and \u00a0financial status, including monies contributed to Peoples Temple. It \u00a0also asks questions specific to the management of the individual\u2019s \u00a0international travel as a member of the group (e.g., \u201cDo you have \u00a0a passport? Have you turned it in to Grace?\u201d), and underscores the \u00a0need for accurate information that could be used to secure travel \u00a0documents if need be: \u201cWhat is your full name? Your date of birth? \u00a0Your place of birth?\u201d[53]<\/a><\/p>\n In addition, the form provides opportunities for applicants to express \u00a0interest in the agricultural project and position themselves as a desirable \u00a0candidate. Item forty-two directs applicants to<\/p>\n [l]ook at the attacheet [sic] of Skills and tell me which of the things listed \u00a0you can do, how many years experience you have at each, or how many \u00a0years of college you have in each. Be detailed. List out to the right in the \u00a0blank space, for example, the vegetables you know how to cultivate, etc.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I could find no item in the records titled \u201clist of skills,\u201d but there is \u00a0a document called \u201cSkills Inventory,\u201d which is designed in a two-column \u00a0table format with headings and subheadings. Two versions of \u00a0this inventory appear in the CHS collection. The skills listed are identical, \u00a0but one version contains a header on the top of the first page that \u00a0solicits information about the member (name, member number, age, \u00a0address, phone number, employment and current position, location of \u00a0job, and wages per month). This version also includes a small space for \u00a0the member to indicate the \u201c[k]ind of work you want to do.\u201d<\/p>\n Photo 3, Skills Inventory Excerpt, presents a portion of the first page \u00a0of this form. Both versions provide opportunities for the applicant to \u00a0position himself or herself as a desirable candidate for emigration to the \u00a0Promised Land. After all, certain skills, especially early on, were highly \u00a0valued and more in demand. In addition, the version of the form with \u00a0the header invites applicants to express a desire in terms of the labor role \u00a0to which theymight be assigned. The space provided to describe the \u201ckind \u00a0of work you want to do\u201d is comically small. Nevertheless, its inclusion is \u00a0significant. The Promised Land was the next stage in the organization\u2019s \u00a0history, and it offered a fresh start for those who moved there. The work in \u00a0the Promised Land would differ in scope if not always in kind from the \u00a0work at Temple sites in California. Being asked what one wanted to do was \u00a0a call to reinvent oneself\u2014a call that most Temple members in the United \u00a0States recognized, even if they did not seek it themselves.<\/p>\n The \u201cPromised Land Work Preference\u201d (PLWP) form is more obvious \u00a0in its promise of possibility. To begin with, the title seems to offer \u00a0personal agency. Not only does it name the site of the labor (Promised \u00a0Land), it also explicitly indicates that preferences will be taken into \u00a0consideration. Moreover, unlike the \u201cSkills Inventory,\u201d this form asks \u00a0applicants to describe not only what they have done, but also what they \u00a0hope to do. More than two pages long, the form provides applicants with \u00a0a list of items related to tasks that would contribute to the building and \u00a0maintenance of Jonestown, and it solicits their interest in conducting \u00a0labor associated with each item (preferred, willing, unwilling), as well as \u00a0their experience with tasks associated with each item (much exp., some \u00a0exp., no exp.). Photo 4, Promised Land Work Preference Excerpt depicts \u00a0the first page of the PLWP. Of the forms available to Peoples \u00a0Temple members\u2014and here I mean all forms available to members, \u00a0not just those related to emigration to the Promised Land\u2014this one \u00a0stands out for its relative flexibility and the diversity of responses it \u00a0elicited.