The papers of Robert Staughton Lynd (1892-1970) and Helen Merrell Lynd (1896-1982), husband and wife, span the years 1895-1968, with the bulk of the items concentrated in the period 1922-1968. Included in the collection is a small Correspondence series containing some family letters plus a larger number of personal and professional letters. The Lynds apparently kept few copies of outgoing correspondence; most of the letters in this series date from 1950 onward and nearly all were written by others.

Also in the Lynd papers is a Writings file treating selected examples of their production as authors, lecturers, teachers, and reviewers. Material concerning "Middletown," a sociological study of Muncie, Indiana, comprises the largest portion of the Writings and is mainly devoted to background research data the pair gathered while surveying the city. There are, in addition, numerous reviews of both the 1929 Middletown volume and the follow-up study, Middletown in Transition , published eight years later. Popular reaction to the books was strong in Muncie, and samples of the response can be found in the general correspondence of this part of the Writings.

Besides "Middletown," some of the main topics in this collection are academic and educational affairs at Columbia University and Sarah Lawrence College, where the Lynds taught; national security questions and academic freedom; the sociological discipline; and Robert Lynd's work as permanent secretary of the Social Science Research Council between 1927 and 1931. Important correspondents include Crane Brinton, Sigmund Diamond, Erik H. Erikson, Robert King Merton, and David Riesman.