The papers of Irving N. Brant (1885-1976) span the years 1910-1977, with most of the material concentrated between 1938 and 1975. The papers consist of correspondence, memoranda, articles, speeches, testimony, manuscripts of books, plays, poems, short stories, research notes, and an extensive collection of newspaper clippings that describe his life and work. The collection is organized in eight series: Family Correspondence , General Correspondence , Conservation Papers , Speeches and Writings , Research File , Miscellany , Addition , and Oversize .

The General Correspondence series constitutes the largest segment of the papers. Many of the early letters are concerned with Brant's newspaper career. Some touch on the internal affairs and editorial policies of the St. Louis Star (later Star-Times ) and the Chicago Sun , but they relate mainly to topics discussed in Brant's editorials. In addition to letters from the general public, there are letters from journalists such as John P. Lewis of PM Daily , Marshall Field of the Chicago Sun , James W. Brown, Ben Mellon, and Marlen Pew of Editor and Publisher , and Elzey Roberts, Willard Shelton, Frank Smothers, and Frank Taylor of both the St Louis Star-Times and Chicago Sun . A few letters from the cartoonist, Jay Darling (Ding), are also represented in this section of the papers. In the years following his resignation from newspaper work, Brant maintained his contracts with journalists and continued his affiliation with the Overseas Writers Club. Among the journalists and commentators with whom he corresponded during the later years of his life were Irving Dilliard, James J. Kilpatrick, John B. Oates, Drew Pearson, Don W. Robinson, Carl T. Rowan, Harrison E. Salisbury, Eric Sevareid, and James Russell Wiggins.

In 1923 Brant left newspaper work for seven years to pursue a literary career. Although he wrote other fictional material, including some for juvenile readers, he devoted his time chiefly to playwriting. His plays “They Call Him Babbitt” and “The Celestial Honeymoon” were produced by local dramatic groups. During these years he corresponded with publishers, producers, agents, critics, and advisers such as Clarke F. Ansley, John T. Frederick, Alice Kauser, Edward C. Mabie, Priestly Morrison, Grace Morse, Norman Lee Swartout, and Charles H. Townes. At the end of this period, he returned to the St. Louis Star-Times .

As early as 1937, Brant began making plans to write full time again. His Storm Over the Constitution , published in 1936, had led directly to an interest in James Madison and his later interpretations of the Constitution that Brant found fundamentally at odds with Madison's attitude as a framer of the Constitution. Except for a few months during which he wrote Road to Peace and Freedom (1943), and the time employed as consultant in the Roosevelt administration, Brant spent the years between 1938 and 1961 almost exclusively on James Madison. He corresponded with libraries and research institutions in the United States and abroad, historians at various universities, and others who had an interest in James Madison and his contemporaries in history. There is a voluminous correspondence with Brant's editor, David Laurance Chambers, and other officials of the Bobbs-Merrill Company that published the six-volume biography. The collection contains letters from historians Charles A. Beard, Henry Steele Commager, Allan Nevins, Earl Gregg Swem, and C. Vann Woodward, from the editors of the papers of Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, and from the editors of historical journals such as the American Historical Review and the William and Mary Quarterly .

From 1938 to 1940 Brant served as speechwriter to Franklin D. Roosevelt and consultant on conservation to Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes. For this period the papers include exchanges of letters with Roosevelt, Ickes, and Henry A. Wallace. The letters contain comments on economic problems, the Supreme Court, international affairs, and the national recovery programs of the Roosevelt administration.

A number of items reflect Brant's interest in constitutional questions and his involvement with civil rights and civil liberties. In addition to his books, he prepared articles for law journals and reviews and testified before congressional committees on the reorganization of the Supreme Court, the constitutionality of anti-poll tax legislation, the revision of Senate rules to curb filibuster, and suffrage for the citizens of the District of Columbia. He was a member of the American Civil Liberties Union for thirty years, and his correspondence includes letters from officers of the various branches of that organization. He formed friendships with several justices of the Supreme Court and others prominent in the legal profession. Besides correspondence with justices such as Hugo LaFayette Black, Louis Brandeis, William J. Brennan, Benjamin N. Cardozo, William O. Douglas, Abe Fortas, Felix Frankfurter, Robert Houghout Jackson, Wiley Rutledge, Potter Stewart, and Harlan Fiske Stone, the papers contain letters from jurists Edmond Nathaniel Cahn, Fowler Harper, Russell D. Niles, Simon H. Rifkind, and J. Skelly Wright.

The series of Conservation Papers covers the years 1926 to 1976. It records the efforts of Brant and other conservationists to establish inviolate waterfowl sanctuaries, to reduce bag limits, and to abolish shooting over baited waters. Much of the correspondence deals with the activities of the National Audubon Society and its relationship to gun and ammunition companies and hunting clubs. Many of the private conservation activities were channeled through the Emergency Conservation Committee, headed by Rosalie Edge. The committee undertook a program of education through the publication of pamphlets on a variety of conservation subjects and mounted campaigns in support of congressional bills favoring conservation. Although Brant was officially treasurer of the committee, he served as an adviser to Edge and wrote many of its pamphlets. The committee worked for the preservation of the South Calaveras Sequoia Grove and the Carl Inn and Beaver Creek sugar pine groves and championed the creation of Kings Canyon National Park. However, Brant regarded his assignment by Roosevelt to make a study of the Olympic Peninsula and to select the land for inclusion in the Olympic National Park as one of his greatest achievements in conservation. The papers include letters to and from Roosevelt and Ickes and letters drafted by Brant for their signatures. Other conservationists represented in this series are W. A. Bruette, Jay Darling, John B. Elliott, John Haddaway, William T. Hornaday, John Osseward, William G. Schultz, and Willard G. VanName.

The Research File includes approximately twenty thousand subject index cards used in researching the biography of James Madison and two thousand cards used in preparing the book on the Bill of Rights. Both sets of cards are arranged numerically and are supplemented by subject indexes.

The Addition contains drafts of The Youngest Argonaut and Adventures in Conservation with Franklin D. Roosevelt .

Other correspondents in the collection include Dean Acheson, Francis L. Berkeley, Francis Biddle, Bruce Bliven, Thomas G. Corcoran, Arthur Goldberg, Dumas Malone, Ezra Pound, Carl Sandburg, Arthur Meir Schlesinger (1917-2007), Adlai Stevenson (1900-1965), Harry S. Truman, Oswald Garrison Villard, Earl Warren, and Aubrey Willis Williams. Among the members of Congress corresponding with Brant are James Abourezk, Birch Bayh, William Edgar Borah, Emanuel Celler, James Couzens, Paul H. Douglas, Don Edwards, Mark O. Hatfield, Hubert H. Humphrey, Jacob K. Javits, Walter F. Mondale, Wayne L. Morse, George W. Norris, and Sam Rayburn.