There are notes on the colonial history of Pennsylvania, with emphasis on William Penn and his family, the Society of Friends, James Logan, and the charters granted by Penn, with some notes on the study of languages and definition of words.

A physicist and social activist, Edward G. Ramberg contributed to the early development of electron microscopy and color television, and devoted much of his life to pacifist and Quaker causes. Born in Italy to an American mother and German father, Ramberg experienced the losses of war firsthand during the First World War when his father was killed while serving with the German army. After moving to the United States with his mother, Ramberg attended Reed College and Cornell University before returning to Germany for postdoctoral study under Arnold Sommerfeld. Employed at RCA for most of his career (1935-1972), Ramberg refused any involvement in military or war-related research, and as a conscientious objector during the Second World War, was assigned to duty in Civilian Public Service camps. He continued to work in fostering social harmony until late in life. With his wife, Sarah Sargent, a Swarthmore graduate whom he met through the American Friends Service Committee, Ramberg helped to establish Bryn Gweled, a cooperative community in which people of various religious, social, and racial backgrounds lived and worked together. The bulk of the Ramberg papers consists of files pertaining to his work with Amnesty International, the American Friends Service Committee, and peace groups in the Philadelphia and Bucks County region. Of particular note is a bundle of correspondence with Sommerfeld.

In October 1719, the Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends for Philadelphia and the Jersies reached consensus on a "book of discipline" governing the "establishment and order of meetings." The regulations covered both the conduct of the Quarterly and Monthly Meetings and the personal comportment of individual members, refining the bureaucratic structure of the meetings and laying out the powers of Overseers and other officials. It touches upon marriage (mandating endogamy), burial, and attendance at meetings, and cautions Friends to plainness of speech and dress, drinking, smoking, backbiting, and gaming. This version of the Book of Discipline is a manuscript copy made for the American Philosophical Society in 1820 "from and antient Copy in the possession of Timothy Matlack, Esqr."

The Anthony F. C. Wallace Papers include correspondence to and from 20th century anthropologists, ethnologists, historians, linguists, and psychiatrists and provides a wealth of resources for the study of technological and social change, American Indians, culture and personality, revitalization movements, the anthropological study of religion, and the cultural and biological bases of behavior. In addition to Wallace's correspondence, research notes, and drafts, the collection includes Wallace family correspondence and photographs, as well as Wallace's writings from childhood through recent years.