<\/p>\n In reviewing completed forms in the records, one can see members \u00a0negotiate the social space opened up by the PLWP in different ways. It is \u00a0clear that some members had assistance when completing the form. This \u00a0is evident in the notes written on some of the forms that refer to the \u00a0applicants in the third person. For instance, one hand-written annotation \u00a0reads, \u201cShe wants to work with children.\u201d Some applicants express \u00a0a preference to conduct work with which they already have experience. \u00a0One member with a background in construction, for example, expressed \u00a0a desire to do \u201cfence building\u201d and \u201cpainting.\u201d Others attempted to carve \u00a0out a different identity for themselves or, perhaps, better position \u00a0themselves as the kind of worker needed in the Promised Land. Two \u00a0examples illustrate this: the applicant with experience as a nurse\u2019s aide \u00a0who expressed a desire to do electrical work and ended up doing that; \u00a0and the applicant with experience as a teacher\u2019s aide and office work \u00a0who indicated that she wanted \u201cto build.\u201d<\/p>\n The ways of completing the PLWP form are also suggestive. Some \u00a0people checked each and every box containing relevant information, \u00a0sometimes stopping to cross out an initial checkmark and offer a revised \u00a0response. This shows care and intention in completing the form, though \u00a0we cannot know what that intention was. Other applicants marked only \u00a0those things with which they had experience and indicated their willingness\u2014 or not\u2014to continue with that work, leaving the rest of the items \u00a0blank. Of course, there are members who, once in the Promised Land, \u00a0ended up doing what they did not want to do (and this does not include \u00a0agricultural work, at which everyone took a turn).[54]<\/a> Here, I think mainly \u00a0of the members with office experience who indicated a desire to do \u00a0something other than \u201csecretarial\u201d work and who ended up, according \u00a0to Temple records, in a letter-writing capacity.<\/p>\n The purpose of this analysis is not to suggest that there is a direct \u00a0correlation between what people desired and what they ended up doing. \u00a0However, the analysis does demonstrate that the organization designed \u00a0an instance of a genre that afforded members the opportunity to express \u00a0an individual desire and that members availed themselves of that opportunity. \u00a0There is reason to believe that people could have viewed the \u00a0invitation to express preferences as genuine. Although the Promised \u00a0Land offered a distinct opportunity for transformation, the chance to \u00a0change one\u2019s sense of self through learning was part of the Temple culture. \u00a0Eugene Smith, reflecting on his time in Peoples Temple, describes \u00a0the mentorship he received from others. Through this mentorship, he \u00a0learned about music, printing, and photography. He characterizes the \u00a0easy way that practical knowledge was shared, sometimes with a dose of \u00a0humor:<\/p>\n People were free with their knowledge. If you wanted to go into \u00a0mechanics and get greasy, go down to the garage. The mechanics were an \u00a0off bunch. They would make their coffee and they\u2019d stir it with a wrench. \u00a0That was their thing, \u201cC\u2019mon in, get some of this good coffee.\u201d[55]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The data gathered though this application effort was massive. We see \u00a0the community attempt to wrangle information like this in other texts, \u00a0including a lengthy handwritten summary of the kind of information \u00a0collected in the PLWP and the \u201cSkills Inventory.\u201d This summary, used \u00a0onsite in Guyana, organizes people by their assigned work role in the \u00a0community, indicated by a code. Resident names are listed, and many \u00a0are accompanied by a brief write-up of skills and work experience.[56]<\/a> One \u00a0member\u2019s entry reads: \u201cAgriculture (banana grower), Lumberjack, \u00a0Cement finishing, Carpentry, Industrial Painter, Hunter, Intensive farming, \u00a0Hay Bailer [sic], Peanut Thrasher, high school graduate, age 53.