The collection focuses on rare 18th and 19th century <a href="http://www.davidrumsey.com/directory/where/North+America/">North American</a> and <a href="http://www.davidrumsey.com/directory/where/South+America/">South American</a> maps and other cartographic materials. Historic maps of the <a href="http://www.davidrumsey.com/directory/where/World/">World</a>, <a href="http://www.davidrumsey.com/directory/where/Europe/">Europe</a>, <a href="http://www.davidrumsey.com/directory/where/Asia/">Asia</a>, and <a href="http://www.davidrumsey.com/directory/where/Africa/">Africa</a> are also represented.

The Center's 35,000 cubic feet of documents, 500,000 photographs, and 3000 films provide unique insights into worldwide developments and issues of the 19th and 20th centuries. Major subjects covered in the records include agriculture, the arts, African-American history, education, international relations and economic development, labor, medicine, philanthropy, politics, population, religion, the social sciences, social welfare, and women's history.

Today the Archive includes over three million photographs, manuscripts, audio recordings, and moving images. It consists of documentation of traditional culture from all around the world including the earliest field recordings made in the 1890s on wax cylinder through recordings made using digital technology. It is America's first national archive of traditional life, and one of the oldest and largest of such repositories in the world.