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The collection consists of more than 1,000 items, primarily twentieth century material relating to Jacksonville, Florida. Includes letters, documents, and notes relating to the personal, political, and business activities of Eartha M. M. White. Some subject files include publications, reports, programs, photographs, and memorabilia. Of particular interest are materials pertaining to: Prominent African American leaders, e.g., James Weldon Johnson, A. Phillip Randolph, and Simuel Decatur McGill; Historic Jacksonville business, charitable, and religious organizations including Afro-American Life Insurance Company, Bethel Baptist Institutional Church, Clara White Mission, Community Chest Association, and Jacksonville Negro Welfare League; Florida social and educational organizations including Florida State Federation of Colored Women's Clubs, Florida Baptist Academy / Florida Normal and Industrial Institute. The bulk of the collection are photographs depicting friends, relatives and events from her long life. Sizes of the photographs vary, ranging from 5x7 to 12x16 inches. A significant amount of her business and personal correspondence is also included. An extensive subject index is available for use with the collection. The collection also contains 156 black and white photographs of southern African American religious and labor groups, circa 1946-1949, by photographer R. Lee Thomas of Mound Bayou, Mississippi. His imprint contains the caption: Made by R. Lee Thomas, Mound Bayou, Mississippi, The Oldest Negro Town in America. Mr. Thomas was an African American photographer active in the early twentieth century in the southern United States, whose work provides photographic documentation of southern black social life during that time period. The majority of the photographs depict groups from Birmingham, Alabama, and adjacent areas.

Photocopies of the papers of Edward M. Tidball include letters sent to him from the U.S. Navy Dept., Bureau of Ordnance & Hydrography, Washington, D.C. granting leaves of absence as a clerk in August 1859 & July 1860; a letter accepting his resignation March 6, 1861; letters from S.R. Mallory, Secretary of the Confederate Navy, appointing him as Chief Clerk March 13, 1861 &  April 30, 1862; receipt from Tidball for sale of his property March 15, 1865; the U.S. Presidential Proclamation of Amnesty & Pardon, May 29, 1865; a letter of August 29, 1865 from U.S. President Andrew Johnson granting Tidball full pardon for having taken part in the rebellion against the U.S.; and a photograph of Edward M. Tidball.

This collection includes organizational documents such as committee meeting notes, financial records, professional correspondence, insurance records, and programs and announcements for special events.  Also includes theatrical playscripts which range in date from the mid-19^th to early 20^th century.

The Elliot Cross and James A. Cross Civil War Collection documents the Southern perspective of the American Civil War. As FAU's largest collection dedicated solely to the Civil War, the Cross collection contains hundreds of manuscript and published items including personal correspondence from Jefferson Davis, Alexander Stephens, Robert E. Lee and many other Confederate military and government leaders. Also included are Confederate government documents and general orders pertaining to the war as well as photographs and illustrations from the period. The Cross Collection was donated by Elliot Cross' son James A. Cross in the early 1970s, following his father's death. Elliot Cross, a life-long aficionado of the Confederacy, purchased papers, lithographs and prints, currency, published and unpublished letters and memorabilia over a period of forty years. FAU Libraries received the collection mounted in four custom-made maroon leather scrapbooks. The items have been removed from these scrapbooks for preservation purposes. The publication of several articles about the collection in 1988 led to research by Civil War scholars that culminated in ground-breaking publication. One such breakthrough identified pneumonia as T. J. "Stonewall" Jackson's cause of death; a thesis supported by documents in the Cross Collection and published in Robert K. Krick's, The Smoothbore Volley that Doomed the Confederacy: the Death of Stonewall Jackson and other Chapters on the Army of Northern Virginia. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2002).