Collection consists of 169 19th century American photographs. Included are 115 carte-de-visites, 40 cabinet portraits, 2 albums, 11 miscellaneous photographs and 1 envelope of miscellaneous business and greeting cards.

The photographs vary in size, but many of are 1 x 1 cm and mounted on card. Most are albumen type photographs depicting various people including infants, children, and adults. The photographs come from various studios across the United States though the majority come from studios in New York, Vermont, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Illinois. The photographs, since rehoused, were originally housed in two albums decorated with an intricate relief on the cover and a metal clasp lock.

Scrapbook of manuscript notes, clippings, leaflets, handbills and other ephemera concerning the local government in London, England, from 1886 to 1892. Some of the clippings are accompanied by handwritten annotations. The scrapbook has a front pocket that holds several loose-leaf notes, clippings, and pamphlets.

Clippings cover a wide range of topics concerning the London County Council and Kensington Parliament such as meetings, motions, tax reforms, public addresses, as well as news about the law and parliamentary committees.

Fonds consists of one scrapbook kept by Maria Louise Clough while on a trip from Boston to England, Scotland, France and Italy in 1886 and 1887. The scrapbook contains cards, correspondence, clippings, ephemera, and realia (including plant material), and provides insight into the activities and tastes of a young woman from that period of time. Among the contents are: Cunard ephemera (including deck plans, menus, passenger list), theatre ephemera (including Henry Irving in Faust at the Lyceum), a cigarette, lace, Westminster Abbey ephemera, transportation tickets, a moving-part Christmas card, fringe forming part of the decoration of the funeral car of the Duke of Wellington, postcards, engravings, hotel ephemera, identified leaves and flowers, etc.

Fonds contains two scrapbooks created by Sir Percival Hartley dating from 1921 to 1939. Both contain newspaper clippings and handwritten notes relating to a variety of topics in areas such as theology, physicians, poetry, and the history of England.