Cindy Sheehan Papers
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Abstract
Cindy Sheehan (b. 1957) is an activist, author, former congressional candidate for California's 8th District, and former gubernatorial candidate for the state of California. The Cindy Sheehan Papers record Sheehan's involvement in the post September 11, 2011 anti-war peace movement, the Gold Star Families for Peace, Camp Casey, her 2008 congressional campaign, and her 2014 gubernatorial campaign. The collection consists of Cindy Sheehan's notebooks; newspaper clippings about Sheehan's anti-war efforts and the Iraq War; copies of her own monographs; photographs from protests, Camp Casey, and her gubernatorial election; as well as artifacts such as campaign pins and protest banners. The collection also includes video and audio memorials for her deceased son (U.S. Army Specialist Casey Sheehan), protest and election brochures, anti-war posters, magazines detailing Sheehan's political activities, as well as correspondence to Sheehan, the Gold Star Families for Peace, and Camp Casey.
Biographical Note
Cindy Sheehan (b. 1957) is an activist, author, former congressional candidate for California's 8th District, and former gubernatorial candidate for the state of California. Sheehan's anti-war activism stems from the death of her eldest son, U.S. Army Specialist Casey Austin Sheehan (1979 - 2004), who was killed in combat during the Iraq War. In 2005, Sheehan garnered national and international media attention when she established an anti-war encampment, later named Camp Casey, outside of President George W. Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas. Camp Casey existed for five weeks, attracting the voices and physical presence of supporters and detractors alike.
Sheehan is also a founding member of the Gold Star Families for Peace. Established in 2005, this organization is an affilite of Military Families Speak Out and supports families whose loved ones were killed in action during the Iraq War. In addition to her activism, Sheehan has written several books --Dear President Bush,Peace Mom,Not One More Mother's Child,I Left My Marbles in San Francisco: The Scandal of Federal Electoral Politricks, and The Obama Files: Chronicles of an Award-Winning War Criminal-- all of which discuss her political views as a part of her anti-war campaigning.
In 2008, Cindy Sheehan ran against Nancy Pelosi for a seat in Congress, but was unsuccessful, having received only 16% of votes. In 2012, she was selected as the Vice Presidential nominee for the Peace and Freedom Party. In 2014, Sheehan participated in California's gubernatorial election and lost having only received 1.2% of the statewide vote.
Starting in 2009, Sheehan began hosting a weekly radio show where she interviewed individuals including Hugo Chavez and Howard Zinn. Sheehan also maintains a blog called "Cindy's Soapbox."
Arrangement
Materials in this collection have been grouped together thematically and then arranged alphabetically.
Scope and Contents
The Cindy Sheehan Papers record Sheehan's involvement in the post September 11, 2011 anti-war peace movement, the Gold Star Families for Peace, Camp Casey, her 2008 congressional campaign, and her 2014 California gubernatorial campaign.
Cindy Sheehan's involvement in the post September 11, 2011 anti-war peace movement roughly spanned from 2004 to 2016. The collection includes personal notes from Sheehan's anti-war activism; photographs of her participation in peace protests; a video recording documenting her protest near President George W. Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas; and letters of support from fellow anti-war protests. The collection also contains letters sent to the Gold Star Families for Peace, Camp Casey, and official White House correspondence sent to the Sheehans after their son, U.S. Army Specialist Casey Sheehan, was killed by enemy action during the Iraq War, as well as an audio memorial for Casey Sheehan.
Published versions of Sheehan's books Dear President Bush, Peace Mom, Not One More Mother's Child, I Left My Marbles in San Francisco: The Scandal of Federal Electoral Politricks, and The Obama Files: Chronicles of an Award-Winning War Criminal are included within the collection.
The Cindy Sheehan Papers document Sheehan's 2008 congressional campaign in the form of flyers and notebooks. Her 2014 California gubernatorial campaign is documented in the form of sample voter ballots, voter information packets, photographs, brochures, official documents, flyers, campaign materials, as well as correspondence.
