Correspondence; memoranda; speeches; subject files; business, legal, and financial records; family papers; autobiographical material; newspaper clippings; scrapbook; printed matter; and other papers relating primarily to MacVeagh's service as U.S. secretary of the treasury under President William H. Taft and to MacVeagh's roles as Chicago businessman, banker, civic reformer, patron of the arts, and politician. Includes materials pertaining to the MacVeagh (McVey) and Eames families, Chicago social and civic affairs, and Franklin MacVeagh & Company wholesale grocery business. Subjects include the election of 1896, political patronage, and the U.S. Customs Service and U.S. Internal Revenue Service during the Taft administration. Organizations represented include American Civic Association, Civic Federation of Chicago, Immigration Restriction League, National Civic Federation, National Civil Service Reform League, U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, U.S. President's Commission on Economy and Efficiency, U.S. Public Health Service, and U.S. Tariff Board.

Correspondents include Charles Francis Adams, R.O. Bailey, Richard Achilles Ballinger, Henry C. Bannard, James J. Barbour, Henry Sherman Boutell, William S. Broughton, Daniel Hudson Burnham, Royal Eubank Cabell, Walter T. Chandler, George B. Cortelyou, Shelby M. Cullom, J.M. Dickinson, Walter L. Fisher, Francis, E. Frothingham, S.M. Gaines, John Hay, Frank H. Hitchcock, Rollin Arthur Keyes, Philander C. Knox, George R. Leighton, Carl Lumholtz, Thomas S. Lynch, Eames MacVeagh, Emily Eames MacVeagh, Wayne MacVeagh, George Washington Maher, Lee McClung, Charles H. Miller, Charles P. Montgomery, Lawrence O. Murray, Charles Nagel, Charles Dyer Norton, Pumpelly family, Whitelaw Reid, Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore, Henry L. Stimson, William H. Taft, George W. Wickersham, and Leonard Wood.