These papers consist of correspondence, manuscripts, documents, subject files, photographs, and printed materials. Most of the collection concerns Bashmakov's ethnographical work in France in the 1920s and 1930s, including correspondence, many manuscripts, lectures, notes, and copies of his publications. Subject files concern emigre monarchism in France, and the death of Father Georgiĭ Spasskiĭ. There are copies of the Russian version of Bashmakova's memoirs, "Perezhitoe." Cataloged correspondence in the collection consists of letters from Petr Krasnov and one or two items each from Henry Field, Evgeniĭ Miller, Petr Wrangel, and Boris Zaĭt︠s︡ev. There are also photographic slides representing ethnographical types from the Caucasus.

This collection contains the records of the Research in Contemporary Cultures project (1947-1953) begun by Ruth Benedict at Columbia University, and carried out by Margaret Mead at Columbia University and the American Museum of Natural History after Benedict's death in 1948. The records of three successor projects, Studies in Soviet Culture (1948-1952), Studies in Contemporary Culture (1951-1952), and and Study Program of Human Health and the Ecology of Man (1954-1956) are also included. The purpose of these projects was anthropological study at a distance of global cultures inaccessible for direct observation, in an attempt to establish the "national character" of countries of geopolitical interest to the United States government.