The papers of Carl Schurz (1829-1906) span the years 1837-1983, with the bulk of the material dated 1860-1906. The collection is organized in fourteen series: General Correspondence , Letterpress Copybooks, Diaries, Descriptions of the Collection, Special Correspondence, Typescripts of Correspondence, Speech, Article, and Book File, Subject File, Miscellany, Scrapbooks, Supplement to General Correspondence, Addition, 2022 Addition, and Oversize.

The collection contains material relating to the political history of America from the election of Abraham Lincoln through the Progressive period, with emphasis on reform movements such as Liberal Republicanism, tariff reduction, sound money, civil service reform, and anti-imperialism. Considerable material can be found on the presidential administration of Rutherford B. Hayes, in which Schurz served as secretary of the interior, 1877-1881. Because Schurz was active in presidential campaigns, the collection is particularly extensive during national election years.

While preparing his edition of Speeches, Correspondence, and Political Papers of Carl Schurz (New York: G. P. Putman's Sons, 1913. 6 vols.), historian Frederic Bancroft copied many Schurz letters owned by widely scattered correspondents. Approximately one-fifth of these were published. All of these transcribed letters, published or not, have been interfiled in the collection. The Descriptions of the Collection series contains a partial name index compiled in 1933, as well as other listings relating to the contents of the papers.

Schurz was unable to leave all his papers to posterity because a fire that destroyed a Detroit railroad station in June 1866 also consumed many of his possessions. Among them were “a very detailed sketchy diary account of . . . the past fourteen years . . . all my manuscripts, collected materials and notes, extracts, etc.; then a lot of letters from prominent persons, for example, Lincoln.” Hence the papers dated before 1866 are less voluminous and complete than those of later years.

Principal correspondents include Charles Francis Adams (1835-1915), Edward Atkinson, Thomas F. Bayard, Charles J. Bonaparte, Samuel Bowles, Grover Cleveland, George William Curtis, James A. Garfield, Edwin Lawrence Godkin, Murat Halstead, Rutherford B. Hayes, Abraham Lincoln, Henry Cabot Lodge (1850-1924), William McKinley, John T. Morse Jr., Edward Lillie Pierce, Emil Preetorius, James Ford Rhodes, Theodore Roosevelt, Edward Morse Shepard, Moorfield Storey, Charles Sumner, Ida M. Tarbell, Erving Winslow, and Horace White.

The Addition to the papers span the period 1851-1984 and parallels the original donation in scope, arrangement, and content.

The general correspondence is the dominant feature of the addition and contains letters in both German and English. It consists largely of Schurz's correspondence with Margarethe Meyer Schurz, his wife, and letters to their families in Germany and the United States. In all, there are about one thousand letters and postal cards written by Schurz during the years 1852 to 1902. Because most of Schurz's non-family correspondence had been included in the 1907 donation, there are only a few business letters in the addition.

Also in the addition are letters of Fanny Chapman, who became close to Schurz after the death of his wife in 1876. There is evidence in the collection that both had been prolific letter writers and that Chapman had willed a large group of Schurz's letters to a favorite niece in Germany in the late 1930s. The letters disappeared during World War II, but no letters from Chapman to Schurz exist in this addition. In the addition are letters from the American writer Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin in which she reveals her affection for Schurz.

The addition also contains a letter from the Italian revolutionary and nationalist, Guiseppe Mazzini, addressed to Schurz in 1852, and various letters dealing with Schurz's contacts with Imperial Germany. They indicate the high regard that German leaders had for Schurz in his capacity as an American politician and editor and as the de facto head of German Americans in the United States. During his 1888 trip to Germany, both Kaiser Wilhelm II and Chancellor Otto Fürst von Bismarck met with Schurz, and this meeting is reflected in his correspondence to family members. After Schurz's death in 1906, his daughter received a letter of condolence from the German Kaiser.

Other material in the addition include typescripts of many of the letters in the collection (mostly in German and some in English), genealogical data on the Schurz and Jussen families, early school papers, commissions, wills, newspaper clippings, and photographs.

Most of the family letters are to Schurz's wife, Margarethe Meyer Schurz, and their daughters, Agathe and Marianne. Other correspondence in the addition includes letters to Henry Adams, Ulysses S. Grant, Horace Greeley, Moses King, Charles Sedgwick May, Frederick Law Olmsted, Edward Lillie Pierce, St. Louis Westliche Post editor Emil Preetorius, J. H. Randolph, Clara Rathbone, Henry Augustus Richmond, Lew Wallace, and letters from Lucius B. Swift, German historian Karl Lamprecht, and British biographer Leslie Stephen.

The 2022 Addition includes letters between Schurz and George F. Edmunds. Edmunds was a United States senator from Vermont and was one of fifteen members on the electoral commission to resolve the disputed 1876 presidential election between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel J. Tilden. Topics in the correspondence include the 1876 presidential election, Eduard Lasker, diplomatic relationships between Germany and the United States, the Ponca Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma, and railroad land grants.

The Oversize series contains a broadside.