A wealthy retired businessman and art collector from New York and Newport, R.I., Theodore M. Davis financed a series of archeological excavations in Egypt between 1889 and 1912. Avid, but not necessarily disciplined in his approach, he supported a remarkably productive series of excavations at Thebes and, in the work for which he is best remembered, in the Valley of the Kings. On many of these expeditions, Davis was accompanied by his relative, Emma B. Andrews. The diary that Andrews kept during these expeditions is valuable on two scores. First, at its best, it provides a literate and often detailed record of an adventurous American woman traveling in fin de siecle Egypt and (to a lesser degree) Italy and her encounters with life in the colonial British settlements along the Nile. Second, it provides some important details on the appearance of tombs in the Valley of the Kings as they were first unearthed, with interesting comments upon Davis and a number of his fellow Egyptologists.

Through his craniometic studies of human races, the Philadelphia physician Samuel George Morton (1799-1851) exerted a profound influence on the development of physical anthropology in antebellum America, and made substantial contributions to mineralogy, paleontology, and natural history. Relating primarily to Morton's scientific interests, the Morton Papers include insights into Morton's perspectives on education, medical practice, geology and mineralogy, craniology, paleontology, the Wilkes Exploring Expedition (also known as the United States Exploring Expedition 1838-1842), and his two major monographs, the Crania Americana and Crania Aegyptiaca. Several of the letters were written by Morton in his capacity as corresponding secretary of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. Also included in this collection are Morton's "Some Remarks on the Infrequency of Mixed Offspring Between the European and Australian Races" (1850), Joseph Barclay Pentland's notes on the aborigines of Peru (ca. 1840?), and newspaper clippings on Morton's death; a diary of Morton's trip to the West Indies, 1834, a set of craniological sketches for use in Crania Americana, and a microfilm of letters in private hands, written to Morton, 1838-1844