Correspondence, scripts, manuscripts, and reports regarding his activities in the American radio and film industries. Included are papers regarding projects for the United State Government, the Indian film industry, various television and radio networks, and private ventures. Also included is material regarding the Center for Mass Communications of Columbia University, in which Barnouw figured prominently and files for the books he has written.

The Leo Hurwitz Collection consists of correspondence and papers (both business and personal), scripts, storyboards, publications and clippings, research materials, financial records, promotional material, interviews, festival materials, film and audio dating from 1910-1992, bulk 1925-1991. The collection covers the whole of Hurwitz’s professional career and to a lesser extent his personal life, but with much overlap in the materials themselves. The collection documents Hurwitz's involvement with many notable figures, including Paul Strand, Elia Kazan, Joris Ivens, Paul Robeson, Ralph Steiner, W.E.B. Du Bois, Henri Langlois, Woody Guthrie, James Blue, and Edwin Rolfe.