Harrington was a Bureau of American Ethnology ethnologist involved in the study of over one hundred American tribes. His speciality was linguistics. Most of the material concerns California, southwestern, northwestern tribes and includes ethnological, archeological, historical notes; writings, correspondence, photographs, sound recordings, biological specimens, and other types of documents. Also of concern are general linguistics, sign language, writing systems, writing machines, and sound recordings machines. There is also some material on New World Spanish, Old World languages. In addition, there are many manuscripts of writings that Harrington sketched, partially completed, or even completed but never published. The latter group includes not only writings about anthropological subjects but also histories, ranging from a biography of Geronimo to material on the history of the typewriter. The collection incorporates material of Richard Lynch Garner, Matilda Coxe Stevenson, and others. In his field work, Harrington seems sometimes to have worked within fairly firm formats, this especially being true when he was "rehearing" material, that is in using an informant to verify and correct the work of other researchers. Often, however, the interviews with informants (and this seems to have been the case even with some "rehearings") seem to have been rather free form, for there is a considerable intertwining of subjects. Nevertheless, certain themes frequently appear in his work, including annotated vocabularies concerning flora and fauna and their use, topography, history and biography, kinship, cosmology (including tribal astronomy), religion and philosophy, names and observations concerning neighboring tribes, sex and age division, material culture, legends, and songs. The fullness of such materials seems to have been limited only by the time Harrington had to spend with a goup and the knowledge of his informants.

Collection consists of VHS videos from the Visual History of Anthropology Project. In 1984 Allan F. Burns, Russell Bernard and Charles Wagley, anthropologists in the Department of Anthropology, University of Florida, Gainesville, initiated a history of anthropology project consisting of 28 video oral histories of retired or soon to be retired anthropologists …

These records document the governance and programmatic activities of the Museum of the American Indian/Heye Foundation (MAI) from its inception in 1904 until its sublimation by the Smithsonian Institution in 1990. The types of materials present in this collection include personal and institutional correspondence, individual subject files, minutes and annual reports, financial ledgers, legal records, expedition field notes, research notes, catalog and object lists, publications, clippings, flyers, maps, photographs, negatives and audio-visual materials. These materials span a varied range of subjects relating to the activities of the museum which are more fully described on the series level.

These papers reflect the professional and personal life of Frederica de Laguna. The collection contains correspondence, field notes, writings, newspaper clippings, writings by others, subject files, sound recordings, photographs, and maps. A significant portion of the collection consists of de Laguna's correspondence with family, friends, colleagues, and students, as well as her informants from the field. Her correspondence covers a wide range of subjects such as family, health, preparations for field work, her publications and projects, the Northwest Coast, her opinions on the state of anthropology, and politics. The field notes in the collection mainly represent de Laguna and her assistants' work in the Northern Tlingit region of Alaska from 1949 to 1954. In addition, the collection contains materials related to her work in the St. Lawrence River Valley in Ontario in 1947 and Catherine McClellan's field journal for her research in Aishihik, Yukon Territory in 1968. Most of the audio reels in the collection are field recordings made by de Laguna, McClellan, and Marie-Françoise Guédon of vocabulary and songs and speeches at potlatches and other ceremonies from 1952 to 1969. Tlingit and several Athabaskan languages including Atna, Tutchone, Upper Tanana, and Tanacross are represented in the recordings. Also in the collection are copies of John R. Swanton's Tlingit recordings and Hiroko Hara Sue's recordings among the Hare Indians. Additional materials related to de Laguna's research on the Northwest Coast include her notes on clans and tribes in Series VI: Subject Files and her notes on Tlingit vocabulary and Yakutat names specimens in Series X: Card Files. Drafts and notes for Voyage to Greenland, Travels Among the Dena, and The Tlingit Indians can be found in the collection as well as her drawings for her dissertation and materials related to her work for the Handbook of North American Indians and other publications. There is little material related to Under Mount Saint Elias except for correspondence, photocopies and negatives of plates, and grant applications for the monograph. Of special interest among de Laguna's writings is a photocopy of her historical fiction novel, The Thousand March. Other materials of special interest are copies of her talks, including her AAA presidential address, and the dissertation of Regna Darnell, a former student of de Laguna's. In addition, materials on the history of anthropology are in the collection, most of which can found with her teaching materials. Although the bulk of the collection documents de Laguna's professional years, the collection also contains newspaper articles and letters regarding her exceptional performance as a student at Bryn Mawr College and her undergraduate and graduate report cards. Only a few photographs of de Laguna can be found in the collection along with photographs of her 1929 and 1979 trips to Greenland.

The records in this collection embody the administrative functions of the Bureau of American Ethnology from 1879 to 1965. The collection consists of correspondence, card files, registers, official notices, annual and monthly work reports, research statements, research proposals, grant applications, personnel action requests, notices of personnel action, meeting minutes, purchase orders and requisitions, property records, biographical sketches, resolutions, newspaper clippings, reviews of publications, drafts of publications, circulars, programs, pamphlets, announcements, illustrations, cartographic materials, photographic prints, photographic negatives, bibliographies, and reprinted publications.

The Department of Anthropology records contain administrative and research materials produced by the department and its members from the time of the Smithsonian Institution's foundation until today.

This collection contains the professional papers of William Curtis Sturtevant and documents his activities as Curator of North American Ethnology at the National Museum of Natural History, his work as the editor-in-chief of the Handbook of North American Indians, his research among the Seminole and Iroquois people, and other professional activities. The collection is comprised of books, sound recordings, research and field notes, realia, artifacts, clippings, microfilm, negatives, slides, photographs, manuscripts, correspondence, memorandums, card files, exhibition catalogs, articles, and bibliographies.

This collection, which dates from 1926-1986, documents the output of Moses Asch through the various record labels he founded and co-founded, and includes some of his personal papers. The Asch collection includes published recordings, master tapes, outtakes, business records, correspondence, photographs, and film.