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The Aileen Pringle Papers consist of letters, photographs and personal papers relating to Pringle's career as a silent film actress and her relationship with H. L. Mencken.

The Arthur Davison Ficke Papers document the personal lives and literary interests of Arthur Davison and Gladys Brown Ficke. Major correspondents include Witter Bynner, Floyd Dell, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Edgar Lee Masters, and John Cowper Powys. In addition to manuscripts of Ficke's own works, the papers contain manuscripts of poems by Witter Bynner, Edgar Lee Masters, and others.

The collection contains correspondence to Bernardine Szold-Fritz from well-known cultural figures from the 20th century.

The Bruce Kellner Papers consist of letters to Kellner and other papers, including two poems by Fania Marinoff, actress and wife of Carl Van Vechten, a list of Marinoff's appearances on stage and in films, and a portion of Marinoff's last will and testament. Correspondents include Donald Gallup, Carl Van Vechten, Alice B. Toklas, Donald Windham, Fania Marinoff, Donald Angus, and others.

The Carl Van Vechten Letters to Saul Mauriber date from April 1943 to December 1965, and include typed and manuscript notes, letters, greeting cards, postcards, and telegrams documenting their relationship over twenty years.

The Carl Van Vechten Papers includes correspondence, writings, photographs, scrapbooks and albums, and artwork documenting Carl Van Vechten's activities as a writer, photographer, and patron of the arts.

The Carl Van Vechten Papers Relating to African-American Arts and Letters include correspondence, writings, photographs and artwork documenting Van Vechten's interest in and involvement with black artists, writers, and social activists.

The Chester Himes Papers consist of original manuscripts, correspondence, photographs and artwork that document his long career as a writer. The manuscripts offer insight into Himes's creative process and many of them also represent the original versions and original titles for works that were later altered for publication. The bulk of the correspondence reveals Himes's relationship with the publishers and editors of his books and also offers a glimpse into the author's thoughts on his own work. The photographs and artwork document Himes's life with his family, friends and colleagues.

The Claude McKay Collection consists of correspondence, writings, personal papers, photographs and memorabilia documenting the life and work of Claude McKay.
Series I, Correspondence, consists of two subseries for General and Publishers Correspondence. There is correspondence with many well known writers and figures in the African American community from the first half of the 20th century, including Langston Hughes, James Weldon Johnson, Carl Van Vechten, Countee Cullen and Harold Jackman.
Series II, Writings, contains a variety of writings: articles, essays, short stories, novels, book-length autobiographical and non-fictional work, individual poems and collections of poems, and writings of others. There are holograph and typescript drafts of My Green Hills of Jamaica, and typescript drafts of Harlem: Negro Metropolis, an unpublished novel (Romance in Marseilles), and collections of poems, including The Selected Poems of Claude McKay.
Series III, Personal Papers, is organized into eight subseries: Books, Clippings, Financial and Legal Records, Invitations and Announcements, Material Relating to McKay's Death and Burial, Medical and Health Records, Postcards and Other.
Series IV, Subject Files, consists chiefly of clippings dating from the 1920s and 1930s on liberal politics, labor issues, race, and the countries in which McKay resided while abroad.
Series V, Photographs, consists of five subseries: Family, Snapshots of McKay, Other People, Places and Other. There are photographs from Soviet Russia in the early 1920s, and studio portraits of well known musicians and figures in the African American community.
Series VI, Memorabilia, contains clippings, photographs, program material and souvenirs from four separate commemorative events in honor of McKay from 1979-1990.

The Clippings File of the James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection includes pamphlets and clippings documenting the African American experience in the twentieth century. The collection especially highlights the achievements of individual African Americans, the work of community and education organizations, and areas such as film, theater, music, sports, politics, and civil rights. The clippings were collected primarily by Langston Hughes, James Weldon and Grace Nail Johnson, Ollie Jewel Simms Okala (a friend and close associate of the Johnsons), and Carl Van Vechten, with some additional materials added by others. Clippings in the collection are drawn from general news sources as well as national and regional newspapers and magazines with an African American focus. The majority of clippings are from New York, Ohio, Arkansas, Illinois, and Pennsylvania newspapers. The collection also includes pamphlets and ephemera.

