The material in the Mary E. Ferguson papers deals with the research, writing, and publication of "China Medical Board - Peking Union Medical College: A Chronicle of Fruitful Collaboration, 1914-1951," published in New York, 1970. The strength of the collection lies in the primary source documents: interviews with former staff at the Peking Union Medical College (PUMC), correspondence relating to the book's conception through publication, and reports of China during the Japanese occupation and after nationalization in 1951. Much of the research correspondence had been photocopied from the files of the China Medical Board, Inc., and the Rockefeller Foundation. (The book is an administrative history of PUMC, and most of the research material deals with the staff and administration of the institution.)

This collection contains materials compiled by the Missionary Research Library that document mission work in China largely during the 20th century, including information on missions and religious work, education work, subject files, committees and reports, and photographs.

This collection contains copies of handwritten and typed reports, in German, from the Rheinische Missionsgesellschaft (Rhenish Missionary Society) missionaries located in Southern Africa, Borneo, Sumatra, Nias and New Guinea.

Primarily documents appropriations, with a small selection of financial records and audiovisual materials.

The China Medical Board, Inc. Collection, 1914-1971, consists almost exclusively of material dealing with the Peking Union Medical College (PUMC), 1918-1951. The Peking Union Medical College (PUMC) appears to have sent to its financial supporters, first the China Medical Board and then the China Medical Board, Inc., much of its correspondence, memos and reports, to keep those in New York informed as to what was going on in China. As the ownership of the buildings and grounds of the Peking Union Medical College (PUMC) was transferred from the CMB to the CMB, Inc., many records were also transferred. This accounts for many pre-1928 documents found in the files.

The papers focus on the years after World War II and the reconstruction of the Peking Union Medical College, and include reports and correspondence by Loucks from China Medical Board, Inc. sponsored trips to the Far East, 1951-1964. The countries surveyed include: Japan, Hong Kong, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Siam (Thailand), Burma, Ceylon, India, Pakistan, Lebanon, Korea, Vietnam, and the Trust Territory. The reports include information not only about the status of medical education, but also about the social and political climate of each country.

Correspondence of The Rockefeller Foundation consists principally of material not directly connected with an institutional grant. It includes: inter-office memoranda, correspondence between field officers and the home office, extracts from officers' diaries, forms and other material relating to fellowships; casual requests for information, employment, or aid; printed matter and letters of abuse received by the Foundation. As such, the General Correspondence provides insight into the day-to-day workings of the Foundation.

The United Board for Christian Colleges in China (UBCCC) was established to support and coordinate activities of Protestant colleges and universities in China. The collection contains committee, historical, correspondence, and annual meeting records that document the UBCCC's work.

The China Information Committee 中國情報委員會 was established in late 1937 as part of the newly-formed Chinese Ministry of Information, an organ of the Chinese Nationalist Party (guomindang 國民黨), to produce propaganda for a foreign audience regarding the ongoing hostilities between China and Japan. The collection contains a series of propaganda news releases in English produced during the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945), reports on the wartime Chinese economy, war crimes, refugees, and the gradual retreat and relocation of industries and offices to Chongqing in West China.

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.