\u201d \u00a0Many of these experiences could have been completed while in Guyana, \u00a0though given the age of the member, it is likely that he brought previous \u00a0experience with him. Another entry, this one for a 38-year-old resident, \u00a0contains information that clearly includes experience from outside of \u00a0the agricultural community: \u201cfood dietician 5 yrs, shoe factory, pillow & \u00a0chair factory. Beauty shop, shampooing, dressing hair, worked bar serving \u00a0food & drink, went to school for [unreadable], cashier, convalescent \u00a0sanatorium maid, laundry, high school graduate.\u201d[57]<\/a><\/p>\n In tracing the data through people\u2019s stories and through Temple \u00a0records, we do know that transformations in work identity occurred. It \u00a0makes sense that organizing people\u2019s labor roles would occupy so much \u00a0of the Temple\u2019s efforts. As Rebecca Moore aptly points out, it would take \u00a0a lot of skilled labor to support the needs of the community. In addition, \u00a0she observes that relocating to the Promised Land offered the opportunity \u00a0for members to adjust their job status, either by taking on a role that \u00a0would typically be viewed as a promotion, such as being assigned to \u00a0a managerial role without past experience or to a role that might be \u00a0viewed as a \u201cstep down the career ladder.\u201d[58]<\/a> As noted above, some \u00a0people\u2019s status remained the same, despite what seems to be (in some \u00a0cases) efforts to shift roles. Linking one\u2019s identity with one\u2019s work role in \u00a0the Promised Land was part of the tactics Jones used as part of the \u00a0emigration process, broadly defined. Odell Rhodes recalls the gist of \u00a0Jones\u2019 \u201cpitch\u201d:<\/p>\n [H]e kept saying that over there a person wasn\u2019t judged by the color of \u00a0his skin or the way he talked, or who his parents were. Over there, you \u00a0could be anything you wanted to be, do any type of work you wanted, \u00a0make yourself the kind of person you always wanted to be\u2014anything, just \u00a0so long as you were working to help your brothers and sisters, that was all \u00a0anyone was judged on over there.[59]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n If the Promised Land offered a place to reinvent oneself in a community \u00a0that valued, above all, one\u2019s contributions to the cause, the textual tools \u00a0with which members engaged offered one means through which they \u00a0could attempt to enact that reinvention.<\/p>\n The network of texts relevant to emigration also included those that \u00a0functioned as consent documents; the only self-determination these \u00a0provide to members is in the decision to sign them or not. One example \u00a0of this is the form for \u201cRelease of Medical Records and X-Rays and Lab \u00a0Work,\u201d which gave permission for the relevant medical paperwork to be \u00a0sent to Dr. Larry Schacht.[60]<\/a> But the consent genres often contained \u00a0elements of assent<\/em>, too, and these aspects were unique to the specific \u00a0purposes of the Temple. For instance, embedded in a release form that \u00a0absolved the Temple of responsibility for \u201cany and all liability, claims, \u00a0causes and causes of action arising out of and relating to\u201d travel to and \u00a0from sites in the United States and foreign countries, we find a passage \u00a0that acknowledged that the applicant has consented to the trip and has \u00a0assented\u2014that is, \u201cpromised\u201d\u2014to \u201cwork diligently and in full cooperation \u00a0with all leadership appointed by [Jim Jones] and to keep \u00a0a cheerful and constructive attitude at all times.\u201d[61]<\/a> Several versions of \u00a0the release document exist in the records, suggesting its development \u00a0over time in response to the organization\u2019s needs.<\/p>\n At times, instances of consent\/assent genres demonstrate quite \u00a0forcefully Jones\u2019 preoccupation with control. One short form, about \u00a0a half page in length, is simply titled \u201cStatement.\u201d It contains a statement \u00a0of willingness to travel and of belief in the \u201caims and reasons for this \u00a0mission,\u201d a commitment to \u201cwork diligently and to be an integral part of \u00a0this missionary program,\u201d and a \u201cpledge without reservation\u201d of \u201ceternal \u00a0loyalty to Pastor Jim Jones and to the Peoples Temple.