This collection contains biographical material on William Parsons, a Pennsylvania soldier, surveyor, and proprietary agent of the provincial government and Thomas Penn. It is arranged by repositories and collections containing information on Parsons (including the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Haverford College, and the Horsfield Papers at the American Philosophical Society). There are transcripts from sources, photostats, notes, and microfilm.

This collection contains 89 songs in a cycle sung by Jesse Cornplanter. These recordings were made July - August 1952 on sound tape reels by Anthony F. C. Wallace.

These are myths, legends, ethnological notes, and historical information about the Tuscaroras of New York State. Six folkloristic texts, English only, free rendering by Anthony F. C. Wallace of interlinear translations by Albert Samuel Gatschet, 1883-1885. Forty-one groups of ethnographic data, historic notes and texts, collected by J. N. B. Hewitt, 1888-1890.

The papers of anthropologist Ward Goodenough cover his whole career, most of it spent in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. After service in army during WW II, Goodenough received a Ph.D. from Yale in 1949. He conducted field research from 1947 to 1965, working at Chuuk (Truk), the Gilberts, Papua New Guinea, and New Britain. The collection is particularly important in showing how linguistic theory can help further anthropological theory.

The Reina Papers contain the professional papers of cultural anthropologist Ruben E. Reina (1924-2016). Reina is an emeritus professor of anthropology and curator of ethnology who taught at the University of Pennsylvania and worked at that institution's University Museum of Archeology and Anthropology from 1957-1990. Broadly interested in modern and historical cultures of Central America, South America, and Spain, he is most widely known for his contributions to the study of the culture and peoples of Guatemala. The collection contains Reina's correspondence, administrative records, teaching materials, research notes, subject files, and written works from his career. Of particular interest are the notes from his fieldwork in Guatemala, Argentina, Spain, and Puerto Rico. A further significant component of the papers is the records of the Hispanic-Latin American Research Project. Reina served as director of the long-term project (1967-1988), during which a team of scholars compiled thousands of pages of Spanish colonial materials from the Archivo General de Indias (AGI) in Seville, Spain and Archivos General de Centro America (AGCA) in Guatemala. The Reina Papers serve as a vital storehouse of this important historical material.

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.

Recorded by Anthony Wallace in 1948 and 1949 at the Tuscarora Reservation in Niagara County, New York. Contains folkloric stories, tribal histories (especially relating to the 18th and 19th centuries), autobiographical stories, reminiscences, word lists, and descriptions of tribal government, organizations, and customs. Almost all stories are given in both Tuscarora and English. Originally recorded on 16 wire spools, transfered to open reel tape in 1950.

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.

The Anthony F. C. Wallace Papers include correspondence to and from 20th century anthropologists, ethnologists, historians, linguists, and psychiatrists and provides a wealth of resources for the study of technological and social change, American Indians, culture and personality, revitalization movements, the anthropological study of religion, and the cultural and biological bases of behavior. In addition to Wallace's correspondence, research notes, and drafts, the collection includes Wallace family correspondence and photographs, as well as Wallace's writings from childhood through recent years.