Correspondence, writings, research files, personal papers, photographs, printed material and other papers documenting both the professional and personal activities of Donald Gallup as scholarly bibliographer, editor, curator of the Yale Collection of American Literature, and book and manuscript collector on his own account. The majority of the collection consists of Gallup's own papers, including personal, professional and editorial correspondence; a small amount of personal papers; research files; and typescripts and galley proofs of many of his publications, including his editions of the journals of Thornton Wilder and several volumes of works by Eugene O'Neill. Correspondents include the authors James Purdy, Sheri Martinelli, and Mary Bernetta Quinn and the Yale librarian James T. Babb. In addition, the collection contains some of the letters and papers by Modernist writers collected by Gallup personally and donated by him to Yale. The most extensive of these groups is the collection of letters by T. S. Eliot in Group X. Recipients include Arnold Bennett, Richard Cobden-Sanderson, Edgar Jepson, Alida Monro and Harold Monro, Brigit Patmore, John Carroll Perkins, and Donald Gallup himself. Publishers' correspondence and book contracts of Carl Van Vechten are found in Group V., while Group VII. and Group VIII. contain copies of articles and ephemera by and related to Ezra Pound and a small amount of Pound correspondence. Diaries by Carlotta Monterey O'Neill are located in Group X.

The papers contain correspondence, writings, literary manuscripts, notes, subject files, scrapbooks, and printed material documenting Dorothy Norman's activities, writings, and publications including the journal she founded and edited, Twice A Year: a Book of Literature, the Arts, and Civil Liberties. The papers also document Norman's relationships with the photographer Alfred Stieglitz and his circle of artists and writers, in particular her involvement with his gallery An American Place, with her husband Edward A. Norman and their families, and with prominent Indians including Ananda K. Coomaraswamy and Indira Gandhi.

The Dorothy Peterson Collection contains Correspondence to Peterson from such persons as Langston Hughes, Nella Larsen, and Carl Van Vechten.

Earl E. Fisk, British-born book collector, anthologist, writer, and insurance agent.
Collection includes correspondence, writings, and other materials. Correspondence contains letters to and from writers, publishers and others, including Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., Warren Beck, John Chipman Farrar, Farrar, Straus and Company, Harry Hansen, Robert Cortes Holliday, H. L. Mencken, A. Edward Newton, Carl Van Vechten, and Eudora Welty. Many of the letters concern Haldane Macfall. Writings include typescripts of articles by Fisk and others, and page proofs for Fisk's "Lovely Laughter: An Anthology of Seventeenth Century Love Lyrics". Other materials include specimen pages,illustrations, greeting cards and bookplates by Fisk, Claud Lovat Fraser, and others, and a detailed typescript list of Fisk's book collection.

