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The papers contain correspondence, reports, minutes of meetings, research notes, writings, photographs, diaries, and other materials documenting the professional career and personal life of Robert Mearns Yerkes. The papers document the broad range of psychological activities undertaken by Yerkes in the first half of the twentieth century. The papers contain correspondence and other materials on chimpanzee and gorilla behavior, intelligence testing in World War I, eugenics and immigration restriction, sex research under the auspices of the National Research Council's Committee for Research in Problems of Sex, research into the behavior of lower animals, and efforts to establish psychology as an experimental science. The papers include notes on chimpanzee and gorilla research, a complete set of his published writings, professional and personal photographs, and extensive files providing information on family life.

Principals in this collection are the Yates family of Schenectady, New York, the Delancy family and James Duane (1733-1797) and his descendants. The major part of the papers is made up of financial and legal papers relating to land transactions in New York state between the 1760s and the 1820s. Included are leases, rent receipts, boundary agreements, survey field books, account books and charts. Most of the correspondence consists of letters from Yates family members to their land agent, Charles Fuller. Of these, approximately fifty were written by Ann Elizabeth Delancy Yates, widow of Joseph Christopher Yates, governor of New York state. Other correspondents are James Duane and his descendants and members of the Delancy family.

The records consist of oral history interviews, reports, a timeline, and a small collection of printed materials documenting the history of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) family equality movement in the United States. Most of the individuals interviewed were associated with the following organizations: All Our Families Coalition; Center Families (New York City); Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere (COLAGE); Family Equality Council (Boston) and its predecessors (Gay Fathers Coalition and Gay and Lesbian Parents Coalition International); Fenway Health (Boston); Gay and Lesbian Adolescent Social Services (GLASS); Our Family Coalition (San Francisco Bay Area); and Rainbow Families (Minneapolis). Additional interviewees include attorneys and mental health and fertility services providers.

Diaries recording principal events in Worcester's professional and personal life and trips to Europe and to England.

The papers document three generations of the Woolsey family. The most prominent figures in the collection are William Walton Woolsey (1766-1839), land owner and merchant in New York City; his son, Theodore Dwight Woolsey (1801-1889), Greek scholar, political theorist and president of Yale College; and Theodore Salisbury Woolsey (1852-1929), professor of international law at Yale Law School, son of Theodore Dwight Woolsey. The papers of William Walton Woolsey contain extensive business correspondence, ledgers, legal papers, documents relating to land sales in New York and Ohio, as well as family and personal letters. Since he was engaged in the importation of sugar, cotton and hardware, some of his business correspondence is political with discussions of the Jay Treaty of 1794, the problems of piracy, American neutrality in the 1790s and the general politics of the period. Important correspondents are Chauncey Goodrich, Archibald Gracie, Eli Whitney, Noah Webster, Elihu and Nathaniel Chauncey, Oliver Wolcott, Benjamin Tallmadge, Jedidiah Morse, James Roosevelt, John A. Schuyler, Comfort Sands, John Broome, and Nicholas Bayard. The papers of Theodore Dwight Woolsey contain his writings on Greek language and literature, the Bible, international law and the texts of his sermons.

Family correspondence of John Woodruff and his son, Timothy Lester Woodruff. Included are several items documenting John Woodruff's career as a Congressman from Connecticut (1855-1857; 1859-1861) and his election on the American Party ticket. Also in the papers is a letter from Samuel Scott, an ancestor of the family, written while serving in the American Revolution.

The collection contains correspondence, photographs, diaries, writings, and genealogical material pertaining to the Woodruff and allied families.

Chiefly the letters of William Cowper Wood to his parents written from Washington, D.C. and Joliet, Illinois. Also included is a ledger (1809-1837) kept by his father, Joseph Wood, a judge in New Haven, Connecticut, miscellaneous family letters, and genealogical materials.

The papers consist of legal papers, medical accounts, religious writings, and other papers relating to Avery Downer, Jacob Witter, and their relations, including Jonah and John Witter.

The papers primarily contain the family correspondence of William Woolsey Winthrop (1831-1899), his sister Sarah Chauncey Winthrop Weston, and their mother, Elizabeth Dwight Woolsey Winthrop. Several letters were written by William Winthrop from St. Anthony, Minnesota and others concern his Civil War military experiences.