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John Penley Papers

Call Number

TAM.501

Date

circa 1980-2013, inclusive

Creator

Penley, John, 1952- (Role: Donor)

Extent

15.5 Linear Feet in 6 record cartons, 1 manuscript box, 1 oversize flat box, 9 photograph boxes, and 10 negative boxes

Language of Materials

Materials are in English

Abstract

John Penley is a photographer and grassroots political activist associated with the squatters' rights movement and housing protests of the 1980s and 1990s in New York City's East Village and Lower East Side. The collection primarily consists of Penley's photographic materials (mainly prints and negatives) dating mostly from the 1990s that document gentrification and protests relating to housing rights in the Lower East Side and throughout New York City. Other social issues addressed by Penley's photographs include AIDS and gay rights activism and activism against police brutality, the death penalty, and racial hate crimes and discrimination.

Biographical/Historical note

John Penley is a photographer and grassroots political activist associated with the squatters' rights movement and housing protests of the 1980s and 1990s in New York City's East Village and Lower East Side, as well as numerous other social causes. A former Navy serviceman, Penley took up photography as part of an effort to document the demonstrations, protests, and other political actions in which he took part, and in the process became a photojournalist. Hundreds of Penley's photographs have appeared in in publications including the New York Daily News, the New York Post, the New York Times, New York and Long Island Newsday, New York Magazine, The Villager, High Times Magazine, The Guardian, Art In America, WW 3 Illustrated, The Shadow, the East Village Eye, and many small political publications. They have also been distributed through press services such as United Press International and the Associated Press.

Arrangement note

This collection has been arranged into two series:
Series I: Papers, circa 1980-2010
Series II: Photographs, circa 1980-2013

Series I is organized alphabetically by folder title. Series II is physically arranged by format and intellectually arranged sequentially by an archivist-supplied alphanumeric code indicating a discrete event or photo shoot. For more information on this arrangement system, please refer to the Processing Information Note. The subseries John Penley 2013 Donation was included in series II to reflect additional material incorporated into the collection in 2013.

Scope and Contents note

The collection primarily consists of Penley's photographic materials (mainly prints and negatives) dating mostly from the 1990s that document gentrification and protests relating to housing rights in the Lower East Side and throughout New York City. Other social issues addressed by Penley's photographs include AIDS and gay rights activism and activism against police brutality, the death penalty, and racial hate crimes and discrimination. To a lesser extent, the collection also contains magazine and newspaper clippings that feature Penley's photographs, leaflets and handbills related to the squatters' rights movement, and legal documents concerning Penley's 1982 and 1987 arrests. An additional set of photographs taken 2009-2013 also contains images relating to life in the Lower East Side as well as Occupy Wall Street and protests in support of Chelsea Manning and Wikileaks.

Conditions Governing Access

Materials are open without restrictions.

Conditions Governing Use

Copyright (and related rights to publicity and privacy) to materials in this collection, created by John Penley, was not transferred to New York University. Permission to use materials must be secured from the copyright holder.

Preferred Citation note

Published citations should take the following form:

Identification of item, date; John Penley Papers; TAM 501; box number; folder number; Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Donated by John Penley in 2009; additional materials were donated in 2013. The accession numbers associated with these gifts are 2009.007, 2009.041, NPA.2009.004, NPA.2009.008, 2013.014, and 2013.019.

Custodial History

The archived website was migrated from the California Digital Library's Web Archiving Service to the Internet Archive's Archive-It Service in November 2015. The link to California Digital Library was removed in October 2017.

Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements

Advance notice is required for the use of computer records. Original physical digital media is restricted. Born-digital materials have not been transferred and may not be available to researchers. Researchers may request access copies. To request that material be transferred, or if you are unsure if material has been transferred, please contact tamiment.wagner@nyu.edu with the collection name, collection number, and a description of the item(s) requested. A staff member will respond to you with further information.

Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements

Due to technical or privacy issues, archived websites may not be exact copies of the original website at the time of the web crawl. Certain file types will not be captured dependent on how they are embedded in the site. Other parts of websites that the crawler has difficulty capturing includes Javascript, streaming content, database-driven content, and highly interactive content. Full-Text searches of archived websites are available at https://archive-it.org/organizations/567.

Separated Materials

Some personal photographs were returned to the donor.

