Reverend James Owen Dorsey (1848-1895) was a missionary and Bureau of American Ethnology ethnologist who conducted extensive research on Siouan tribes and languages.The papers of James Owen Dorsey comprise mostly ethnographic and linguistic materials on various tribes of the Siouan language family as well as tribes from Siletz Reservation in Oregon. These materials include texts and letters with interlineal translations; grammar notes; dictionaries; drawings; and his manuscripts. In addition, the collection contains Dorsey's correspondence, newspaper clippings, his obituaries, and reprints.

Contents: Dakota or Sioux vocabulary, approximately 27 pages. (notebook) Various Languages- brief vocabularies. 22 pages (copy book) Wampanoag vocabulary 5 pages loose. Sioux vocabulary 3 pages. Blackfoot vocabulary 3 pages. Wichita vocabulary 2 pages. Miscellaneous vocabulary 1 page (name not given) Arikara vocabulary 1 page. Apache vocabulary 8 pages. Aleut (Aleouteans) vocabulary 1 page. Iroquois vocabulary 82 pages. Caddo vocabulary 4 pages …

First portion brings together material on Sequoyah and the syllabary; there is some discussion of Caddoan-Iroquoian relationships; the grammar is approximately the last third of the manuscript.

The Robert Rankin papers, 1886, 1914, 1956-2011, document his field work, research, and professional activities, primarily in relation to his work studying American Indian languages. Rankin was professor of linguistics at the University of Kansas from 1969 until his retirement in 2005. The collection consists of sound recordings, field notebooks, vocabulary lists and bibliographies, dictionaries, research files, slip files, word lists, correspondence, ephemera, notes, readings and reprints, writings, drafts, and teaching materials. This includes materials from Rankin's work with the last native speakers of the Quapaw and Kaw (Kansa, Kanza) languages and subsequent research, writings, and collaborations with tribes and fellow linguists.

References to Algonquian, Athapascan, Caddoan, Iroquoian, Kiowan, Muskhogean, Natchesan, Shoshonean and Tonkawan tribes.

Blair Arnold Rudes was a linguist who specialized in Native American languages. The Blair Rudes papers document his research and professional activities from 1974-2008 and primarily deal with dictionaries and other linguistic materials he created and studied, as well as the culture and history of various Native American groups around the Eastern United States and the rest of North America. His involvement in language education, federal recognition of tribes, and the use of authentic Native American dialog in film are also represented. The collection consists of research files, linguistic research and data, correspondence, papers and other writings written by Rudes and his colleagues, movie scripts and related materials, and audio/visual recordings.

The papers of Robert King Harris, circa 1909-circa 1981, primarily document the work of amateur archaeologist Robert King Harris (1912-1981) and his collaborators including his wife Inus Marie Harris (1912-2006) at sites located in Texas as well as other localities in the southern United States. The collection consists of field notes, site reports, data and analysis, manuscript drafts, publications, correspondence, genealogical material, illustrations and maps, photographic prints, negatives, slides, sound recordings, and recorded film.

Photographs made by Humphrey Lloyd Hime for the Assiniboine and Saskatchewan Exploring Expedition of 1858. Photographs show the Red River and prairie, settlements, farms, churches, watercraft, Cree and Ojibwa communities and individuals, and graves. The collection contains images of human remains.

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.

While these papers primarily consist of Waldo's archeological work in the field and his many publications, the collection also contains Mildred's correspondence and manuscripts, most of which concern her ethnohistorical and archeological work, conferences in which she participated, and her publications, particularly those on La Harpe. Most of the material …