Believing that he had collected everything necessary to represent Native Americans, he turned his interests to the cultures of Asia and finally Eastern Europe. Culin was concerned not only with finding and acquiring objects for the Museum, but also with documenting the maker, the social position of the seller, the circumstances of purchase, the provenance, the use of the object, and the cultural life of the region. Thus, the collection includes information on the cultural and historical context of objects, as seen through Culin's eyes. Like his colleagues, what Culin collected and decided not to collect (both of which are documented here) are important parameters in the history of cultural representation in museums. His opinions and biases are evident throughout the collection. Culin amassed an extensive research collection, including correspondence, manuscripts (his own and those of others), reports, publications, and clippings. A full visual record complementing the written documentation includes photographs, sketches, watercolors, oil paintings, postcards, and other illustrative study material. The depth and range of the information available in the Culin Archival Collection make it a critical resource for the study of cultural anthropology, art and cultural history, costume and textile design, ethnology, folklore, linguistics, museology, and photography on an international scale. The collection contains valuable information on the development of ethnology as a discipline, on the part played by museums in presenting and interpreting objects and cultures, and on the social and economic consequences, within native communities, of large-scale systematic collecting. Reflecting Culin's strong interest in Native American cultures, the Archives provides a vivid account of the circumstances under which he collected and of the individuals, native and non-native, who assisted him in the field. His intellectual exchanges with several of his colleagues, such as Franz Boas from the American Museum of Natural History, George Amos Dorsey at the Field Museum, and Frank Hamilton Cushing of the Bureau of American Ethnology, are evident in his extensive correspondence files. Textual and visual materials from Cushing form an important component of the Culin Archives. Cushing, who lived with the Zuni between 1879 and 1884, was a major influence on Culin's choice of Zuni as his main collecting focus in the Southwest. Because of their close personal friendship, Culin acquired a large collection of sketches, photographs, and notes from Cushing's estate; the accompanying correspondence between Culin and Cushing provides a detailed picture of their collaboration. Culin was among the first curators to recognize the museum installation as an art form in itself and to display ethnological collections as art objects, not as mere specimens.