Most of Ruth Landes's papers relate directly or indirectly to Landes's American Indian research, her work in Brazil, and her study of bilingualism. There is also a considerable amount of material that relates to her experiences (sometimes fictionalized) at Fisk University. There is only small amount of material related to her other interests. Her collection also has material of and relating to the Brazilian folklorist and journalist Edison Carneiro. There is also noteworthy material concerning Herbert Baldus, Ruth Benedict, Elmer C. Imes, Charles S. Johnson, and Robert E. Park. There is a large amount of printed and processed materials in the collection, mainly in the form of newspaper clippings and a collection of scholarly papers.

The collection is comprised of digital surrogates previously available on the 21 rolls of microfilm described in the NARA publication M1055. These digital surrogates reproduced the records of the Assistant Commissioner for the District of Columbia, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865–69. The records consist of 42 bound volumes and 18 feet of unbound documents. The bound volumes include letters and endorsements sent, registers of letters received, and special orders issued. The unbound letters consist primarily of letters and reports received.

The materials document the orders placed by the clients of the Scurlock Studio. The photographs primarily depict individual portrait sittings but there are also portraits of children, groups, and other subjects.

The papers of art historian, curator, and educator Patricia Hills measure 47.5 linear feet and 0.113 GB and date from circa 1900-2022, bulk 1968-2009. Central to this collection are project files documenting professional work that resulted in lectures, publications, exhibitions, art history courses on numerous artists including Alice Neel, Jacob Lawrence, May Stevens, Rudolf Baranik, and John Singer Sargent. These files and files documenting Hills's tenure at the Whitney Museum of American Art include planning documents, research files, correspondence, manuscripts and accompanying publications, as well as other printed materials. Some of this material is in digital format. The collection also contains correspondence with art historians, artists, curators, and others, notably Lawrence Alloway, Lowery Stokes Sims, Lucy R. Lippard, T.J. Clark, Leon Golub, and Donald Kuspit; professional files documenting grants and residencies awarded and consulting work; artist and subject files; other writings; and printed and digital material. Membership and affiliation records document Hills' service to the profession, including Women's Caucus for Art and the Visual Culture/Art History Caucus of the American Studies Association. There is an 8.4 linear foot unprocssed addition to this collection donated in 2022 that includes Patricia Hills' research material regarding Eastman Johnson, consisting of biographical information; professional correspondence; printed material; institutional, exhibition, subject and genre files for Eastman Johnson's works of art; photographs of works of art; writings and lectures; catalog cards; and files regarding works not by Johnson.

More than 300 reels of 16mm black and white and color film, silent and sound, fiction and documentary motion picture film documenting jazz and related musical performances, social and popular dance styles and performances, jazz musicians, performance locales, and documentation of African-American popular culture. A list of featured performers in the collection is shown below. The films are frequently compilations produced by Smith for lectures.

The Smithsonian Institution Festival of American Folklife, held annually since 1967 on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., was renamed the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in 1998. The materials collected here document the planning, production, and execution of the annual Festival, produced by the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage (1999-present) and its predecessor offices (1967-1999). An overview of the entire Festival records group is available here: Smithsonian Folklife Festival records.

The collection dates from 1900 to 1997 and mostly includes images taken in South Africa. The images document the peoples of South Africa, particularly the Loved, Ndebele, San, Sotho, Xhosa, and Zulu peoples. Locations photographed include Basutoland (now Lesotho), Bechuanaland (now Botswana), Johannesburg, Natal, Pretoria, Soweto, Swaziland, Transkei, Transvaal, the Umzimkulu Valley and Zululand. Manuscript and office files include clippings, correspondence, exhibition announcements, invitations and reviews, notes, essays, receipts, and other materials that document Larrabee's career, family history, and personal life.

The collection is comprised of digital surrogates previously available on the 20 rolls of microfilm described in the NARA publication M1053. These digital surrogates reproduced the records of the Superintendent of Education for the State of Virginia, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865–70. The records consist of 11 volumes and of unbound documents. The volumes include letters and endorsements sent and registers of letters received and endorsements sent. The unbound records consist primarily of letters received and reports.

This collection consists of 72 linear feet of the papers of Benjamin O. Davis. Included are the following types of material: programs, invitations, certificates, correspondence, published material, and photographs.

The Smithsonian Institution Festival of American Folklife, held annually since 1967 on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., was renamed the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in 1998. The materials collected here document the planning, production, and execution of the annual Festival, produced by the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage (1999-present) and its predecessor offices (1967-1999). An overview of the entire Festival records group is available here: Smithsonian Folklife Festival records.