\u201d It ends with \u00a0positive words about Jones\u2019 character and thanks \u201cfor all he has done \u00a0for me.\u201d The bottom of the form contains lines for the member\u2019s signature \u00a0and date of signing. There is no legal aspect to this text\u2014this is \u00a0simply a statement of rededication to the cause and to Jones. Yet, it is \u00a0presented with the formality of a legal text; for instance, this could have \u00a0been done verbally\u2014as a more traditional pledge\u2014instead of being \u00a0offered as a document requiring a signature. In keeping with the \u00a0Temple\u2019s tradition of using written texts as a way to make personal information \u00a0part of the organizational record, some members were asked to \u00a0sign the statement. This form is not as common as are other forms, and so \u00a0one has to wonder whether it was used early on (one of the completed \u00a0samples was dated 12 June 1974) and then found to be redundant or \u00a0unnecessary as the community progressed. The release form (described \u00a0above) appears with much more frequency in the records and covers in \u00a0spirit some of the same ideas regarding commitment to the Temple.<\/p>\n Packing and Travel (or, What We Need is a List!) \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Group travel triggered a whole host of texts, many of them taking the \u00a0form of a list. The level of organization required to move people to \u00a0Guyana, especially beginning in late summer of 1977 when the pace \u00a0picked up substantially, relied on textual practices. The stakes were higher \u00a0here, as some of the textual labor had audiences outside of the \u00a0Temple, and failure to succeed in meeting the audience\u2019s needs would \u00a0affect Temple operations\u2014either in preventing the movement of members \u00a0or in preventing much-needed financial support, such as that provided \u00a0by SSA checks, from reaching members in Guyana.<\/p>\n Figure 3: Activity System: Packing for and Travel to the Promised Land depicts \u00a0some of the textual tools in this activity system.\u00a0In terms of getting a sense of what the process of emigrating might be \u00a0like, the lists created to facilitate and ease travel are the most interesting. \u00a0These were prepared for various audiences and served a number of \u00a0needs. There were packing lists that told \u00b4emigr\u00b4es what to bring and what \u00a0not to bring (NO GUM OR CANDY, one intones in the top left margin). \u00a0There were master lists that referred to emigration paperwork (a notecard \u00a0sized \u201cTrip Checklist\u201d served this role) and to other lists (item #3 on \u00a0the \u201cChecklist for Anyone Going Over\u201d is \u201cRevised clothes list,\u201d a list that \u00a0was adjusted several times as the organization learned to better manage \u00a0resources). The list titled \u201cInstructions for Packing to Go Over\u201d provides \u00a0a catalog of rules that guided members\u2019 packing processes. Item #2 on \u00a0this inventory explains that members can take more personal items with \u00a0them than can fit into their three pieces of luggage, but that these items \u00a0\u201cwill have to go by surface and will not reach you for at least two months.\u201d \u00a0Another item on this list cautions travelers against transporting caffeinebased \u00a0drugs considered to be over-the-counter stateside but prescription \u00a0\u201cin the P.L.\u201d This item in particular suggests a shift in culture; what \u00a0might have been normal in the United States (taking caffeine in pill \u00a0form) would be viewed differently in the Promised Land. Sometimes the \u00a0lists contain delightful moments, such as this item on the \u201cChecklist of \u00a0Additional Preparations,\u201d which takes as its audience one of the people \u00a0who will facilitate a group departure: \u201cSee that youngsters are washed \u00a0and dressed.