Lorenzo Dow Turner served as Professor of English and lecturer in African Cultures at Roosevelt University College in Chicago. The Lorenzo Dow Turner Papers document Turner's extensive educational training, his long teaching career first at Fisk University and then at Roosevelt University, his exhaustive linguistic research, and the revolutionary theories on black speech development in America that he pioneered. Of special interest are cassette tapes including copies of the original sound recordings made by Turner.

The Archives of Traditional Music at Indiana University Bloomington is an audiovisual archive that documents music and culture from all over the world. With over 100,000 recordings that include more than 2,700 field collections, it is one of the largest university-based ethnographic sound archives in the United States. Its holdings cover a wide range of cultural and geographical areas, vocal and instrumental music, linguistic materials, folktales, interviews, and oral history, as well as videotapes, photographs, and manuscripts.