The collection includes personal and business correspondence, writings, newspaper clippings and other printed material, and business and association records documenting H. Smith Richardson's career; papers of Richardson's family, including his father Vick Chemical founder Lunsford Richardson and his brother Lunsford, Jr.; and papers relating to Smith and Richardson family history, including audio cassettes of interviews with 17 Richardson family members and printed and videotaped oral histories of the Richardson family. Richardson's correspondence addresses a broad range of issues, including his business interests in the Vick Chemical Company, Richardson- Merrell, Inc., Reinsurance Corporation of New York, and other companies. Letters also document his participation in the America First Committee, the Republican Party, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the Boy Scouts of America, the First Presbyterian Church of Greensboro, and the Smith Richardson Foundation (formerly Richardson Foundation). They also document his interests in anticommunism, Senator Joe McCarthy's tactics, local politics in both North Carolina and Connecticut, and segregation both in the U.S. and South Africa. Writings include a series of articles about the causes of the Depression in North Carolina. Also included are diaries and correspondence of his father-in- law Jacob Henry Smith, Presbyterian minister in Greensboro during the second half of the 19th century, and his wife Mary Kelly Watson Smith, including materials relating to Greensboro during the Civil War and a letter from a slave. Pictures and other documents relate to Richardson's father's birthplace Parker Heights Plantation near Salem, N.C.
