Series I contains 580 salted paper and albumen prints made from Imperial format negatives taken between the mid-1850s and the early 1860s. They are portrait fragments, primarily heads and half-length views either cropped from full portraits or printed on scraps of partially sensitized photographic paper; a very few full-length portraits are included. The prints range in size from 2 by 3 inches to 16 by 12 inches. The names of the sitters are inscribed on many of the photographs in the lightest section, usually a shirtfront, forehead, or picture margin. Identified people in Series I include prominent New York politicians, judges, and civic leaders, internationally known American and foreign businessmen and clergymen, leading cultural figures, and foreign diplomats. There are twenty-two portraits of children in this format.

The portraits are arranged alphabetically by sitter name; fifty of the sitters have no identification and are grouped together by gender, with children filed separately. Several of these portraits have variant spellings, illegible writing or variant names written on a single image. In those cases, the portrait is alphabetized by a selected name and both names/spellings are shown in the portrait list. Numbers following names indicate multiple photographs of either an individual or of images of several sitters with the same surname.

A third format in the collection is the "oversized carte-de-visite." There are fourteen portraits and one landscape in this format, each measuring approximately 3.75 x 5.5 inches. These portraits are housed in Box 3, after the Imperial Format Portraits.

Series II contains approximately 5,300 albumen portraits of men, women, children, and groups, made from carte-de-visite format negatives. They date between 1861 and 1869. The prints are in a uniform 3.25 by 2 inches size, and are arranged alphabetically by sitter name, when the written name is legible, with the many unnamed portraits arranged separately. The sitters in Series II are primarily upper-middle class New York City residents and visitors to the city. The collection is nearly evenly divided between portraits of men and women, including four portraits of African Americans. Two women, one labeled Harris/Paris and one Johnson, and one man also labeled Johnson, are photographed individually. A portrait of a Mr. Price includes his attendant, an unnamed African American man, standing beside him.

Along with portraits of adults, the collection also contains over eight hundred images of children. This includes individual portraits as well as group portraits of children with their parents or siblings. Infants are usually shown on a parent's lap, with only the adult's hand, arm or chin visible. Often the children are dressed up for the occasion and are photographed with props such as books, toys or dolls.

Unknown sitters and groups are organized by gender, or when recognized, by subject. There are also images of copy work and proofs of published work in this series as well.