This collection consists of materials of Simon Dubnow, a historian, political thinker, educator, collector of historical and ethnographic documents in Russia and Poland, writer, and an activist. These materials include community registers (pinkasim) and other communal documents, historical documents relating to restrictions and privileges issued by governments to Jewish populations, blood libel trials and the Chmielnicki massacres of 1648-1649, documents from the Russian Justice Ministry and Senate, materials on pogroms in the Russian empire, and Dubnow’s family and general correspondence. The collection demonstrates Dubnow’s importance in helping to establish the idea of Jewish ethnographic history.

The collection contains family letters, legal documents (personal, professional, and business), primarily written by residents of New York State and miscellany; photographs of nineteenth-century portraits from the album of Elizabeth Van Rensselaer; black and white photographs taken in the mid-1950s and 1960s of Van Rensselaer family member portraits and homes; newspapers with articles relating to the Van Rensselaer family.

The first part of the collection consists of letters written by the novelist William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863). Also here are manuscript fragments and pen and pencil sketches by Thackeray. The letters are principally from the last fifteen years of his career, after the publication of Vanity Fair, and concern his lecture tours and opinions on literary subjects. A few are rhyming and whimsical social notes.

The papers consist of letters, manuscript poems and prose pieces, pictures, and printed material. Major groups of correspondence include: Letters written by Southey to Anna Eliza (Kempe) Stothard Bray (1790-1883) between 1831 and 1839 in which he discusses literature, politics, local history, and antiquities; letters to Humphrey Fleming Senhouse (1781-1841) dated from 1805 to 1838; seventeen "Autobiographical Epistles" written by Southey to John May between July 26, 1820 and January 8, 1826, and correspondence with the poet William Wordsworth. The collection also contains letters written by Southey's second wife Caroline Anne (Bowles) Southey (1786-1854) to Mrs. Bray and others. Many of these letters concern Southey's failing health. Letters written by Southey's son, Charles Cuthbert Southey (1819-1888), are also in the collection, as well as original handwritten fragments by Richard Duppa (1770-1831) and Southey.

The Curtis White Papers consists of 35 boxes and 1 oversize folder of White's personal papers, including 6 boxes of correspondence; 21 boxes of manuscript and printed material by White; 1 box of interviews and works by other authors; 2 boxes of audio/visual material; 1 box of speeches and presentations; and 4 boxes and 1 oversize folder of personal ephemera.

The papers include correspondence to and from Morgan, manuscripts of articles and speeches, manuscript notebooks and travel diaries, and the manuscripts of several of his books. Correspondents include Henry Adams, Adolph F. Bandelier, Charles Darwin, Joseph Henry, Francis Parkman, and Herbert Spencer.

A scrapbook of musical excerpts kept by opera singer Marietta Gazzaniga (1824-1884), who toured the United States and Cuba in the mid-nineteenth century. The Italian soprano compiled autographs, letters, and poems from major nineteenth century Italian composers and other music personalities, notably Giuseppe Verdi, into the bound volume, which spans almost forty years.

The Jean S. Lindsay Papers contain three series: Career, Community, and Family Papers. The Career series includes typescripts, manuscripts, correspondence, research, notes, and photographs relating, with only a few exceptions, to Lindsay's work at the Watson Archives (1980-1982). The Community series consists chiefly of correspondence and notes for the Now Nameless Bibliophiles group and a small amount of material relating to the Friends of the University of Rochester Libraries (1980s). The Family Papers series contains photographs, diaries, memorabilia, newspaper clippings, and research relating primarily to Jean S. Lindsay's paternal ancestors (the Lindsay, Hatch, and Curtice families) and her maternal ancestors (the Courter and Sampson families).

Five bound volumes of manuscript papers which were read before the Pithonian Society, an undergraduate literary society.

Manuscript constitution and minutes (1854-1913) of the Alumni of the University of Rochester (362 pages of which pages 221-362 are blank).