Correspondence, writings, printed material, scrapbooks, photographs, graphic material, memorabilia, and other papers collected by Gaston Tissandier and his brother Albert with additions by Gaston's son, Paul. Also includes the collection of Dupuis-Delcourt, brought together prior to 1860, and later purchased by Gaston Tissandier. Primarily files on pioneering aeronauts (air pilots) and airship builders from the first century of flight which pertain chiefly to balloon flights of the 18th and 19th centuries. Subjects also include early heavier-than-air flight, the Société Aéronautique et Météorologique de France, the political climate in France during the Second Republic and the Second Empire, the Franco-Prussian War, and the siege of Paris. Includes art work of Albert Tissandier, chiefly illustrations of Gaston's aeronautical projects. Correspondents include Benjamin Franklin and Antoine Laurent Lavoisier.

Includes files on Salomon August Andrée, Francesco Arban, Jean Pierre Blanchard, Octave Chanute, Jacques Alexandre César Charles, Nicolas-Jacques Conté, Barthélemy Faujas-de-St.-Fond, André Jacques Garnerin, Henri Giffard, Charles Green, Robert Holland, François Lhoste, Vincent Lunardi, Jean Margat, Jacques-Etienne Montgolfier, Joseph-Michel Montgolfier, Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier, E. G. Robertson, Augusto Severo, Orville Wright, Wilbur Wright, Gabriel Yon, and Francesco Zambeccari.