The records contain some information on the workings of the Trust Department, but are more useful for the information they contain on the individual companies in which the department invested. It includes account reviews, responsibility reviews, and security reviews, but is largely investment analysis files, by company.

The bulk of the records consist of investment analysis files maintained by trust officers J. Sellers Bancroft (1904-1972) and his successor Joseph Y. Jeanes. The files are arranged alphabetically for each company or government body whose securities were held by the individual trusts managed by the department. The files are primarily composed of broker's reports from organizations such as Moody's Investment Service or Brown Brothers, Harriman & Co., analyzing corporate performance and relative investment risk, with periodic assessments from the Trust Department as to whether the security should be held or sold. The files also contain runs of corporate annual reports, meeting notices, prospectuses, and other literature typically sent to stockholders. In addition to individual company files, there are also files on specific industries as a whole, such as chemicals, rails, utilities, tobacco, chain stores, television, etc.

While most large American and some foreign companies are represented, coverage is not uniform. Investments were usually conservative, meaning in the period before 1945 a preponderance of railroad bonds and utilities. The files trace various shifts of investment to petroleum, consumer goods, retailing, and entertainment after 1945 and contain useful analysis of the collapse of older industries like textiles, and particularly rails, during the same period. They also cover the bankruptcy and liquidation of investments in 1920s office buildings during the Depression.

Because of its clientele, many of the trusts' holdings are local Delaware companies, ranging from DuPont and Hercules through the Bancroft textile firms to small businesses and downstate banks and manufacturing firms, clubs, and vacation communities. The Sharples family had large investments in apartments, including "negro housing," in Wilmington and Greater Philadelphia.

The corporate annual reports contain information and images from a wide range of businesses during World War II, postwar reconversion, and the beginnings of 1950s prosperity. Those from consumer goods, retailing and entertainment companies are particularly interesting for their images of women in corporate publicity.