The collection also includes a blog containing clips from news shows, articles, and interviews relating to issues of war, independence, and government, both in the United States and abroad. The blog consists of entries dating from 2009 to the present.
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Conditions Governing Access
Box 11 contains sensitive financial documents and materials protected under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) that are restricted. The electronic file "Correspondence - Lori Ann Zarlenga -- Medical Records" contains material protected under HIPAA and is also restricted. The remaining materials in the collection are open without restrictions.
Conditions Governing Use
Any rights (including copyright and related rights to publicity and privacy) held by Cindy Sheehan, the creator of this collection, were relinquished and transferred to the public domain in 2016 by Cindy Sheehan. These materials are governed by a Creative Commons CC0 license, which permits publication and reproduction of materials accompanied by full attribution. See, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/.
Preferred Citation
Identification of item, date; Cindy Sheehan Papers; TAM 715; box number; folder number; Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University.
To cite the archived website in this collection: Identification of item, date; Cindy Sheehan Papers; TAM 715; Wayback URL; Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Donated by Cindy Sheehan in 2016. The accession number associated with this gift is 2018.088.
http://cindysheehanssoapbox.blogspot.com/ was initially selected by curators and captured through the use of Archive-it in 2017. The accession number associated with this website is 2017.029. Archive-It uses web crawling technology to capture websites at a scheduled time and displays only an archived copy, from the resulting WARC file, of the website. In 2020, https://cindysheehanssoapbox.podbean.com/ was added. The accession number associated with this URL is 2021.053. In 2022, https://cindysheehan.substack.com/ was added. The accession number associated with this URL is 2022.087.
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.
Take Down Policy
Archived websites are made accessible for purposes of education and research. NYU Libraries have given attribution to rights holders when possible; however, due to the nature of archival collections, we are not always able to identify this information.
If you hold the rights to materials in our archived websites that are unattributed, please let us know so that we may maintain accurate information about these materials.
If you are a rights holder and are concerned that you have found material on this website for which you have not granted permission (or is not covered by a copyright exception under US copyright laws), you may request the removal of the material from our site by submitting a notice, with the elements described below, to the special.collections@nyu.edu.
Please include the following in your notice: Identification of the material that you believe to be infringing and information sufficient to permit us to locate the material; your contact information, such as an address, telephone number, and email address; a statement that you are the owner, or authorized to act on behalf of the owner, of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed and that you have a good-faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; a statement that the information in the notification is accurate and made under penalty of perjury; and your physical or electronic signature. Upon receiving a notice that includes the details listed above, we will remove the allegedly infringing material from public view while we assess the issues identified in your notice.
Separated Materials
During processing, a large selection of commercially published books, DVDs, and CDs were removed from the collection. Several digital video files were also removed from the collection due to copyright.
About this Guide
Processing Information
At the time of accessioning, materials were placed in new acid-free folders and boxes. One notebook with mold was cleaned, and re-filed into Box 6. In 2021-2022, additional archived websites were added to the finding aid. In 2022-2023, content warnings in the scope and content note regarding misinformation and transphobia on her blog. In May 2023, crawling ceased on her websites.
During summer 2022, the Cindy Sheehan Papers were processed at the file level and related materials were grouped together. The collection was rehoused into acid-free folders and boxes. Some original titles were maintained, however, due to the vague description of most origintal titles, more specific titles were applied, when possible. During processing, duplicate materials were discarded and commercially published materials were removed from the collection.
New York University Libraries follow professional standards and best practices when imaging, ingesting, and processing born-digital material in order to maintain the integrity and authenticity of the content. 10 optical disks were forensically imaged using FTK Imager, Exact Audio Copy, and Isobusters Pro. After being analyzed by an archivist, 6 of the disks were eventually deaccessioned either due to copyright or lack of data on the disk.
File titles were reviewed by the processing archivist and when identified as restricted, these materials were physically separated and stored in a designated restricted box (Box 11). The electronic file associated with "Correspondence - Lori Ann Zarlenga -- Medical Records" contains material protected under HIPAA and was also restricted.
