Papers of Stephen Laurent, son of Joseph Laurent (1839-1917), Chief of the St. Francis Abnakis and author of New Familiar Abenaki and English Dialogues (1884), and grandson of Joseph Laurent, also chief. Primarily contains outgoing letters from Stephen Laurent's wife, Margaret Fisher, to her family, and miscellaneous documentation relation to Laurent's activities as an interpreter of Abenaki history in New Hampshire. The main Abenaki language material in the collection is found in one catechism and prayer book in Abenaki from 1846 by Joseph Marrault, a Jesuit.

These papers include letters, reports, accounts, and memoranda relating to the work of the American Board of Home Missions among the Abnaki, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, Dakota, Mackinaw, Maumee, Mayhaw, Ojibwa, Osage, Pawnee, Penobscot, Sioux, and Stockbridge Indians of Arkansas, New York, and Oregon.

Frank Siebert (1913-1998) is one of the key contributors to the field of Algonquian linguistics. While he did not pursue a degree in linguistics or anthropology, he independently acquired the skills and knowledge of a professional scholar. His work on Penobscot is some of the best and most comprehensive in existence. The Siebert Papers document the interest and work of Frank Siebert in the linguistics of the Algonquian family of languages, particularly Penobscot. The collection includes correspondence, research notes, drafts and published manuscripts by Siebert, as well as secondary sources consulted by Siebert. To a lesser extent, it contains material that documents Siebert's personal life, his interest in book collecting and his career as a physician.

Alfred Irving ("Pete") Hallowell was an anthropologist best known for his studies of Ojibwa culture and world-view, and the innovative use of the Rorschach Test in his studies of the psychological interrelations of individuals and their culture. Early in his career, Hallowell worked as a social case worker for Family Service, and even after moving on to study anthropology in 1920 (M.A.), he carried with him an interest in ethnic and racial culture, developing additional interests in psychological testing. Except for the years 1944-1947, when he taught at Northwestern University, Hallowell spent his entire career at the University of Pennsylvania where he was professor of anthropology, professor of anthropological psychiatry in the Medical School, and curator of social anthropology at the University Museum. A cultural anthropologist, Hallowell's use of clinical psychological methods, especially Rorschach tests, was both innovative and controversial in his discipline. In his research, he concentrated on the Algonkian Indians, especially the Abenaki and Ojibwa Indians of Canada and Wisconsin (Berens River, Lake Winnipeg, Manitoba, and Lac du Flambeau, Wisconsin areas), and the Saulteaux of Berens River. The Alfred Irving Hallowell Papers (1892-1981) contain correspondence, subject files, manuscripts of published and unpublished works by Hallowell, papers by colleagues and students, research notes kept by Hallowell, with a special emphasis on social organization, personality, behavior, psychology, religion, and folklore. The collection of several hundred photographs provides rich graphic documentation of Hallowell's work among the Ojibwa and Abnaki Indians during the 1930s.

Anthropologist and ethnographer Frank Gouldsmith Speck was one of Franz Boas' early graduate students and from 1907 till his death in 1950 spent his career in a variety of positions at the University of Pennsylvania, including its Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Unlike most of his contemporaries, Speck chose to study the cultures of Indigenous peoples of eastern North America, especially the Haudenosaunee, Cherokee, and peoples speaking Algonquian languages, such as Anishinaabe, Wabanaki, Innu, Lenape, and other Algonquian peoples within the eastern United States. Speck spent a larger amounnt of time in the field than was typical of most ethnographers, collecting documentary information and physical objects. The Frank G. Speck Papers consist of 15.5 linear feet of Speck's professional correspondence, field notes, lecture notes, and manuscripts of published and unpublished works. The material focuses on the Eastern Woodlands Indians, particularly the Catawba, Cherokee, Creek, Delaware, Houma, Haudenosaunee ("Iroquois"), Labrador Inuit ("Eskimo"), Innu ("Montagnais-Naskapi"), Nanticoke, Penobscot, Powhatan, Algonquian, and Yuchi. The collection is divided into two subcollections: Subcollection 1 is comprised of Speck's research material and correspondence, and Subcollection 2 consists of his manuscripts and related correspondence. The two subcollections were acquired separately by the Society, and were originally cataloged as the Frank G. Speck Papers (572.97 Sp3) and the Frank G. Speck Manuscripts on Native Americans (970.3 Sp3p) respectively.