This collection contains the photographs of Earl Palmer, an award-winning photographer from Cambria, Virginia, whose work depicted the landscape and traditional culture of rural Appalachia in Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. Materials date frome 1880 to 1989, but are primarily from the 1940s to the 1970s. The collection is divided among the following series: photographs, duplicate photographs, written materials, oversize photographs, and artifacts.

This collection includes the papers of James R. Perdue and his family. Items include a program for the Battle of the Crater reunion, a Sunday School concert flyer, seven obituaries for Perdue, a letter from J. R. Perdue, Jr., and two ledgers. Perdue (1837-1915) was a banker from Manchester, Virginia, and served as a Confederate soldier in the Otey Battery, Virginia Artillery during the American Civil War.

The Southwest Virginia Counties Collection includes correspondence, manuscript memoranda and recipe books, and family papers from the Godwin, Young, Trevey, Williams and other families of Botetourt, Rockbridge, and Roanoke Counties.

The collection includes a manuscript cookbook containing recipes, home remedies, and crochet instructions written in several different hands.