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Correspondence, manuscripts, notes, drafts of speeches, appointment books, subject files, documents, photographs, memorabilia and printed materials. There are notes from her lectures on Sociology at Adelphi College in 1911-1912; papers from 1912-1932, when Perkins served on the Commission for Safety and on the Industrial Commission of New York State; the main body of the material is from the period of her cabinet office, 1933-1945; and some items from her days on the Civil Service Commission, 1946-1953. Also included are personal and family papers.

Papers concerning both the administration of the Henry Street Settlement and Wald's involvement in numerous philanthropic and liberal causes. Her office files trace the foundation and growth of the Henry Street Settlement from 1895 until 1933. Her other activities include child welfare, civil liberties, immigration, public health, unemployment, and the peace movement during World War I. The correspondence files contain letters from public figures and writers including Jane Addams, Roger N. Baldwin, Van Wyck Brooks, Lavinia L. Dock, John Galsworthy, Samuel Gompers, William D. Howells, Charles Evans Hughes, Mabel Hyde Kittredge, Frances Perkins, Dorothy Thompson, Norman Thomas, Ida Tarbell, Margaret Sanger, and Jacob A. Riis.