The collection includes material related to Eleanor Dickinson's professional career, particularly her research and work surrounding the publication Revival!. Material include reference articles, items used in an exhibition on the work at Tennessee State Museum, and page proofs for the final book. Other material in the collection documents her other research as well as some personal letters and notes.

This collection of F.W. Henck material includes his journal from 1886, a letter from Mr. Frederick William Henck to his mother from 1880, and a copy of "The Robert Campbell Story 1718-2011," a record of the goings-on of a church in which Mr. Henck was involved.

The Norbert F. Riedl Collection includes research files on such topics as architecture, clothing and costume, cockfighting, food and cooking, games and recreation, legends, medicines and remedies, music, quilting, snake handling, and customs pertaining to marriage, divorce, death and burial. There is also material about the mysterious Melungeons of Hancock and Hawkins Counties and there is a group of tape recordings which relate to many of the file topics.

The Wilma Dykeman and James R. Stokely Jr. Papers contain personal and family related-material, correspondence, research material, manuscripts, and visual media pertaining to the life and works of author and historian Wilma Dykeman and her husband, poet James R. Stokely Jr. The collection spans 1807-2011 with the bulk of the material dating between 1934 and 2007.