\u201d[62]<\/a><\/p>\n The care taken to ease the process by legitimizing travelers, who, due \u00a0to various factors might experience discrimination or unease when traveling, \u00a0is also noteworthy. Internal Temple memos suggest that travelers\u2019 \u00a0nerves did need to be calmed. Letters of introduction were prepared for \u00a0travelers. One sample letter in the records was addressed to Pan Am \u00a0staff\u2014Pan Am being the airline used by the Temple for emigration. \u00a0Sample letters prepared for the airlines introduce the traveler (\u201cPlease \u00a0permit me to introduce . . . \u201d), emphasize the nature of the organization \u00a0and the reason for travel the business provided to Pan Am by Peoples \u00a0Temple (\u201cour members fly Pan Am and we ship air freight by Pan Am \u00a0regularly\u201d), and include a request to provide the \u201cfullest cooperation\u201d \u00a0with the traveler.[63]<\/a> Letters to Guyanese officials served a similar purpose. \u00a0These letters were typewritten on Peoples Temple letterhead and were \u00a0signed by \u201cMichael J. Prokes, Associate Minister.\u201d Using textual tools \u00a0such as these formal letters of introduction, the Temple extended its \u00a0organizational stature to individual travelers who on their own might not \u00a0have carried that stature. Travelers were given directions that undoubtedly \u00a0were designed to raise their public credibility. Among the instructions \u00a0provided in \u201cInstructions for Packing to Go Over,\u201d men were \u00a0advised to \u201chave their hair cut or worked into French braids before \u00a0going over.\u201d[64]<\/a><\/p>\n External audiences were attended to in additional ways. Members \u00a0sent personal letters to non-member acquaintances or family members \u00a0ahead of travel. These were handwritten. Although they vary in content, \u00a0the personal letters contain a statement about upcoming travel to the \u00a0agricultural mission. The following excerpt was taken from one of the \u00a0letters and is representative of the kind of language used:<\/p>\n [W]e are going with our pastor and some of the members to South \u00a0America, [sic] we have an agriculture mission there, some of the members \u00a0have been there for several months. I will write you a letter from \u00a0there giving you my address, as I expect to be gone for several months. \u00a0We are both well and hope you are the same.[65]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Another member wrote,<\/p>\n I am going to take a trip with our church and I will be gone for several \u00a0months. I am going to our mission field. I will write to you when I get \u00a0there and I will send you the address so you can write me. I never \u00a0dreamed of having a chance like this at my old age (Ha Ha).[66]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Because of the similarity across samples, it is clear that although seeming \u00a0to be a \u201cpersonal\u201d letter, these were, in fact, dual-natured and served \u00a0personal and organizational ends. They were undoubtedly copied from \u00a0templates developed as boiler-plate messages.<\/p>\n CONCLUSION<\/strong><\/p>\n As we examine the available documentation concerning Peoples \u00a0Temple, we can perceive a sense of optimism in the pages of the texts \u00a0the group composed. In some cases, the optimism is obvious; in other \u00a0cases, we can infer optimism and hope in the group\u2019s industriousness, \u00a0reflected on the pages of the everyday texts they composed\u2014activity \u00a0aimed at creating a new world and transformed selves that in its own \u00a0way marks the group as very decidedly American. John R. Hall notes that \u00a0Peoples Temple marked the end of \u201cany interest in utopian reconstruction \u00a0in American society,\u201d despite the fact that the problems utopian \u00a0communities aimed to remedy are still with us today.