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The extensive collection documents the life and work of Richmond-born photographer and educator Louis Draper (1935–2002). Manuscript and photographic materials document Draper's experience and work as an African American photographer, including his recognition of his photography as a form of "engaged resistance" that not only bore witness to leaders of the civil rights movement, but also offered a richer and more diverse perspective of African American life than provided by the mainstream media. In 1963, he was a founding member of the Kamoinge Workshop, a collective of African American photographers, and the collection includes significant materials from the early years of the Kamoinge Workshop and document his perspective on the professional challenges that he and the collective confronted in the process of finding publications that would publish photographs of African Americans made by African Americans. His photographs of significant 20th-century artists, writers, musicians, and performers reflect the wide array of personal connections that Draper made after moving to New York from Richmond, Virginia in 1957. Printed photographs and contact sheets in Draper's archive show a broad view of city life and the everyday interactions between people and also offer a unique vision of African American neighborhoods in the 1960s and 1970s.

A single-sided French Revolution Assignat paper currency worth 15 sols.

Papers of a Huntington attorney, member of the West Virginia National Guard, 1909-1916, employee of the C&O Railway Company, president of the Union Bank and Trust Company of Huntington, president of the Ben Lomond Company, president of the Blackberry, Kentucky and West Virginia Coal and Coke Company, attorney for Central City, prosecuting attorney of Cabell County, 1905-1908, chairman of a county Democratic committee, and delegate to the Democratic National Convention, 1912. Wallace served in the Spanish-American War and as judge advocate general in West Virginia during the coal strike in 1912-1913. During World War I he was a state draft executive, a major in the judge advocate general corps in Washington, and a lieutenant colonel in France. Subjects include the influenza epidemic of 1918, the depression of 1929-1932, state and national politics, and genealogy of the Wallace and allied families. The collection also includes three typescripts, "Runnymede Receipts,"Train Running for the Confederacy," and "Norborne Parish and St. George's Chapel," by Philip P. Gibson; Civil War data; an account of the taking of San Juan Hill in 1898; a military diary; a scrapbook of Cabell County court records; a speech against the League of Nations; and notes on a trip to Nice, circa 1919.

The Underhill papers include reports, correspondence, financial documents, plans, publications, and general information on new planned communities. Also included is a series of oversized maps from different new towns including Flower Mound, St. Charles and Roosevelt Island. The collection is comprised of Jack Underhill's personal papers that he accumulated while employed with the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The papers document the Federal New Communities Program which sponsored the development of 13 new towns. It also documents Underhill's research interests in private new towns and international urban planning. The collection covers the period of time from the 1963 to 1997.

Contains nearly 400 black and white photographs documenting Jean-Louis Barrault and Madeleine Renaud's career in the theatre in France between 1947 and 1979.

Louis Reed (1899-ca. 1985) served in France and Germany during World War I. Collection contains letters he wrote to his future wife, Mildred Johnston. Reed and Johnston married many years later, after the death of Reed's first wife. Reed's letters, written between 1918 and 1920, discuss army life, the front in France, and the occupation of Germany. Collection also contains a 235-page photocopied typescript that Reed wrote about the history of Burning Springs, Wirt County, and its role in the Civil War as a productive oil field. The typescript is also available on microfilm.

The La Vean collection contains 268 documents and books from the period between 1751 and 1851. The majority of the documents come from the years between the creation of the French National Assembly in 1789 and the beginning of the Empire in 1805.

Letters from Okey P. Keadle (1894-1958) to his family in Williamson, West Virginia, written while he served with the first American army regiment on active duty in France during World War I. Keadle was stationed in Paris and Tours, serving as a clerk. Subjects include his reaction to French customs, wartime civilian life in Paris, celebrations held by the American troops, and fashions and popular entertainers of the day.