Collection covers the period from 1917 to 1950. It consists of the 1886 bound volumes of records through the year 1946, and 226 "volumes" of loose records for the 1946 to 1950 period, and three records center boxes known as Appendixes 1-3, which cover indexed material not previously filmed, mostly from 1940 to 1946. There is a small amount of material relating to an Industrial Workers of the World free speech trial in San Diego, California, in 1912 which antedates the creation of the ACLU and whose origin is unknown. As described below, some ACLU-related materials during this period have not been filmed in this collection.

Consists of clippings and correspondence, with some printed pamphlets published by outside organizations, collected by the American Civil Liberties Union, and later arranged in scrapbooks by date and subject. The date of any particular subject group may overlap that of other subject groups so that the main numerical arrangement of the volumes is not strictly chronological.

The files are grouped under four headings: administrative (the history of the project and ACLU's policy on amnesty), subject files (correspondence between Henry Schwarzschild and other amnesty organizations, the Selective Service System, attorneys in the Departments of Defense and Justice, and members of United States Congress), clemency litigation division, and project director's files.