The Herschel Daniel "Dan" Carpenter Papers document Carpenter's life and career from his boyhood and education in rural Ohio, to his leadership role in the New York City settlement house movement. The collection also documents Hudson Guild, a West Side settlement house from its origins in the 1890s, when it organized clubs for Chelsea boys, to its work a century later, when it provided a wide range of social services to West Side residents.

The records include addresses, annual reports, correspondence, memos, minutes, program files, newsclippings, administrative records, photographs, video tape, and film. They include material dating from the decades prior to the establishment of the settlement which shed light on the philosophy and motivation of its founders, and offer a unique view of the first wave of the settlement house movement in America. The records document social conditions, demographic change, political activity and philanthropy in New York City. Addresses by East Side House founder Everett P. Wheeler, included in Series I, document his family history and career as a lawyer and civic reformer prior to the founding of East Side House. Wheeler's correspondence details his role in establishing the settlement and managing it during its first decades.

This collection includes nine letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson as well as letters of Louis Agassiz, Amos Bronson Alcott, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, John Lothrop Motley, Charles Sumner, and John Greenleaf Whittier. In addition, there are two incomplete manuscripts by Emerson and one document from the Liverpool Custom-house signed by Nathaniel Hawthorne as Consul for the United States. The collection also includes the corrected typescript, index, and page and galley proofs for Thomas Franklin Currier, A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES (New York, 1953) which was edited by Professor Tilton. Also, some early correspondence and photographs of the Tilton family and friends. There are letters from the actors Annie Louise Ames, Richard J. Dillon, and Hans L. Meery to Tilton's grandfather, Bernard Paul Verne, as well as photographs, tintypes, and daguerreotypes of the Verne family and friends.

Notes and books from the library of Frances Elizabeth Henne, including some of her own books from her childhood, and others on children's literature inscribed to her by the authors; material for her class on illustration in children's literature, 1952-1979; and memorabilia. Also, a 3,000 card bibliography of children's books cited in book dealer catalogs as well as a small group of entries for monographs and serials with references to children's literature; printed ephemera collected by Phyllis Yuill Marquart (Columbia M.L.S., 1973) relating to her collecting of and research on Helen Bannerman's LITTLE BLACK SAMBO. Included are photocopies of Bannerman's out-of-print books, a folder on commercial spinoffs, such as Sambo's Restaurants, photocopies of various editions of STRUWELPETER, which contains the Sambo story and a 1971 BBC audio tape recording and transcript of a radio program on the topic.

The records include annual reports, board minutes, budgets, by-laws, correspondence, memos, publications, reports, scrapbooks, photographs and printed material. They document the settlement and its antecedent institutions from 1854 to 1994, offering a unique view of the first wave of the settlement house movement in America, as well as related philanthropy and social welfare activities in New York City over a 140 year period. The origins of Goddard-Riverside Community Center are documented in Series I, which includes eight institutional subseries. These records provide a wealth of information on philanthropic, social welfare and settlement work from the mid-19th century through the 1950s. Series II - IV document the activities of the settlement from 1959 to the 1990s, with a particular emphasis on the urban renewal period of the 1960s. Items in Series VII include photographs of staff, activities, facilities of Goddard-Riverside Community Center, as well as several of its predecessor institutions.

The Grosvenor Neighborhood House Records document the settlement from its incorporation in 1916 when it sponsored day care and hot lunch programs for East Side children, to its activities over seventy-five years later when it provided social services to youth and families on the Upper West Side.

Correspondence, manuscripts, memoranda, receipts, certificates, financial and legal documents, envelopes, clippings, pamphlets, and other printed materials dealing with social and family relationships, the sons' education, professions, and military careers, the Mexican-American War and the Civil War, real estate and financial matters, and with the deaths and bequests of various family members. Among the cataloged correspondents are: Alexander Hamilton, John Church Hamilton, Gen. Schuyler Hamilton, Ralph Isaacs Ingersoll, Charles Augustus Peabody, Gen. J. Fred Pierson, Gen. Winfield Scott, Martin Van Buren, and a manuscript by George Washington.

Correspondence, manuscripts, typescripts, research files, documents, printed materials, photographs, and memorabilia of Mr and Mrs Hough. Correspondence includes both personal and business letters, dealing with wildlife conservation, civic interests, and birding. There is some correspondence of George A. Hough, Sr., father of H.B. Hough, who was editor of the New Bedford MA Standard. Most of the correspondence is arranged alphabetically, by personal name or subject, out-going and in-coming filed together. Henry and Elizabeth Hough's correspondence, for which there are no in-coming or related letters, are filed chronologically. Cataloged correspondents include Calvin Coolidge, Max Eastman, Helen Keller, John F. Kennedy, Emily Post, and James Reston.

The Hudson Guild Records document the institution from its origins in the 1890s, when it organized clubs for Chelsea boys, to its work a century later, when it provided a wide range of social services to West Side residents.

The office files of the American Institute of Pacific Relations and the international Institute of Pacific Relations, containing correspondence and reports concerned with international conferences, research programs, and publications programs of both Institutes, and relating to the political, economic, and social problems in eastern and southern Asia and the South Pacific, as well as with problems of American foreign policy. There are many travel letters and on-the-spot reports relating to conditions in China, Japan, Russia, Australia, the Philippines, India, and Pakistan during the period 1933 to 1954.