[67]<\/a> Yet, between the \u00a0time that Hall offered those words and the present, society seems to have \u00a0witnessed events that make utopian reconstruction more desirable, perhaps \u00a0even necessary. We are barreling toward an uncertain future under \u00a0the specter of vast environmental destruction, a resurgence of white \u00a0supremacy in the United States, and a return of fears about nuclear war. \u00a0Members of Peoples Temple confronted similar issues, albeit in a different \u00a0technological context. Many people find themselves asking, How \u00a0then should we live? Just as failures can instruct, so can successes, and \u00a0there are practical lessons to be learned from examining the labor of the \u00a0group that created Peoples Temple Agricultural Project. One principle \u00a0we can infer from Peoples Temple\u2019s efforts is that building a successful \u00a0organization requires its members to harness the social and rhetorical \u00a0power offered by genres. Mundane genres matter because they mediate \u00a0goal-directed activity within systems. Moreover, textual tools afford certain \u00a0actions and hinder others. Understanding this can make organizations \u00a0more effective and can give individual members agency within \u00a0those organizations.<\/p>\n When we look closely at the coordination afforded by \u201chomely\u201d genres, \u00a0we begin to understand why activity theorists put textual tools on an \u00a0equal footing with things we traditionally think of as tools, such as hammers \u00a0and saws. In addition, we see how activity theory might be valuable \u00a0for examining the work that takes place in new religious movements \u00a0because it asks us to examine the means through which people achieve \u00a0objectives. Moreover, such an analysis highlights the means, such as the \u00a0use of routine genres, that researchers and participants in organizations \u00a0might typically take for granted. In the case of Peoples Temple in particular, \u00a0we can begin to understand the fundamental role that textual \u00a0tools played in mediating its efforts to send members over to the \u00a0Promised Land. In addition, activity theory offers one framework for \u00a0enacting Feltmate\u2019s call to produce research from a social possibilities \u00a0perspective. While activity theory is not ideologically motivated by \u201csocial \u00a0possibilities\u201d per se, its focus on goal-directed, tool-mediated activity \u00a0within systems\u2014as it occurs from the subjects\u2019 viewpoints\u2014nevertheless \u00a0allows us to understand the social possibilities of organizations and \u00a0aspirations of individuals within those organizations.<\/p>\n I would like to thank the reviewers and editors for their timely, insightful, and \u00a0helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. In addition, I extend thanks to \u00a0the research librarians at the California Historical Society for generously sharing \u00a0their knowledge of the Peoples Temple collection. This research was funded through \u00a0generous support provided by Montana Tech of the University of Montana and the \u00a0University of California, Santa Cruz.<\/em><\/p>\n ENDNOTES<\/strong><\/p>\n [1]<\/a> Leigh Fondakowski, Stories from Jonestown<\/em> (Minneapolis: University of \u00a0Minnesota Press, 2013), 197.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> John Winthrop, \u201cA Modell of Christian Charity\u201d (1630), Collections of the \u00a0Massachusetts Historical Society, at https:\/\/history.hanover.edu\/texts\/ \u00a0winthmod.html.<\/p>\n [3]<\/a> Mary Sawyer, \u201cThe Church in Peoples Temple,\u201d in Peoples Temple and Black \u00a0Religion in America<\/em>, ed. Rebecca Moore, Anthony B. Pinn, and Mary R. Sawyer \u00a0(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004), 167.<\/p>\n [4]<\/a> 8 October 1973, Minutes of the Board of Directors, Peoples Temple Records, \u00a0MS 3800, California Historical Society.<\/p>\n [5]<\/a> Readers can view a copy of the minutes with the Resolution, as well as many \u00a0other primary sources at Alternative Considerations of Peoples Temple and \u00a0Jonestown, http:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/, last modified 2 July 2018.<\/p>\n [6]<\/a> The diversity of names used to refer to the community in Guyana reflects the \u00a0multiple identity of Peoples Temple, both secular and religious.<\/p>\n [7]<\/a> Rebecca Moore, \u201cIs the Canon on Jonestown Closed?,\u201d Nova Religio<\/em> 4, no. 1 \u00a0(2000): 7\u201327.<\/p>\n [8]<\/a> David Feltmate, \u201cRethinking New Religious Movements Beyond a Social \u00a0Problems Paradigm,\u201d Nova Religio<\/em> 20, no. 2 (2016): 84.<\/p>\n [9]<\/a> Feltmate, \u201cRethinking New Religious Movements,\u201d 91.