The papers of Marian White pertain primarily to her work on the prehistory and ethnohistory of the Iroquois and other Native American groups in New York State.

Numerous drafts of conference papers and articles, as well as published papers, document the growth and development of Marian White's thought. While earlier papers deal with physical artifacts and settlement patterns, later papers reflect a growing concern with public archaeology, the protection of archaeological sites and the concerns of present day Native Americans.

Marian White's notes from the University of Michigan, where she received her M.A. and Ph.D., are detailed and offer an unusually complete view of the state of graduate instruction in anthropology and archeology in the early 1950s.

The collection also includes a number of tape recordings. Most of these are cassettes, used by Marian White for the dictation of letters and reports, but two tapes record the recollections of Nellie Jack, a Native American woman, about Iroquois life on the Cornplanter Reservation.

The original folder titles have been maintained. Elsewhere in the finding aid, the term 'Indian' has been replaced with 'Native American.'