The surviving records of the Development & Research Department consist of three series. The first includes all files of R. S. A. Dougherty as Manager; it is divided into Correspondence, Notes and Drawings, Installation Drawings, and Patents. The second series consists of the office papers of James P. Madden, Development & Research Engineer, and the third consists of a group of Madden's personal papers from the period after he had left the company.

The patents are concerned with Curtis marine turbines and other appurtenances used in Bethlehem ships. The remainder of the records deal with the Bethlehem snub starter developed by Madden and H. V. Nieman, and with torque amplifiers. These were mechanical transmission couplings applied to direct-drive motors which produced a gradual application of force in overcoming inertia when starting from a dead stop. The device was sold for use in automobiles but primarily for electric motors applied to industrial machinery. There is a large number of drawings showing a wide variety of uses, as well as sales correspondence and numerous complaints of unsatisfactory performance. Madden continued to act as sales agent for the devices after leaving Bethlehem in 1933. His files also contain a few personal items, including World War II ration cards and coupons and an illustrated 1937 booklet on the Stoneleigh Prospect School, a girls' preparatory school in Greenfield, Massachusetts.