This collection is a scrapbook, containing newspaper clippings, kept by the Shields family of Bean Station, Tenn. The clippings pertain to politics in the local and national arenas, mostly dealing with the Reconstruction Era South and especially (East) Tennessee. There are also several poems, very short biographies, and interesting facts. Another item is a 1938 article on late politician Robert Love Taylor of Tennessee (some articles in the scrapbook mention him).

Due to the highly acidic nature of the newsprint and scrapbook pages, white buffer pages have been interleaved throughout the scrapbook.