William S. Willis Jr. (1921-1983), anthropologist and ethnohistorian, contributed significantly to the understanding of the dynamics of inter-cultural exchange in a multicultural context. After receiving his doctorate from Columbia University, he was hired as the first African American professor of Anthropology at Southern Methodist University. Upon resigning in protest from SMU in 1972, he returned to teach at Columbia University until 1975. His final years were spent studying Boasian anthropology. The collection includes correspondence, lecture notes, manuscripts of Willis' writings, and working notes. Of note, are the memos concerning his leaving Southern Methodist University and his extensive research notes on Franz Boas' views on race relations in America.

The collection represents the data that Roe (Mrs. George Gaylord Simpson) collected on 64 scientists for her 1953 book, The Making of a Scientist. The material for each scientist includes transcripts of interviews, Rorschach and Thematic Apperception Tests, personal data, reprints of the scientist's publications, and letters several years afterward the interview asking for additional information. There are also photostats of letters and notes by the scientists dating earlier than 1949; holders of the originals of these letters is unknown.

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.