The Eugene O'Neill Papers document the life of dramatist Eugene O'Neill, especially his life with Carlotta Monterey O'Neill after 1928. Correspondents include O'Neill's lawyers, Harry Weinberger and Winfield E. Aronberg; his agent, the Richard J. Madden Play Company, Inc.; friends and colleagues; and family members, including his daughter, Oona, his sons, Shane and Eugene, Jr., his third wife, Carlotta, and her daughter, Cynthia Chapman Stram.
The collection also contains Carlotta's correspondence after O'Neill's death. There is correspondence with her lawyers at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft and at Nutter, McClennen & Fish; the Yale Library system regarding her gift of O'Neill's papers; biographers of O'Neill; others concerning her work on the production and publication of O'Neill's plays; and friends and family members. There are also letters from former husband Ralph Barton before she married O'Neill.
Writings include notes, outlines and plot summaries, drafts (typescript and holograph), proofs, contracts, programs, and clippings for many of O'Neill's plays. There are some poems and other writings, as well as his work diaries, in which he documented his writing schedule from 1924 to 1943. There are also some works by others about O'Neill's life and writing.
The personal papers include address books, membership certificates, awards for O'Neill's writing, Carlotta's diaries from 1928 to 1964, clippings and ephemera about friends and relatives, and financial material, including cancelled checks and checkbooks. The photographs document O'Neill, his family members, friends, colleagues, pets, and places where he lived and visited. Some of the photographs are in albums. There are also photographs of productions of his plays, from 1916 to 1966. The memorabilia includes office materials, writing tools, jewelry, and locks of hair, among other items. Artists represented in the collection include Cyrus Leroy Baldridge, Miguel Covarrubias, Alfred Joseph Frueh, and Robert Edmond Jones. Some of the artworks are portraits of O'Neill; others pertain to his plays; others were given to, or collected by, the O'Neills. The recordings (all after O'Neill's death) include three recordings of O'Neill plays and one tribute to O'Neill.

The papers contain correspondence, diaries, writings, materials related to the production of Four Saints in Three Acts and the paintings of Florine Stettheimer, and miscellaneous papers.

The Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas Papers contain manuscripts of writings, letters, clippings, photographs, artworks, and personal papers relating to the life and work of Gertrude Stein and her companion, Alice B. Toklas, and to Gertrude's brother, Leo Stein, an artist and writer. As well as holding the bulk of Stein's literary output (often described as "experimental" or "cubist" writing), the materials document Stein and Toklas' involvement with the literary and art scene in Paris during the first half of the 20th century.
Series I, Writings, contains holograph and typescript drafts of the majority of Gertrude Stein's writings, including "The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas," "The Making of Americans" (complete with a quantity of notes, or "studies"), "Tender Buttons" and a group of unpublished fragments and carnets, notebooks kept by Stein with preliminary drafts of writings.
Series II, Correspondence of Gertrude Stein, contains letters sent from a wide variety of Stein's friends: artists such as Georges Bracque, Jean Cocteau, and Pablo Picasso; writers such as Sherwood Anderson, Ernest Hemingway, and Thornton Wilder; and acquaintances through many years such as Mildred Aldrich, Etta and Claribel Cone, Robert Haas, Mabel Dodge Luhan,Sir Francis Rose, Virgil Thomson, and Carl Van Vechten. Series III, Third Party Letters and Series IV, Alice B. Toklas Correspondence, contain letters from many of the same people, the latter group containing Alice Toklas's correspondence following Gertrude Stein's death.
Series V, Personal Papers, and Series VI, Clippings, gather together various personal affects of Stein and Toklas as well as documentation of Stein's life as reported during her lifetime.
Series VII, Photographs, show Stein from early childhood through 1946, the year she died. Prints showing Alice Toklas, various friends, artworks, and locales are included in this series, as are several volumes of prints made by Carl Van Vechten.
Series VIII and IX contain numerous artworks and objects given by Stein and Toklas. Included here are a painting by Pablo Picasso and a sketch by Henri Matisse.

The papers contain correspondence, writings, and printed ephemera about art documenting McBride's career as an art critic. Major correspondents include Mildred Aldrich, Malcolm MacAdam, Maximilian Mitzlaff, Gertrude Stein, Alfred Stieglitz, and Carl Van Vechten.

The collection consists of material created and accumulated by Isa Glenn and her son, Bayard Schindel, in the course of their literary activities. Material includes typescripts of writings by Glenn and Schindel; correspondence with writers, editors, publishers, literary agents, friends, and family; material relating to Colonel S. J. B. Schindel's military career and to Glenn's travels to the Phillipines and South America; photographs of Schindel likely dating from his time at the Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man at Fontainebleau; and other papers. The bulk of the material relates to Glenn, and sheds light on the trajectory of her literary career and her relationships with other writers in New York during the 1920s and 1930s.