The Corner collection includes correspondence, biographical and research data, lectures, publications, notebooks and drawings, and also photographs. He was both a scientist, specializing in mammalian reproduction and the female reproduction cycle (being a co-discoverer of the hormone progesterone along with Willard M. Allen), and a medical historian writing both biography and institutional history.

Leonard Carmichael was a psychologist whose most significant contributions were made in the fields of child psychology and biopsychology. Educated at Tufts and Harvard, he taught at Princeton, Brown, and Rochester, later returning to Tufts to serve as its President from 1938-1952. An outstanding administrator, Carmichael served as executive officer for the Smithsonian Institute from 1952-1964, and was subsequently vice president for research and exploration at the National Geographic Society. In his later years, he served as President of the American Philosophical Society from 1970-1973. This large and varied collection reflects the entire range of Carmichael's prolific career. It includes a variety of types of records, including correspondence, committee reports and records, long series of articles and speeches, drafts of papers and books, and pocket notebooks. All phases of his professional life are covered, from his years in academia, to his time at the Smithsonian Institute and the National Geographic Society, as well as his involvement in a large number of professional organizations.