The David M. Brown Papers consist of almost twelve cubic feet of archival material documenting his career as a U.S. Navy flight surgeon, naval aviator, and NASA astronaut. It includes Brown's diaries, manuals, checklists, certificates, workbooks, notebooks, and related training materials.

The Society for the History of Technology Records (SHOT) consists of documents relating to SHOT from its inception in 1958- [0ngoing]. The collection is divided into two subgroups: Subgroup I, General Records, 1956-2009 which consist of papers generated and received by Melvin Kranzberg in his various roles as an officer of SHOT, as well as papers of other SHOT officers. Subgroup II,Technology and Culture Records, 1958-2009, consists of documents relating to the Society's journal, Technology and Culture. T & C is a quarterly publication containing articles of interest to and written by historians and students of technology. The records consist of material generated by Melvin Kranzberg in his role as founding editor-in-chief (1959-1981), first at Case Western Reserve and later at Georgia Institute of Technology, and was succeeded at the National Museum of American History by Robert Post (1981-1996) whose editorial assistants were Brooke Hindle, Helena Wright, Jeffrey Stine, Art Molella and Joan Mentzer. When the museum ended its support of the journal, it moved to the Henry Ford under the editorship of John Staudenmaier (1996-2010) and after that to the University of Oklahoma under the editorship of Suzanne Moon (2010-2020).

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.

An extensive and comprehensive collection of posters from World War I and World War II.

This collection contains over 37,000 35mm slides, 3,000 glass lantern slides and garden files that may include descriptive information, photocopied articles (from journals, newspapers, or books), planting lists, correspondence, brochures, landscape plans and drawings. Garden files were compiled by Garden Club of America (GCA) members for most of the gardens included in the collection. Some gardens have been photographed over the course of several decades; others only have images from a single point in time. In addition to images of American gardens, there are glass lantern slides of the New York Flower Show (1941-1951) and trips that GCA members took to other countries, including Mexico (1937), Italy, Spain, Japan (1935), France (1936), England (1929), and Scotland. A number of the slides are copies of historic images from outside repositories including horticultural and historical societies or from horticultural books and publications. The GCA made a concerted effort in the mid-1980s to acquire these images in order to increase its documentation of American garden history. Because of copyright considerations, use of these particular images may be restricted.

This collection includes postcards from 45 African countries. Subjects include agriculture; animals; artists; body arts; cityscapes; cultural landscapes; dance; education; expeditions; flora; industry; leaders; marketplaces; medicine; military; missionaries; music; portraits; recreation; rites and ceremonies; and transportation, among many other topics.

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 Myron Bement Smith collection consists of two parts, the papers of Myron Bement Smith and his wife Katharine and the Islamic Archives. It contains substantial material about his field research in Italy in the 1920s and his years working on Islamic architecture in Iran in the 1930s. Letters describe the milieu in which he operated in Rochester NY and New York City in the 1920s and early 1930s; the Smiths' life in Iran from 1933 to 1937; and the extensive network of academic and social contacts that Myron and Katharine developed and maintained over his lifetime. The Islamic Archives was a project to which Smith devoted most of his professional life. It includes both original materials, such as his photographs and notes, and items acquired by him from other scholars or experts on Islamic art and architecture. Smith intended the Archives to serve as a resource for scholars interested in the architecture and art of the entire Islamic world although he also included some materials about non-Islamic architecture.