The Charles L. Reese papers are a group of material from his student days, the texts of lectures and articles, biographical materials and genealogical notes.

The student notebooks are Reese's class notes, particularly from chemistry courses under J. W. Mallet at Virginia and von Richter and Bunsen at Heidelberg. There are also Reese's lecture notes for a course on geology taught at the Citadel in 1894.

The lecture and publications date from Reese's tenure as a DuPont chemist and primarily stress the benefits of industrial research. There is also a 2 page list of Reese's publications.

The genealogical materials include a few old family letters, genealogical notes and a typescript genealogy of the Reese family, including the following allied families: Atkinson, Croasdale, Evans, Maulsby, Rhodes, Smith and Tomlinson.

A memorandum book records Reese's expenses and itineraries while a student, particularly at Heidelberg.

There are also nine opera libretti with annotations by Reese from his days in Germany, including works by Bizet, Beethoven, Flowtow, Mozart, Rossini and Wagner.

Scrapbooks kept by Reese during his last years in Germany and immediately after his return contain newsclippings, snapshots, photographs, drawings, school reports, songs and ephemera like four Confederate bills. Reese kept up the scrapbooks into the 1930s. A small group of papers record trips taken by Eben Reese between 1931 to 1933, including to the Chicago World's Fair and a coast-to-coast trip with return by the Panama Canal.

In contrast, the articles and lectures are primarily professional papers from Reese's chemical career.