Primarily correspondence and subject files, together with diaries, memoranda, speeches, articles, reports, financial papers, bulletins, pamphlets, clippings, memorabilia, and other papers relating chiefly to Pinchot's activities in conservation and forestry and to his terms as governor of Pennsylvania. Family papers (circa 1830-1914) include correspondence of his parents, James W. and Mary Eno Pinchot with William T. Sherman; financial papers of his grandfather, Amos R. Eno; and Civil War correspondence of John S. and Mary Whitney Phelps. Pinchot's support of Theodore Roosevelt and Robert M. La Follette's campaigns for the presidency and Progressive Party activities in Pennsylvania are documented, as is his dispute with Richard Achilles Ballinger, secretary of the interior, that led to his dismissal as chief forester in 1909. Other papers relate to his interest in the American Farm Bureau Federation, American Federation of Labor, American Legion, American Liberty League, flood control, prohibition, and public utilities; his travels to Russia (1902) and to the South Seas (1935); his service on the Commission for Relief in Belgium (1914-1915); and his affiliation with the Tomlinson Church of God.

Includes subject files compiled by Pinchot on such public figures as William Edgar Borah, Louis Dembitz Brandeis, William Jennings Bryan, Thomas A. Edison, Henry Ford, John Charles Frémont, and William Randolph Hearst. Also includes correspondence and other papers of Philip P. Wells, Eugene S. Bruce, and Herbert A. Smith, employees under Pinchot in the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture Division of Forestry; Morris E. Gregg, Pinchot's secretary; and W. Brooke Graves, author of an analysis of letters received by Pinchot as a result of his support of Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1944 presidential election.