The Severance Papers include a small amount of biographical material about Caroline Seymour Severance; some correspondence; two photographs of Jesse Benton Fremont; a book about the women's club movement; Caroline Severance's guest book, and a scrapbook kept by Caroline Severance's daughter, Julia Long Severance (Burrage).

The guest book and scrapbook include autographs, quotations, notes, correspondence, drawings, photographs, and memorabilia of many notable abolitionists, woman's rights advocates, and members of the women's club movement. Louisa May Alcott, A. Bronson Alcott, Catharine Beecher, Alice Stone Blackwell, Lydia Maria Child, Frederick Douglass, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Lloyd Garrison, Ulysses S. Grant, Sarah Grimke, Julia Ward Howe, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone, Booker T. Washington, John Greenleaf Whittier are included, among many others.