This collection consists of three portfolios of large leaves (76 x 64 cm.) with 576 photographic prints and 5 photomechanical photogravures of Native Americans and related subjects compiled by Jackson, possibly from negatives in the collections of the Bureau of American Ethnology and by ordering prints from various photographic trade catalogs, including that of the Continent Stereoscopic Company and John N. Choate's Indian Pictures (188?) catalog.

Approximately 280 prints feature portraits of Native Americans in a studio setting or at various locations across the West and Alaska, including most of the tribes of North America such as the Apache, Dakotas, Comanche, Cheyenne, Kiowa, Yuma, Ute, Navajo, Hopi, Crow, and Sioux; approximately 150 photographs feature educators and Native American students taken at the United States Indian School (1879) in Carlisle, Pa., Sheldon Jackson College (1881), and Sitka, Alaska; approximately 150 photographs feature Native American buildings and ruins including Zuni Pueblo, ancient ruins in Colorado and Utah, cliff-dwellings in Canyon de Chelly, Arizona and Maya ruins at Chichen Itza and Uxmal in Mexico by Désiré Charnay.

Also included are photographs of illustrations of early Catholic missions (1857) in California by Henry Miller. A number of the images in the collection appear as engravings in publications, such as multiple editions of Sheldon Jackson's Alaska and Missions on the North Pacific Coast (1880).

Many of the photographs are identified with labels taken from catalogs, including the Descriptive Catalogue of Photographs of North American Indians (1877) by William Henry Jackson (referred to in this finding aid as the DCPNAI), as well as manuscript notations which often note inventory or negative numbers. Manuscript notations are also present on the back of certain leaves and usually indicate the catalog from which descriptions were taken.

Racist, colonialist, and sexist language were used to describe many of the items in this collection. In most cases, descriptions were creator-supplied. In other cases, in which photographs lacked identifying information, descriptions were created by an archivist. However, the collection is a candidate for ongoing reparative description work. We hope that researchers will engage in a dialogue with staff about issues in the collection and changes that could help.