The collection is primarily professional letters written to Russell, but there are also a few letters from his wife and a few by him. There is also an autobiographical letter written by Russell. Most of the correspondence pertains to the Royal Meteorological Society, snow crystals, dew, frost, hail, fog, etc. Russell had wide-ranging interests, however, and some of his non-scientific concerns appear in the letters.

These papers include letters, reports, and journals relating to Indians, Moravian missions, and communities at Salem (N.C.), Bethlehem (Pa.), and Gnadenhütten, Muskingum, and Fairfield in Upper Canada. Also included are personal correspondence and an autobiography. Contains 86 letters, journals, reports, etc., pertaining to the travels and missionary activities of Heckewelder, mostly in German. 7 journals, memoranda, and miscellaneous materials of David Zeisberger, pertaining to his years with Indians. Many of the former materials were utilized and published by Paul A. W. Wallace (1958); the latter includes Zeisberger's Memoranda on Indians; Journey to the Six Nations, Nanticokes and Shawanees in April, 1752, to July, 1752; Conrad Weiser, Observations made on the pamphlet entitled "An enquiry ... [1759]"; Birth records for the 1780's at Friedenshutten and Gnadenhütten; Catalogue of Indians baptized by the United Brethren, 1765-1814 (721 names); and a memorandum of Zeisberger on the Onondaga.

After emigrating from Germany to Philadelphia in 1796, Peter Adolph Grotjahn established himself within the city's mercantile community, trading opportunistically both inland and coastwise as far as the Caribbean. In 1812, he began publishing a commercial newspaper, Grotjan's Philadelphia Public Sale Reports and he became increasingly active in local Democratic Party politics. The APS copy of Peter Grotjahn's memoir is a typescript copy of an original volume held at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Written for his grandchildren, the memoir begins with a relatively brief genealogical discussion, but concentrates on his personal and political life and commercial experiences prior to 1817. The last section of the autobiography was completed posthumously from notes, and includes extracts from Grotjahn's diary as late as 1844.

The collection consists of diaries, 1890-1938, containing brief records of professional work and family events (49 vols.); also autobiography entitled "Memories for my boys," 1930 (B D713m), referring to his childhood and to his professional career and mentioning Franz Boas, William Comstock, Livingston Farrand, William W. Keen, S. Weir Mitchell, Elihu Root, and W. T. Sedgewick and also APS, University of Chicago, Johns Hopkins University, Yale University, and Wistar Institute (1 vol.); also a few miscellaneous papers, 1869-1932, chiefly letters to and from members of his family, and also Poultney Bigelow, Simon Henry Gage, and W. B. Van Ingen; two essays ("The Days of Man" and "A Venetian Night"): genealogical data; verses dedicated to his wife; extracts of letters to supplement his diaries.

Leo Lesquereux emigrated from his native Switzerland to Ohio in 1848, and quickly established himself as one of America's foremost bryologists and paleobotanists. Working with the state geological surveys of Pennsylvania and several states in the Mississippi Valley, he contributed some of the earliest descriptions of the Carboniferous flora in North America and helped flesh out the basic geology of coal formation. The autobiography of Leo Lesquereux provides an engaging account of the early life of one of Victorian America's best known bryologists and paleobotanists. Consisting of 14 letters addressed to his friend, J. Peter Lesley, the letters cover only the years between Lesquereux's childhood in Switzerland and his emigration to the United States in 1848. Written after his retirement at the age of 78, they shed light on his education, the illness that led to his loss of hearing, and his studies of peat deposits in Europe, and they provide short vignettes about watchmaking and about his peers Louis and August Agassiz and Arnold Guyot.

Recorded in Peach Springs, Arizona on 12 December 1994. Autobiographical stories and conversation given in Hualapai only.