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The papers contain writings, correspondence, personal papers, photographs, and family papers of twentieth-century American writer Chard Powers Smith. The collection documents his career through drafts of his writings and through correspondence that reveals his personal and professional relationships with fellow writers, publishers, and literary organizations. The papers also contain information about his family, documenting not only his relationships with family members but also the lives of his parents and grandparents in nineteenth-century Watertown, New York. Smith's experiences during World War I and his travels in Europe in the 1920s are documented through correspondence, autobiographical writings, photographs, and scrapbooks. His involvement with the Distributist and Agrarian movements of the 1930s is evidenced by correspondence, writings, and printed ephemera, and the collection also documents his involvement with the Society of Friends, or Quakers, particularly from the 1950s through the end of his life.

The collection consists primarily of material created and accumulated by Charles Fenton in the course of researching and writing books on Stephen Vincent Benét and Ernest Hemingway. Research material includes correspondence about Benét and Hemingway, Fenton's notes about their lives and careers, and index cards with which Fenton organized his research. In addition to research on Benét and Hemingway, the collection contains a smaller amount of research material on the topic of "Writer in America" and the history of The National Institute of Arts and Letters, as well as notes regarding Fenton's World War II anthology and notes on American writers. The collection also contains professional and personal papers, including manuscripts and teaching materials from Fenton's years as a lecturer at Duke University.

The Charles H. Hapgood Papers consist of correspondence, manuscripts, and research materials related to Hapgood's research projects and publications on earth science, archeology, ancient history, parapsychology, and spirit communication.

The Christopher Cox Papers consists of the writings, correspondence files, and personal papers of the editor, author, actor, director, and producer Christopher Cox, and of his partner, the art historian William Olander.

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 collection contains correspondence, writings, and personal papers documenting the life and literary activities of American poet and publisher Coburn Britton. The correspondence features a nearly three-decade long exchange between Britton and Jack Sullivan, some of which was compiled and published as Letters from Jack: Sex & Hell in Manhattan and Backwoods Maine (2002). In addition, there are small groups of correspondence with others, including Glenway Wescott, Edward Dahlberg, and Lincoln Kirstein, dating chiefly from the 1970s, as well as approximately 150 postcards from graphic artist Willyum Rowe, with whom Britton collaborated on An ABeCedarium for Poets and Readers (1989). Many if not most of the postcards from Rowe are decorated, for example, with cutouts and stamps, providing a large group of postcard or mail art from the period. Writings include printed versions of Britton's Second Seasons (1982), Lesser Goods and Other Poems (1987), and An ABeCedarium for Poets and Readers (1989), and drafts of the later Adrian Sonnets (1995) and shorter works. Others materials include photographs of family and friends, printed materials, and documents.

Collection of photographs and printed materials relating chiefly to film and television productions of work by John Steinbeck.

The Cornelius Eady Papers contains writings, correspondence, printed material, electronic files, and audiovisual material that document the professional activities of African American poet, author, and educator Cornelius Eady.

Countee Cullen gained fame principally as a poet, during the Harlem Renaissance, and later taught in the New York City school system.

Research files, including notes, manuscripts, printed material, photographs, and audio tapes compiled by Cynthia Earl Kerman in the process of writing The Lives of Jean Toomer.