<\/p>\n [10]<\/a> Feltmate, \u201cRethinking New Religious Movements,\u201d 95.<\/p>\n [11]<\/a> See, for example: Rebecca Moore, Understanding Jonestown and Peoples Temple<\/em>\u00a0(Westport, CT: Praeger, 2009), 1\u20138 and John R. Hall, Gone from The Promised \u00a0Land: Jonestown in American Cultural History<\/em>, 2nd edition (New Brunswick: \u00a0Transaction, 2004). Many other scholars have discussed this issue, and other \u00a0questions related to the problematic nature of popular conceptions about \u00a0Jonestown\u2014far too many to list here.<\/p>\n [12]<\/a> This organizational structure changed over time. Most notable is the dissolution \u00a0of the Planning Commission. The work of this group was taken over by \u00a0administrative structures new to the agricultural project. See \u201cPlanning \u00a0Commission Reorganized,\u201d Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and \u00a0Peoples Temple, http:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=35917, last modified 23 \u00a0May 2014.<\/p>\n [13]<\/a> Fondakowski, Stories from Jonestown<\/em>, 267.<\/p>\n [14]<\/a> This is addressed in separate scholarly works by Mary McCormick Maaga,\u00a0Hearing the Voices of Jonestown: Putting a Human Face on an American Tragedy<\/em> \u00a0(Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1998), 6; Rebecca Moore and John Hall, \u00a0previously cited, but also through accounts of the Temple provided by former \u00a0members, including those who, looking back, are highly critical of the group. \u00a0For one example, see Janet Shular\u2019s contributions to Leigh Fondakowski\u2019s Stories \u00a0from Jonestown<\/em>.<\/p>\n [15]<\/a> Subduing the jungle landscape alone was challenging. Hyacinth Thrash, \u00a0a former member who completed an oral history of her time with Peoples \u00a0Temple, described the perseverance of the jungle plant life: \u201cGrass and weeds \u00a0grew so fast, you\u2019d cut them down and two or three days later they\u2019d be tall as you \u00a0again.\u201d Catherine Thrash and Marian Kleinsasser Towne, The Onliest One Alive: \u00a0Surviving Jonestown, Guyana<\/em> (Indianapolis: M. K. Towne, 1995), 86.<\/p>\n [16]<\/a> Maaga, Hearing the Voices of Jonestown<\/em>, 6.<\/p>\n [17]<\/a> Rebecca Moore, The Jonestown Letters: Correspondence of the Moore Family \u00a01970\u20131985<\/em> (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1986), 240.<\/p>\n [18]<\/a> Aleksei Leont\u2019ev, Activity, Consciousness, and Personality<\/em>, trans. Marie J. Hall\u00a0(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1978); Alexander Luria, Cognitive \u00a0Development: Its Cultural and Social Foundations (Cambridge, MA: Harvard \u00a0University Press, 1976); Yrjo Engestro\u00a8m, \u201cLearning by Expanding: An Activity- Theoretical Approach to Developmental Research,\u201d The Laboratory of \u00a0Comparative Human Cognition, at http:\/\/lchc.ucsd.edu\/mca\/Paper\/ \u00a0Engestrom\/Learning-by-Expanding.pdf, accessed 8 September 2017; Lev S. \u00a0Vygotsky, Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes<\/em> \u00a0(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978).<\/p>\n [19]<\/a> Bonnie Nardi, \u201cActivity Theory and Human-Computer Interaction,\u201d in \u00a0Context and Consciousness: Activity Theory and Human-Computer Interaction<\/em>, ed. \u00a0Bonnie Nardi (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996), 4.<\/p>\n [20]<\/a> Kari Kuutti, \u201cActivity Theory as a Potential Framework for Human-Computer \u00a0Interaction Research,\u201d in Context and Consciousness: Activity Theory and Human- \u00a0Computer Interaction,<\/em> ed. Bonnie Nardi (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996), 26.<\/p>\n [21]<\/a> David Russell, \u201cRethinking Genre in School and Society: An Activity Theory \u00a0Analysis,\u201d Written Communication<\/em>14, no. 4 (October 1997): 508\u20139.<\/p>\n [22]<\/a> Maryan Schall, \u201cA Communication-Rules Approach to Organizational \u00a0Culture,\u201d Administrative Science Quarterly<\/em>28, no. 4 (December 1983): 560.