The papers of Frank Maxwell Andrews (1884-1943) span the years 1920-1943, with the bulk of the material from 1935 to 1942. The collection consists of family correspondence , general correspondence , and copies of official correspondence ; financial records ; reports and memoranda ; manuscript and near-print copies of speeches and articles ; memorabilia; newspaper clippings ; a few other printed items ; and additional material , mostly correspondence. Except for Andrews’s military service record (201 File) and flight record, which begin in 1920 and 1921 respectively, there are no materials dated before 1924. There are almost no papers dated after November 1942 when Andrews left the Caribbean Defense Command for the Middle East at Cairo.

The main subjects in the collection are the organization and administration of the air arm of the War Department and the operation of the Caribbean Defense Command as World War II threatened and broke over the western hemisphere.

Andrews's efforts to prepare an effective and modern air force in the late 1930s is recorded in correspondence, memoranda, and reports. Notable are the files of Andrews's correspondence as commander of the General Headquarters, Air Force, Langley Field, with successive chiefs of the Air Corps, Generals Benjamin Delahauf Foulois, Oscar Westover, and Henry Harley Arnold. Correspondence with Secretaries of War Harry Hines Woodring and Henry L. Stimson, Assistant Secretary Louis Arthur Johnson, and General Malin Craig, chief of staff from 1935 to 1939, reflect the views of the War Department concerning air force policy as well as within the air arm itself. From June 1939 until November 1940, Andrews was designated by General George C. Marshall as assistant chief of staff, G-3 (training and operations) of the War Department, the first instance of the appointment of an air officer to a staff position of overall responsibilities within the army. When war began in Europe, Andrews was sent to Panama as chief of the Caribbean Defense Command in charge of all military forces in that area. Except for a few items concerning his death, the papers end at the termination of this assignment.

Other correspondents in the papers include George H. Brett, Gerald C. Brant, Lawrence Dale Bell, James Eugene Chaney, Ruben H. Fleet, Hugh J. Knerr, George C. Kenney, Frank Dorwin Lachland, Boaz Walton Long, Arthur Bliss Lane, Leslie James McNair, Henry Conger Pratt, Augustine Warner Robins, Alexander P. De Seversky, Carl Spaatz, Ralph Talbot, Jr., Burdett S. Wright, Oscar Westover, and Walter Reed Weaver.