Meriwether Lewis and William Clark were explorers. This collection contains the manuscript journals kept by Lewis and Clark on their travels to the source of the Missouri River and across the continent to the Pacific Ocean. There are interlineations throughout by Nicholas Biddle, who published his narrative "History of the Expedition of Captains Lewis and Clark" (1814).

The Virginia D. Hymes Papers focus primarily on the Sahaptin language research of Virginia Hymes and several others between the 1970s and 1980s. They contain several extensive lexical card files of Sahaptin, original field notes, Sahaptin texts and a dictionary, notes toward an unpublished dissertation, works by others (especially Eugene Hunn, David and Kathrine French, and Bruce Rigsby on Sahaptin, and Noel Rude on Nez Perce/Niimi'ipuutímt), and smaller amounts of teaching files, conferences, correspondence, and personal and administrative files.

The Daythal L. Kendall papers consist of a wide variety of published and unpublished work on especially Takelma, Kalapuyan languages, and Lencan languages. A linguist and computer scientist, Kendall devoted much time to synchronic and diachronic linguistics of Takelma and the Penutian stock, including much research on Takelma poetic forms, Kalapuyan morphology and gathering a large unpublished lexicon for Lencan languages. He also produced pedagogical materials for learning Canadian Aboriginal syllabics, and worked twice for the American Philosophical Society to develop their understanding of their Native American collections. In the papers are correspondence, extensive research and manuscripts on the above, collected materials from others including many handouts from conferences (particularly the Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas), lexical slips, and photographs of Native Oregonians and their land.

This is part of the large inventory for the Franz Boas Papers (Mss B B61). For complete information concerning this collection, please view the Collection Description .

The William O. Bright papers consist particularly of extensive correspondence relating mostly to his later academic work, a number of field notebooks from North America and India, publications on and by Indigenous North Americans (especially Karuk and other Californian tribes) and from linguistic societies, his own research and publications, and extensive lexical slip files (especially on Karuk, Spanish borrowings, and copies of Daythal Kendall's Takelma and Kalapuyan files). Many audio recordings are also present, some of which are duplicates of those at the California Language Archive. In addition to the materials browsable through the finding aid, Bright's email correspondence and computer files can be accessed onsite at the APS. William Bright's career extended to a wide variety of linguistic work, including Native Californian languages and literatures, Native American place names, editorships of major linguistics journals, and writing systems of the world.

Dell Hymes' doctoral research on Kathlamet Chinook (Indiana University, 1955) grew into a lifelong interest in the relationship between ethnography and linguistics. Following academic appointments at Harvard University (1955-1960) and the University of California, Berkley (1960-1965), Hymes joined the Department of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania in 1965. During twenty-two years tenure at Penn he was a professor of folklore, linguistics, sociology and education. In 1975, he was promoted to Dean of the Graduate School of Education (1975-1987). A principal proponent of the emergent field of sociolinguistics, his most influential works include Reinventing Anthropology and Language in Culture and Society. The Hymes papers cover all aspects of Dell Hymes' professional life. Subcollection I is concentrated on his years at the University of Pennsylvania, his presidencies of the American Association of Anthropology and the Linguistic Society of America, and his editorship of the journal Language in Society. Subcollection II is broader, focusing much more on published and unpublished linguistic work on dozens of languages, mostly of North America. Of particular interest is his rich correspondence with colleagues and students on linguistic issues. The papers reflect Hymes' interests in the history of linguistics and anthropology, Native American languages (especially oral literatures), and his comparative ethnographies of communication.