The collection consists primarily of diaries, letters, scrapbooks and notebooks belonging to members of the Elliott family (Card G. Elliott, Sr.; his wife Mary Malone Elliott and daughter Mary Alice Elliott.) Included are: two late 19th-century journals kept by Elliott, Sr. describing farm life in Kansas; diaries referring to Elliott, Sr.'s duties with the MKT railroad; diaries by Mrs. Elliott covering trips to Europe and the near East; a school diary kept by Mary Alice Elliott while attending Walnut Hill School (Mass.) and Rice Institute; letters from Craig W. Wadsworth and Bonar Law; a floral album kept by Mis Lou Stimson during the Civil War; a scrapbook kept by Mary E. Russell Stimson which gives a family history and includes locks of hair. The majority of the collection's letters are from the early 20th-century--however, there are some from the Civil War days (describing life in Mississippi). Also included is a letter from an American soldier in the Phillipine's who was engaged in suppressing Aguinaldo's fight for independence.

The Elliott Collection was received in 1953 from Card G. Elliott, Jr. '35, and consists of material dating from 1830 to 1951. The majority of the collection is letters, diaries, scrapbooks, and notebooks belonging to various members of the Elliott family, especially Card G. Elliott, Sr., his wife Mary Malone Elliott, and daughter Mary Alice Elliott, sister to Card Jr. In 1929 when she died, Mary Alice Elliott was a student of architecture at Rice Institute. Her parents established the Mary Alice Elliott Loan Fund for Foreign Travel and Study in Architecture after her death. Along with material about the loan fund, the collection contains several letters from M.A. Elliott while at school in Natick, Mass. and a diary she kept while there and later at Rice Institute. In 1928, Mary Alice and her mother, Mary M. Elliott, took an extensive trip abroad; both letters and souveniers of their trip are in the collection. Letters from an earlier trip to Europe that M.M. Elliott took in 1905 are also present. Card G. Elliott, Sr. worked for several railroad companies (the Santa Fe, Fort Worth and Denver, and the Katy) and the collection has many of his business papers and information about the railroads in general.

The oldest articles in the Elliott Collection are scrapbooks: Marty E. Russell Stimson made a scrapbook in 1830, and in it she gave the family history of Ephraim Judson Stimson and placed locks of hair from various family members, and during the Civil War, Lou Stimson kept a The collection also contains four interesting letters written in 1864 from Lou Stimson to a hospitalized soldier, Walter L. Malone, whom she later married. Several other scrapbooks, account books, diaries, and personal notebooks complete the collection making the Card G. Elliott Collection informative on a wide variety of topics.