The collection is comprised of two oral history interview projects. The first is with Eddie Dowling (1889-1976), an actor, screenwriter, playwright, director, producer, songwriter, and composer. The second project is commissioned oral histories with people with remembrances of P.S. du Pont (1870-1954) and the development of Longwood Gardens.

The Dowling interview was conducted by Ruthanna Hindes (1917-2001) of the Manuscripts & Archives Department of the then Eleutherian Mills Historical Libary at the Lambs Club in New York for the specific purpose of elucidating Dowling's relationships with John J. Raskob (1879-1950) and Pierre S. du Pont (1870-1954), whose papers are among the library's earliest holdings. It was Dowling who introduced Raskob to Al Smith (1873-1944) and thus involved Raskob, formerly a Republican, in national Democratic Party politics. The bonds were formed through their common Catholicism and opposition to Prohibition. With Roosevelt's election and subsequent Repeal, Dowling went with the New Deal, while Smith split with FDR, and Raskob, after trying to find a business-friendly Democratic replacement for Roosevelt through the American Liberty League, eventually returned to the Republicans.

Dowling paints a vivid picture of New York City's high life in the Roaring Twenties when Tammany politicians, contractors, and other political donors, Broadway celebrities, and showgirls all mingled in places like Bill Kenny's Tiger Room, a private nightclub/speakeasy. His narrative also brings out the solidarity of (mostly Irish American) Catholics, the importance of the Church in networking, their defensiveness, and their pride in Smith's 1928 presidential bid, as well as the ease with which millionaires like Raskob could deploy their resources. Dowling describes the candidates and the 1928 presidential campaign, and particularly the 1932 Democratic convention in Chicago, where he orchestrated the entertainment to keep the delegates distracted while deal-makers were lining up votes for FDR. He tells how he pushed through the use of "Happy Days Are Here Again," as Roosevelt's campaign song, over the objections of FDR himself, and of the developing split between himself and FDR on the one hand and Smith and Raskob on the other.

The Longwood Gardens project transcripts contain the interviewees' remembrances of P.S. du Pont and of the development of Longwood Gardens and life there during du Pont's lifetime. In 1974, Longwood Gardens Inc. engaged the Oral History Research Office of Columbia University to conduct a series of oral histories documenting the activities of Pierre S. du Pont in developing Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. The interviews were conducted by Sophy H. Cornwell, the librarian at nearby Lincoln University. Most of the interviewees were members of later generations of the extended du Pont and Laird families. Interviewees include Lammot du Pont Copeland (1905-1983), Alletta Laird Downs (1913-2005), Brooke Gilpin (1925-2014), Crawford H. Greenwalt (1902-1993), C. Jared Ingersoll (1894-1988), William Winder Laird (1910-1989), Charles Mason (1924-2002), Rosa McDonald (1916-2009), Sophie du Pont May (1900-2001), Virginia Morgan (1920-2020), Wilhelmina du Pont Ross (1906-2000), Edgar Scott (1899-1995). Ingersoll and Scott, who also owned country estates, were associated with du Pont in the elite Farmers' Club of Pennsylvania. Morgan, her brother Charles Mason, and Gilpin were all born near Longwood and had many memories of the place.