This collection contains 14 photographs depicting the Barí (Motilone) and Wayuu (Guajira/Goajiro) peoples of Venezuela circa 1930-1931.

This collection contains 44 photographs depicting Emberá (Choikoi) peoples in Panama circa 1933.

The Ernest S. and Eloise Carter collection includes photographic prints, negatives and slides taken between 1950 and 1976 in the American Southwest, Mexico and Bolivia. The Carters were research associates for the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation between 1964 and 1975 and focused much of their research on petroglyphs and pictographs. In addition to photographic material there is also correspondence and documentation about the photographs in the collection.

Alexander Gardner (1821-1882) was a photographer best known for his portraits of President Abraham Lincoln, his American Civil War photographs, and his photographs of American Indian delegations. This collection contains 61 albumen prints that were shot by Gardner circa 1866-1868 and held in General William T. Sherman's personal collection. Photographs depict American Indian tribes and Peace Commissioners involved in the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty; photographs shot along the Union Pacific Railway, Eastern Division in 1867; and photographs of American Indian delegations visiting Washington, D. C. from 1866-1868.

Photographic negatives made by George Pepper, Marshall Saville and Foster Saville during the second and third Ecuador expeditions in 1907 and 1908. The expeditions were sponsored by George Gustav Heye and included archaeological work in the Manabi and Esmereldas provinces in Ecuador.

Negatives and photographic prints taken by John Peabody Harrington in Santa Barbara and Ventura County, California in 1923. John Peabody Harrington (1884-1961) was an ethnologist and linguist who specialized in the Native peoples of California and served with the U.S. Bureau of American Ethnology from 1915 to 1955. Beyond his efforts to document innumerable Native languages, Harrington also collected objects for the Bureau of Ethnology and on his own. Photographs in this collection accompanied the objects he sold to or collected for the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation.

The Mary Harriman Rumsey collection largely consists of photographic prints and lantern slides documenting the Harriman Expedition to Alaska in summer 1899. These depict members of the expedition and Alaskan scenery and people. The collection also includes scenic photographs of Alaska taken by Dora Keen in 1914 and photographs of Blackfeet, Hopi, Apache, and Suquamish Indians made by Edward Curtis in 1900 and 1903.

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.

This collection contains 207 photographs documenting U.S. Allotting Agent Ralph Aspaas (1876-1939), his work, his family, and his travels around the United States southwest circa 1900-1915. The bulk of the materials in this collection depict scenes from the Jicarilla Apache Reservation in New Mexico and the Tohono O'odham (Papago) in Arizona. The p...

The Helen Peterson collection includes correspondence, notes, miscellaneous administrative documents, financial records, calendars, questionnaires, notes from interviews, survey forms, copies of resolutions, proceedings, speeches, programs, press releases, printed and processed material, and many other types of documents. Mainly these relate to Petersons's career and special interests between 1953 and 1970. There are also a few documents that concern the organizations which Peterson served for periods preceding or following her periods in office. Of special interest are the materials related to the NCAI, many of which supplement the records in that organization's files. The collection also includes documents that concern a wide range of Indian interests and activities.