Related Archival Materials note

Researchers interested in squatters' rights may also wish to consult the following collections at the Tamiment Library:
Squatters' Rights Collection: Fly Papers (TAM 363)
Squatters' Rights Collection: Jane Churchman Papers (TAM 313)
Squatters' Rights Collection: Jerry "The Peddler" Wade (TAM 366)
Squatters' Rights Collection: Kurt Reynertson Papers (TAM 335)
Squatters' Rights Collection: On Davis Papers (TAM 365)
Squatters' Rights Collection: Peter Spagnuolo Papers (TAM 336)
Squatters' Rights Collection: Roland Politi Papers (TAM 364)

Collection processed by

Tamiment staff, 2009 (papers only). Photographic materials processed by Rachel Schimke, Rachel Searcy, and Nicole Greenhouse (incorporating description by Erika Gottfried, 2009) in March 2013.

About this Guide

This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2023-08-20 16:34:31 -0400.
Using Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language: Finding aid is in English

Processing Information note

In 2009, a group of color slides from which images were selected to be displayed in the Tamiment Library's flickr exhibit of John Penley's images were rehoused into paper sleeves or envelopes and placed in three record cartons. John Penley wrote descriptions of the events or subjects on the majority of the sleeves. Most of the sleeves in this group are un-numbered except for those shoots from which images drawn for the flickr exhibit. Those shoots have numbers written on their sleeves and these same shoot numbers are displayed with the captions for the images from them in the flickr exhibit. Researchers should note that additional images from the same shoots and events found in the flickr exhibit may also be found in shoots with similar captions and dates throughout the rest of the collection.

In 2013, the remaining photographic materials in the collection were removed from their original housing and rehoused in archival quality boxes, folders, and sleeves. John Penley provided description for much of the collection during this rehousing, and his descriptions, which often include subjective and evaluative information, constitute the folder-level titles in Series II of the collection. However, researchers should note that not all of the collection was described during this process.

Photographs and negatives from discrete events or subjects were originally housed together in their own envelopes or other containers in several record cartons. The archivists assigned each envelope or other container a sequential three-digit number, followed by either the suffix "-P" for prints or suffix "-N" for negatives. For example, negatives from an original envelope might be assigned the number "001-N" and any prints from that same envelope would be assigned the number "001-P." Standard-size photographs were rehoused in photograph boxes and were separated by tabs with the identifying number and suffix written on them. Oversize photographs were rehoused in archival folders and placed in record cartons, with the identifying number and suffix written on the folders. Negatives were rehoused in paper sleeves and placed in negative boxes, with the identifying number and suffix written on the sleeves.

When only prints or only negatives were housed within their own envelope or other container, the materials were assigned their own number and suffix, without a corresponding number for the other photographic format. For example, if any envelope contained only negatives and no prints, the negatives might be assigned the number "002-N," but "002-P" would not exist, which explains why there are gaps in the numbering within the record cartons and photograph and negative boxes.

Photographs and negatives which were loose in the original record cartons (not housed in their own envelopes or other containers) were assigned their own number using the same numbering system, but also include the following in brackets: "[Loose from box X]" (with "box X" indicating the original record carton number).

Any descriptive information written on the original envelopes or containers was retained. The archivists either wrote this information on the dividing tabs, folders, or sleeves or photocopied or cut out the information from the original envelope and placed the clipping within the folders or in front of the dividing tab or sleeve.

Slides have been removed from their original containers and rehoused in archival quality slide boxes. Slides have been numbered using the same alphanumeric numbering system as the prints and negatives (001-S, 002-S, etc.) and tabs have been used within each slide box to indicate the original groupings of the slides. The numbering for the slides is separate from the numbering for the other photographic materials; that is, the numbers from the slides' alphanumeric codes do not correlate to the numbering used for the prints and negatives (the slides that comprise 001-S are not from the same shoot as 001-N and 001-P).

John Penley's papers and photographs were initially established as separate collections: the John Penley Photographs (PHOTOS 268) and the John Penley Papers (TAM 501). In 2013, the photograph collection was incorporated into the paper collection, forming the John Penley Photographs and Papers (TAM 501).

In 2014, the archived website was added as Series III.

Revisions to this Guide

September 2020: Updated by Anna Bjornsson McCormick to correctly identify Chelsea Manning
August 2021: Edited by Anna Bjornsson McCormick to reflect updated agent record

Repository

Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives
Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives
Elmer Holmes Bobst Library
70 Washington Square South
2nd Floor
New York, NY 10012