A philosopher, metaphysician, and mathematician, Chauncey Wright graduated from Harvard in 1852 and taught occasionally at the College while employed as a "computer" with the American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac. A positivist and empiricist in the British tradition, he exerted an influence on the development of American Pragmatism through his younger friends William James, Charles S. Peirce, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, but is perhaps best remembered as one of the earliest and most able defenders of Darwinism and Darwinian natural selection. The bulk of the 137 items in the Wright Papers is comprised of personal letters addressed to Wright during the adult years of his brief life. From the typical letters of a college student, the correspondence branches out to touch upon philosophy, mathematics, and Wright's meeting with Darwin in 1872. Among the more prominent correspondents are C. S. Peirce, Charles Eliot Norton, Francis Bowen, Susan and J. Peter Lesley, and James Bradley Thayer and William Sydney Thayer.

Correspondence, notebooks, research data related to Cole's career as the first director at the Hospital of the Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research, 1908-1937. His research of pneumonia was conducted when the disease was epidemic. Personal correspondence reflect Cole's life as a medical resident at Johns Hopkins, 1899-1908. Documented are his memberships in leading medical organizations throughout his career, including the Association of American Physicians and the New York Academy of Medicine. This collection showcases the evolving changes in the medical profession from practicing physician to clinician.