Correspondence, diaries, speeches, writings, legal files, office files, campaign files, legislative files, subject files, financial records, biographical material, newspaper clippings, printed material, and other papers principally documenting the careers of Robert M. La Follette, Sr., governor of Wisconsin and U.S. representative and senator, and his son Robert M. La Follette, Jr., U.S. senator.

Includes papers of Robert M. La Follette, Sr.; papers of Robert M. La Follette, Jr.; papers of Belle Case La Follette, lawyer, journalist, editor, and suffragist; papers of Fola La Follette, actress and educator; papers of Philip Fox La Follette, lawyer and governor of Wisconsin; and papers of Mary Josephine La Follette, art consultant, social science research analyst, and editor. Also includes papers of Grace C. Lynch, secretary to Robert M. La Follette, Sr., and to Robert M. La Follette, Jr.; papers of Gilbert E. Roe, New York lawyer and adviser to Robert M. La Follette, Sr.; papers of Alfred Thomas Rogers, law partner of Robert M. La Follette, Sr.; records of the National Progressive Republican League; and extensive files relating to La Follette's Magazine and to its successor, The Progressive.

Subjects include American Indian affairs, child labor laws, civil rights, conservation, disarmament, education, espionage, foreign relations especially with Latin America and Asia, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press, hygiene, immigration, isolationism, judicial reform, New Deal, peace movement, political primaries, presidential elections of 1912 and 1924, public lands, railroad regulation, reform lobbies, regulatory commissions, tariffs, taxation, the Teapot Dome scandal, U.S. political affairs, veteran's claims, Wisconsin politics, women's rights and suffrage, World Wars I and II, and outlawry of war. Also includes material concerning American handicrafts, Wisconsin attorney general Bronson C. La Follette, and family biographer Sherry Zabriskie.

Includes material pertaining to the Conference for Progressive Political Action, Emily Bishop League, League of Nations, National Conservation Association, National Consumers' League, National Council for Prevention of War, National League of Women Voters, National Municipal League, People's Legislative Service, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, and other progressive and reform movements.

In addition to family members, correspondents include Jane Addams, Peter A. Arntson, Ray Stannard Baker, Charles Austin Beard, Mary Ritter Beard, Joseph D. Beck, Emily Montague Mulkin Bishop, Alice Stone Blackwell, John J. Blaine, W. Wade Boardman, Alice Goldmark Brandeis, Louis Dembitz Brandeis, William Jennings Bryan, Austin F. Cansler, James H. Causey, John Rogers Commons, Calvin Coolidge, Charles Richard Crane, Charles Henry Crownhart, Bronson M. Cutting, Jo Davidson, Thomas F. Davlin, Eugene V. Debs, Charles M. Dow, Theodore Dreiser, Herman Lewis Ekern, Elizabeth Glendower Evans, William Theodore Evjue, John D. Fackler, Lorena King Fairbank, Felix Frankfurter, Zona Gale, A.C. Grimm, John J. Hannan, Norman Hapgood, Frank A. Harrison, Herbert Hoover, Walter L. Houser, B. W. Huebsch, Ralph M. Immell, Helen Keller, William Kirsch, Walter Jodok Kohler, Irvine Luther Lenroot, Katharine F. Lenroot, David Eli Lilienthal, Edward G. Little, Henry Cabot Lodge, Alice Roosevelt Longworth, Grace C. Lynch, Joseph McCarthy, Medill McCormick, Thomas M. McCusker, Nellie Dunn MacKenzie, Basil Maxwell Manly, Wayne L. Morse, Sylvester W. Muldowny, Richard L. Neuberger, Richard M. Nixon, Cornelia Bryce Pinchot, Gifford Pinchot, William Thomas Rawleigh, Vinnie Ream, R.O. Richards, Glenn D. Roberts, Gilbert R. Roe, Gwyneth K. Roe, John Ernest Roe, Alfred Thomas Rogers, Walter S. Rogers, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, Morris H. Rubin, Upton Sinclair, Gordon Sinykin, Rudolph Spreckels, Lincoln Steffens, Isaac Stephenson, Bela Tokaji, Harry S. Truman, Arthur H. Vandenberg, Frank P. Walsh, William Allen White, Woodrow Wilson, Emma Wold, and A.W. Zeratsky.