The General Photograph collections contains photographs depicting people, events, and activities related to the historical and contemporary lives of Native peoples throughout the Western Hemisphere.

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.

The General William Nicholson Grier photograph collection contains 10 photographs that Grier collected related to his service with the US Army (1835-1870). The photographs include depictions of Carlisle Indian School students circa 1879-1884 and portraits of the 1868 Navajo Treaty signers.

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.

To a considerable degree, the James H. Howard papers consist of manuscript copies of articles, book, speeches, and reviews that document his professional work in anthropology, ethnology, ethnohistory, archeology, linguistics, musicology, and folklore between 1950 and 1982. Among these are a few unpublished items. Notes are relatively scant, there being somewhat appreciable materials for the Chippewa, Choctaw, Creek, Dakota, Omaha, Ponca, Seminole, and Shawnee. The chief field materials represented in the collection are sound recordings and photographs, but many of the latter are yet to be unidentified. A series of color photographs of Indian artifacts in folders are mostly identified and represent the extensive American Indian Cultural collection of costumes and artifacts that Howard acquired and created. Other documents include copies of papers and other research materials of colleagues. There is very little original material related to archeological work in the collection and that which is present concerns contract work for the Lone State Steel Company.

The Philleo Nash papers attest to Nash's interest in anthropology, not only research and teaching but also in its application to public service. His papers can be separated into four main areas: undergraduate and graduate education, research, teaching, and public service. Files contain class notes from Nash's undergraduate and graduate studies as well as papers by well-known professors lecturing at the University of Chicago including Ralph Linton, Robert Redfield, and R.A. Radcliffe-Brown. The bulk of his research was conducted in the Pacific Northwest where he studied the Klamath-Modoc culture on the reservation, focusing on revivalism and socio-political organization (1935-1937). Other research included archeology at two sites, a study of the Toronto Jewish community, and a continuing interest in minority issues. Nash taugh at the University of Toronto (1937- 1941) and at American University in Washington, D.C. (1971-1977). Teaching files contain lecture notes from his work at the University of Toronto. Public service files include correspondence from the period when he was Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin (1959-1961) as well as reports and photos from the years as Commissioner of Indian Affairs (1961-1966). Other public service and business positions are not represented in these files.

Virginia Drew Watson was a cultural anthropologist best known for her work in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea. Her papers attest to a variety of interests related to culture and culture change, drawing on resources both archaeological and ethnographic. This collection contains catalogs, correspondence, drawings, field notes, grant proposals, manuscripts, maps, photographs, publications, reports, and slides. The majority of the field work relates to her work in Papua New Guinea, both with her husband (James B. Watson) and with J. David Cole, but there are also materials related to her work in Brazil.

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.

Scrapbook entitled "Our Wild Indians in Peace and War: Surveys, Expeditions, Mining and Scenery of the Great West," compiled by James E. Taylor, possibly as a source for his own illustrations.

Photographs relating to Native Americans or frontier themes, including portraits, expedition photographs, landscapes, and other images of dwellings, transportation, totem poles, ceremonies, infants and children in cradleboards, camps and towns, hunting and fishing, wild west shows, food preparation, funeral customs, the US Army and army posts, clif...