This collection contains content identified by the library as Culturally Sensitive to Indigenous People(s). See the "Processing Note - Terminology" about the terminology used in this description. For more information please see the Newberry Library’s policy on Access to Culturally Sensitive Indigenous Materials.

Early 20th Century ethnographic photographs created and collected by Dean Conant Worcester, a professor and zoologist with interests in Philippine History. The over 8,000 photographs represent thirty-six “linguistic groups” of Indigenous peoples of the Philippines. In this collection there are also photographs from negatives owned by Dr. A.B. Meyer, friend of Jose Rizal.

The 5 volume Index to the Philippine Photographs (Ayer 290 .A983 1905) can be used as a supplement to the collection of photographs. This index contains several detailed notes by Dean Worcester regarding the photographs and can be consulted as a record of his views but is not necessary or helpful to use as a guide to the contents of the photographs themselves.

Worcester rarely provides exact dates for each photograph. Some of the photograph's date from before the end of the Spanish colonization and some of them from after Worcester's Philippine Commission had changed administrative divisions, leading to occasional issues with correctly denoting geographic or administrative regions. This is especially true in the Mountain Province, which was created from combining six previously Spanish sub-provinces in 1908, but which was reapportioned in 1920, all while many of the same names were reused. When possible, the spellings of names have been updated to make locations easier to find and to reflect use outside of Worcester’s own writing.