Many are unidentified. The material is limited to Gearing's research on eighteenth and early nineteenth century Cherokee Indians. Included is information about towns and individual Cherokees that comes from library sources. The album contains photographs of Genin's Mexican natural history collection. Many images are stereoscopic views and both front and backs of the mounts have been copied.
Many photographs are individual or group portraits and show dress and body decoration.
Others are camp scenes. Several were taken on T.O. Selfridge's Darien Expedition, 1870-1871. Others are Kiowa, Comanche, Cheyenne, and Arapaho prisoners at Fort Marion, Florida, during the 1870s. Included are views of dances, dwellings, and other structures, Indian horses, domestic life, and transportation. Tribes included are Apache, Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Chippewa, Dakota, Hano, Kickapoo, Modoc, Navaho, Paiute, Sarcee, Taos, Tuscarora, Tusuque, Ute, Winnebago, Yuma, and Zuni.