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The collection consists of papers related to the personal and professional life of American architect Ely Jacques Kahn. A small amount of personal papers was transferred from the Arendts Library at Syracuse University in 1992. Additional personal papers, including two large scrapbooks, were donated by Liselotte Kahn, wife of Ely Jacques Kahn, in 1992 and 1993. Also found in this collection are student drawings and an incomplete autobiographical essay, donated to Avery Library by Kahn himself in 1963. Completing the Kahn holdings are personal materials from Ely Jacques Kahn, including drawings done while Kahn was a student at the Ecole de Beaux-Arts in Paris (1907-1908), sketchbooks, diplomas, autographs from fellow students, a typescript of Kahn's autobiography, and scrapbooks containing clippings, photographs, telegrams and other ephemera. Additionally, there is a small holding for Liselotte Kahn within the collection, including her unpublished memoirs, some correspondence, and a watercolor painting. Liselotte Kahn's memoirs describe her childhood in Germany; her marriage to Dr. Ernst Müller and the birth of their sons; Nazi anti-Semitism; their emigration to Greece; her husband's medical practice in Athens; the Italian and German invasion of Greece; their escape to Palestine; and their emigration to and experiences in the United States.

Correspondence, manuscripts, drawings, watercolors, sketches, proofs, and printed materials. The collection includes original watercolor, pen-and-ink, and pencil illustrations for fifty books by various authors, beginning with Georges Duplaix's TOPSY TURVY CIRCUS (1940), and continuing with Golden Book's Scuffy the Tugboat & Tootles the Train by Gertrude Crampton; Duplaix's The Merry Shipwreck; Kipling's The Jungle Books, and the artist's dummy for The Wheel on the Chimney by Margaret Wise Brown, a Caldecott Honor book. Also included are illustrations for nineteen books by Gergely; advertising and commercial art of the 1940s, political cartoons and carricatures from the 1930s 1940s in Europe and America; designs for greeting cards, posters, and record jackets; and eighteen watercolor drawings for NEW YORKER covers, many of which were published in the 1940s. A selection of manuscripts, correspondence, and printed materials is also included in the collection.

The collection comprises materials authored by D'Arcy Hayman, including letters, invitations, essays, poetry, drawings, photographs, three monographs, proofs for one monograph, journals, and three scrapbooks. The three scrapbooks are referred to as 1, 2, and 3 (1 is a photo album, while 2 and 3 contain miscellanies: essays, drawings, poems, cards, photos, newsletters, conference materials, air travel documents, clippings, post-cards, festive cup holders, and a one-act play).

The papers consist of correspondence, manuscripts, subject files, financial records, photographs, and printed materials. Among the correspondents are Ivan Bilibin, David Burli︠u︡k, Franz Theodor Csokor, Vasiliĭ Kamenskiĭ, and Percival Wilde; there is one item each from Jean Anouilh, Collete, Mikhail Fokine, Vasiliĭ Kandinskiĭ, Vladislav Khodasevich, Pavel Mili︠u︡kov, and Dmitriĭ Merezhovskiĭ. Most of the manuscripts are by Evangulov and Nadezhda Teffi, and memoirs by Evreĭnov's wife, Anna Aleksandrovna, on such topics as her career in the emigration from 1925. There are photographs of Evreĭnov, Nikolaĭ Rimskiĭ-Korsakov, and Vasiliĭ Kamenskiĭ. This collection is almost entirely concerned with the emigration.

Collection contains watercolor renderings, sketches, technical drawings (ground plans, elevations and details), photographs, glass plate and acetate negatives, scrapbooks, set models and some related papers covering Urban's career in Vienna and New York as an architect, set designer, decorator and illustrator. There is a thorough representation of his New York career including his set designs for Florenz Ziegfeld (1915-1932) and the Metropolitan Opera (1917-1933). The collection also contains information on Urban's work for William Randolph Hearst as art director for Cosmopolitan Studios, his exhibitions including his 1921 Wiener Werkstätte store, and his many architectural projects. Biographical information and research gathered by Richard Cole and Randolph Carter including contributions from his daughter,Gretl Urban, and biographical notes and some letters from his widow, Mary Urban, are also present.

The papers consist of correspondence, diaries, journals, interviews, manuscripts, transcripts, and printed material.