Volume one of a multivolume catalog inventories 247 federal agency collections of wax cylinder recordings made by early ethnographers during 5 decades (1890-1941) of field work with Native American, traditional American, and world cultures. Native American music, chants, and linguistic samples comprise the majority of the collection. In addition to their value as original cultural materials, the collections chronicle theoretical and methodological developments in anthropology, ethnomusicology, folklore, and linguistics, parallel the early history of sound recording, and reflect differing attitudes among early ethnographers toward use of the cylinder phonograph. Inventory entries are arranged alphabetically by collector with larger collections grouped into cultural areas. Each entry contains preservation tape number, Archive of Folk Culture number, number of cylinders in each collection/number duplicated, collector's name/sponsor, descriptive title, recording date/location, provenance, and notes on technical aspects of sound and cylinder quality. An introduction traces the mechanics and use of the cylinder phonograph from the 1890s to the early 1940s, discusses field methods of early ethnographers, and explains preservation methods, documenting and archiving techniques, and dissemination efforts of the Federal Cylinder Project. Indexes to American Indian groups, other cultural groups by region, and collectors, institutions, sponsors, and provenances are included. (LFL)