<\/p>\n [23]<\/a> Readers can find selections from the CHS Peoples Temple collection in Dear\u00a0People: Remembering Jonestown<\/em>, ed. Denice Stephenson (San Francisco: California \u00a0Historical Society Press and Berkeley: Heyday Books, 2005). Additional primary \u00a0source materials are available online at Alternative Considerations of Jonestown \u00a0and Peoples Temple, http:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=13052, last modified \u00a025 February 2018.<\/p>\n [24]<\/a> Fielding M. McGehee III, \u201cAttempting to Document the Peoples Temple \u00a0Story: The Existence and Disappearance of Government Records,\u201d Alternative \u00a0Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple, http:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/? \u00a0page_id=16577, last modified 21 March 2014.<\/p>\n [25]<\/a> Carolyn R. Miller, \u201cGenre as Social Action,\u201d Quarterly Journal of Speech<\/em> 70, no. 2 \u00a0(1984): 155. The term \u201chomely discourse\u201d is a pointed way of acknowledging the \u00a0disdain with which some scholars regarded non-literary or non-scholarly forms \u00a0of writing.<\/p>\n [26]<\/a> Anis S. Bawarshi and Mary Jo Reiff, Genre: An Introduction to History, Theory, \u00a0Research, and Pedagogy <\/em>(West Lafayette, IN: Parlor Press, 2010), 212.<\/p>\n [27]<\/a> Miller, \u201cGenre as Social Action,\u201d 154.<\/p>\n [28]<\/a> Charles Bazerman, \u201cWhat Do Sociocultural Studies of Writing Tell us about \u00a0Learning to Write?\u201d in Handbook of Writing Research<\/em>, 2nd edition, ed. Charles \u00a0MacArthur, Steve Graham and Jill Fitzgerald (New York: Guilford, 2016), 18.<\/p>\n [29]<\/a> Bawarshi and Reiff, Genre, 95.<\/p>\n [30]<\/a> Charles Bazerman, \u201cSpeech Acts, Genres, and Activity Systems,\u201d in What \u00a0Writing Does and How It Does It<\/em>, ed. Charles Bazerman and Paul Prior \u00a0(Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2004), 317.<\/p>\n [31]<\/a> Bazerman, \u201cWhat Do Sociocultural Studies of Writing Tell Us,\u201d 11.<\/p>\n [32]<\/a> Miller, \u201cGenre as Social Action,\u201d 163.<\/p>\n [33]<\/a> Moore, Understanding Jonestown and Peoples Temple<\/em>, 45.<\/p>\n [34]<\/a> In fact, a comprehensive analysis of the textual work of the Temple is called \u00a0for. The sheer power of the group harnessed through its textual work is relevant \u00a0to the group\u2019s general history, and such an analysis would also be instructive \u00a0about activist organizational practices in the 1960s and 1970s.<\/p>\n [35]<\/a> Moore, Understanding Jonestown and Peoples Temple<\/em>, 42\u201344.<\/p>\n [36]<\/a> Hall, Gone from The Promised Land<\/em>, 192.<\/p>\n [37]<\/a> Fondakowski, Stories from Jonestown<\/em>, 197.<\/p>\n [38]<\/a> Moore, Understanding Jonestown and Peoples Temple, 46.<\/p>\n [39]<\/a> See, for example, the Government of Guyana Documents available for viewing \u00a0at Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple, http:\/\/ \u00a0jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=13225. These sample documents only scratch \u00a0the surface. The records contain additional texts, many of them letters written \u00a0to various government officials and community members, used to establish the \u00a0agricultural community and ensure its ability to operate.<\/p>\n [40]<\/a> For a good discussion of Peoples Temple membership, see Chapter 1 of \u00a0Maaga, Hearing the Voices of Jonestown<\/em>, 1\u201313. For an analysis of the demographics \u00a0of those at the Guyana site, see Rebecca Moore, \u201cAn Update on the \u00a0Demographics of Jonestown,\u201d Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and \u00a0Peoples Temple, http:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=70495, last modified \u00a021 June 2018.<\/p>\n [41]<\/a> John Nordheimer, \u201cI Never Once Thought He Was Crazy,\u201d New York Times<\/em>, 27 \u00a0November 1978, http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1978\/11\/27\/archives\/i-never-oncethought- he-was-crazy-claims-of-superiority-unlimited.html.<\/p>\n [42]<\/a> Ethan Feinsod, Awake in a Nightmare: Jonestown, the Only Eyewitness<\/em> (New York: \u00a0W.W. Norton, 1981), 92.<\/p>\n [43]<\/a> Fondakowski, Stories from Jonestown<\/em>, 176.<\/p>\n [44]<\/a> Fondakowski, Stories from Jonestown<\/em>, 160.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Shearer-1-300x164.png\")
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