This series contains a handwritten autobiography which describes Nell Mahoney's life to 1923 and a biographical sketch written by her friend, Dorothy Saunders. There are a series of personal diaries (1933-45, 1952, 1962-69) from Nashville and Monteagle, Tennessee; travel diaries from Europe (1906, 1960s) and engagement calendars (1966, 1969, 1979). There are also miscellaneous biographical items on Giles Christopher and Alice Leslie Savage as well as Nell Savage Mahoney. These includes legal documents such as wills and Nell's divorce decree. This series also contains memorabilia consisting of school records and a scrapbook. The scrapbook which contained clippings, memorabilia, and photographs has been photocopied and dismantled.

This series is organized into two subseries: Personal and Business. The Personal subseries is divided into two sections, incoming and outgoing. The first section contains personal correspondence from friends and family. Correspondents include photographer, Frances Benjamin Johnston (1934-42), and lawyer and House of Representatives member, Lucy Sommerville Howorth (1953-72). There are also significant runs of letters from her mother (1902-54) and her friends, Virginia Polk (1951-72), operator with her husband of the largest Mississippi plantation system, and Elizabeth Rogers (1939-69), history professor at Wilson College. The second section contains letters to her daughter, Margaret E. Mahoney (1940s, 1960s), her mother, Leslie Alice Savage (1935-52), and her sister, Kate Savage Zerfoss (1939-47). Letters from her daughter are contained in the Margaret E. Mahoney Papers and are closed until 2015. The Business correspondence includes material related to her research on architect William Strickland.

This series consists of typescripts and notes related to Nell Mahoney's interior decorating work, poems, a biography of her father, and a series of newspaper articles from the Nashville Tenneseean on Nashville history art and architecture, 1949-53.

There are circa 110 photographs in this series dating from 1880 to 1986. These include photographs of Nell, her parents, and other family members. There are miscellaneous photos including Tom Thumb and his wife, singer Eleonora de Cisneros, and Frances Benjamin Johnston. [See also SERIES I. BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIAL--Scrapbook]