Nations Business photographs series consists of more than 15,000 original photographs that were taken for publication in the magazine. The images date from the 1890s to 2004, with a bulk of the material dating from the 1940s through the 1960s. Most photographs contain the photographer's notations on the back. There are eighty-two subseries based on how the photographers categorized the photographs. The category was written on the back of the photograph in the upper left-hand corner.

The eighty-two subseries are arranged alphabetically by topic. The photographs illustrate various sectors of the U.S. economy, including transportation, agriculture, energy and manufacturing. These images include employees on-the-job, production facilities and final products in the petroleum, coal, metal, mining, chemical, aircraft, textile, shipbuilding, and automobile industries.

There are also many photographs related to U.S. military actions, training and equipment, including World Wars I and II. Other images depict street scenes, everyday life, and economic activity organized by country, state and city, with many images of New York City, and over sixty-seven countries, particularly those in Europe and the Middle East. Many of the prints show the crop lines indicating the portion of the image that the editor wished to reproduce in the magazine.