To promote the science of physiology and the exchange of ideas, the first congress of the International Union of Physiological Sciences (IUPS) was held in Basle, Switzerland, in 1889, and congresses have been held every three years since. The Union was incorporated at Washington, D.C., in 1953. The bulk of the Records of the IUPS relate to the International Congresses. Although representation is uneven, with a gap between 1907-1920, the records include programs, lists of members, abstracts of communications, and photographs, with more substantial documentation for meetings held in the United States. The collection also includes some general correspondence, minutes of meetings, reports of the Secretary, Executive Committee and Council correspondence, records relating to budgets, record books, and photographs.

A Yale-educated ethnographer, William Fenton devoted most of his career to study of the Haudenosaunee. Receiving his doctorate in 1937, Fenton worked with the Bureau of American Ethnology for a number of years before becoming Director of the New York State Museum and professor at SUNY Albany. The Fenton Papers covers all aspects of William Fenton's professional life, documenting his varied positions as community worker for the New York Agency of the U.S. Indian Service, 1935-1937 (accounts, reports, correspondence); associate anthropologist and senior ethnologist in the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1939-1951 (includes notebooks, letters from the field); Executive Secretary of Anthropology and Psychology, National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council, 1952-1954; and Assistant Commissioner, New York State Museum and Science Service, 1954-1968.