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Correspondence of members of the Herzen family, especially Aleksandr Ivanovich Herzen and his wife Natal'ia. Most of the letters were written by A. I. Herzen and his wife to Tat'iana Alekseevna Astrakova and her husband Nikolai Ivanovich in the period 1838-1851. There are also seven letters from Tat'ana Astrakova to Natal'ia Herzen; one letter from Nikolai Platonovich Ogarev to Nikolai Astrakov; and letters from three of the Herzen children (Aleksandr, Natal'ia, and Nikolai) to Tat'ana Astrakova. The letters in Box 1 were first published in "Novyi Zhurnal" nos. 46-51 (1956-1957), and then in "Neizdannye pis'ma A. I. Gertsena k N. I. i T. A. Astrakovym" (New York, 1957), edited by Ludwig Domherr. These consist of all letters by Aleksandr Herzen in the collection, plus a selection of letters by Natal'ia Herzen, including all those partly written by Aleksandr Herzen or with notes or postscripts by him. The other letters in this collection have not been published.

The papers consist of correspondence, manuscripts, documents, subject files, photographs, and printed materials, and chiefly concern the post-1917 emigration; the Rodichevs settled in Switzerland. There is a great deal of family correspondence, including letters from Fedor I. Rodichev to his wife and daughter, letters from their niece Nina Vernadsky (Mrs. George), and from relatives in Soviet Russia in the 1920s and 1930s. There are many letters by Fedor I. Rodichev to Ivan and Anastasii︠a︡ Petrunkevich, and to Natalii︠a︡ Herzen fille. There are also letters to the Rodichevs from such Kadet leaders as Nikolaĭ Astrov, I︠O︡sif Gessen, Vasiliĭ Maklakov, Pavel Mili︠u︡kov, Sofii︠a︡ Panina, and Ivan Petrunkevich, and items by Aleksandr I. Herzen, Nikolaĭ Ogarev, and Ignacy Jan Paderewski. Manuscripts include memoirs and other writings, with many notes and fragments, written by Fedor Rodichev while in exile. There is also Aleksandra Rodicheva's biography of her father, and materials used by Kermit McKenzie to prepare his edition of Fedor Rodichev's memoirs. Subject files concern such topics as the Russian Civil War, the emigration, and the Rodichev and Herzen families. Among the photographs, which are chiefly of the Rodichevs and their friends and relatives, are two portraits of Giuseppe Garibaldi. Printed materials include clippings and offprints of works by Fedor Rodichev, and some books by, or relating to, members of the Herzen family.

The collection consists of correspondence, manuscripts, documents, photographs, subject files and printed material. The correspondence is primarily from the 1920s and includes letters from G. E. Lv́ov and S. P. Mel'gunov and one or two items each from M. A. Aldanov, I. A. Bunin, N. V. Chaikovskii, A. L. Tolstaiia, V. F. Zeeler and others. The manuscripts are primarily in the form of notes in Polner's hand and include Polner's diary from the years 1919-1925. The documents belong to Tikhon Polner's brother, Sergei, and deal with the latter's expulsion from the USSR in 1921. There is extensive material in the subject files on the writings of Lev Tolstoĭ, including typescript copies of several Tolstoi manuscripts and clippings of the reviews of Polner's book on Tolstoi. Also included is a photograph of A. I. Herzen from the 1850s.