The polymath Francis Galton led a privileged and adventurous life, lending his talents to the development of statistical inference, scientific meteorology, psychology, and becoming one of the first to apply the evolutionary theories of his cousin Charles Darwin to human populations, founding the new fields of eugenics and biometrics. The Galton Collection is a miscellaneous assemblage of 15 letters and one photocopy written by Francis Galton to a variety of correspondents. These letters reflect Galton's research in meteorology, statistics, and, to a lesser degree, the heredity of intelligence.

Selected by William Coleman, this collection contains correspondence from William Bateson to his wife, Catharine, and to his colleagues, such as Francis Galton, E. Roy Lankester, Alfred Newton, and Charles Scott Sherrington; lectures given between 1897-1904; and some genealogical and miscellaneous material. This note is currently under review for revision.

There is correspondence concerning geology, botany, natural history, natural selection, evolution, British science and scientists, and other scientific topics. Most of the letters are written by Lyell, with a very few items by others.

Elsie Clews Parsons (1875-1941) was trained as a sociologist at Columbia University, but made her greatest achievements in the fields of anthropology and folklore. Parsons' early works in the field of sociology dealt primarily with gender roles, conventions of society, and the effect of society's pressures on the individual. After a trip to the American Southwest with her husband in 1910, Parsons' interests turned to anthropology. She began making field trips to Arizona and New Mexico and, under the influence of her friend Franz Boas, Parsons recorded in meticulous detail data on social organization, religious practices, and folklore of the Southwest Indians. Concurrently, Parsons conducted research in folklore, concentrating on folk tales of Afro-Americans and Caribbean peoples. She was active in a number of professional associations and was the associate editor of the Journal of American Folklore from 1918 until her death. The Parsons Papers were acquired as two separate accessions and remains organized in two distinct subcollections. Subcollection I (572 P35), acquired in 1949, contains approximately 12 linear feet of materials focused on Parsons' career in anthropology. Subcollection II, acquired in 1985, consists of 26.25 linear feet of materials divided into ten series, covering a larger scope of Parsons' life, including family and personal correspondence.