This volume contains Ojibwa-English vocabulary, Ho-chunk numerals, family genealogical data, and miscellaneous notes, kept by Kelso at Green Bay, Wisconsin.

Norman Leonard Jacobs was an engineer and surveyor with the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway in Canada. The collection consists of his correspondence with Bessie Frank (later Anathan), an acquaintance from Pittsburgh. Jacobs wrote of daily life in Canadian cities, interactions with First Nations tribes, and daily hardships encountered in the field (extreme cold, snowblindness, and lack of food), but also spoke of his work with pride and enthusiasm. In addition to the letters, Jacobs wrote twenty-eight pages of a "Diary of a Tenderfoot." Also included in the collection are two photobooks and various loose photographs, which display various aspects of camp life, details of work sites and landscape, as well as First Nations families, camps, and modes of transportation.

Founded in 1743 by Benjamin Franklin, the American Philosophical Society was the first learned society in the United States. For over 250 years, the Society has played an important role in American cultural and intellectual life. Until the mid-nineteenth century, the Society fulfilled the role of a national academy of science, national library and museum, and even patent office. Early members of the Society included Thomas Jefferson, David Rittenhouse, Benjamin Rush, Stephen Peter Du Ponceau, George Washington, and many other figures prominent in American history. The Archives of the American Philosophical Society consists of 192.25 linear feet of material, organized into thirteen record groups dating back to 1743. The Society's archives extensively documents not only the organization's historical development but also its role in American history and the history of science and technology.