Correspondence, journals, autobiographical notes, scrapbook, and other papers reflecting Tappan's interests in abolition, African American education, religion, and his business ventures. Subjects include the annexation of Texas; the slave ship Amistad (Schooner); Tappan's credit-rating firm, the Mercantile Agency (New York, N.Y.); and the Tappan family. Includes a diary kept by Tappan while attending the General Anti-slavery Convention, London, Eng., in 1843; and correspondence concerning organizations and publications with which he was associated such as the American Bible Society, American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, American Colonization Society, the American Missionary, American Missionary Association, Liberty Party (U.S.), the National Era (Washington, D.C.), the New York Journal of Commerce (New York, N.Y.), and Union Missionary Society (U.S.).

Correspondents include John Quincy Adams, James Gillespie Birney, Frederick Douglass, Seth Merrill Gates, Jonathan Green, Samuel D. Hastings, William Jay, Joshua Leavitt, Amos A. Phelps, Theodore Sedgwick, Joseph Sturge, Arthur Tappan, Benjamin Tappan, John Greenleaf Whittier, and members of the Aspinwall and Tappan families.