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The collection consists of images that show street scenes, buildings, harvest, landscapes, Whitman College and rural life. The Whitman Centennial and Pendleton Round-up are included. The 1931 Walla Walla flood is documented and a photograph album, sent to Washington, D.C. to document the need for the Mill Creek Project, is part of the collection. These photographs are a selection from the overall collection.

COVID-19 in Walla Walla 2020: Community, Place, and Organization (Sociology 293) was taught online in the fall semester of 2020 by Whitman College Professor of Sociology Michelle Janning. Students learned about the Walla Walla Valley using a sociological perspective, offering a glimpse into the many issues that strengthen, challenge, and complicate the work of, and connections among, local community organizations during the COVID-19 pandemic. This collection contains interviews that were conducted before the course began in August, 2020, with residents who engage with local organizational work in areas such as education, health, tourism and business, faith communities, housing, food security, environmental sustainability, immigration, arts, criminal justice, and early learning.

The collection consists of membership records and directories, deeds and abstracts, correspondence, annual reports and meeting minutes, records of the Peace United Church of Christ, ledger books, the Whitman Memorial service program, financial information, newspaper clippings and a journal, "Records of the First Congregational Church of Walla Walla Washington Territory", from the oldest Congregational Church in the state of Washington. These records are a selection from the overall collection.

Student theses and project reports in this collection are a record of Whitman College student scholarship that has been awarded honors in the major department. Digital honors theses are available from 2014 on; earlier honors theses may be available digitally, but many are only available as physical copies held in Penrose Library. 

This collection consists of negatives and prints taken by Lester V. Hodgson. The photographs mainly document the flood on Mill Creek in Walla Walla, Washington that occurred between March 31 to April 1, 1931. Also included are photographs of agricultural scenes, a military parade and buildings and street scenes in Walla Walla, Washington. The collection includes a scrapbook containing photographs and postcards, primarily of natural disasters such as fires and floods that occurred in other parts of the United States, and Hodgson's autobiography. These photographs are a selection from the overall collection.

The collection consists of correspondence, diaries, trail reports, notes and journals, genealogical information, images, artifacts and Whitman family and Whitman Mission Bibles. Accounts of the Whitman Massacre include newspaper articles, reports and personal recollections. Materials describing the establishment of the Whitman Monument and the celebration of the Whitman Centennial are also included. These items are a selection from the overall collection.

Reverend Myron Eells was a prolific writer who documented his work, his surroundings, and his travels. The collection contains articles and books, manuscripts, correspondence, speeches and sermons. A series of six scrapbooks, "The Indians of Puget Sound", contains drawings, photographs and detailed descriptions of the life and culture of those with whom he worked and lived. Travel journals, census reports, books and pamphlets in Pacific Northwest Indian languages and the Eells family Bible are part of this group.
These records are a selection from the overall collection.

This collection consists of photographs, slides and negatives depicting planting, harvesting and logging activities. Scenes include mule and horse teams, wheat and pea fields, orchards, ranches and associated industry.

A collection consisting of the Penrose Library Newsletter ranging from 1994 to 2018.

Students in REL 348 use materials in the Whitman College and Northwest Archives to investigate possible factors behind the secularization of Whitman College. When Whitman became a college in 1882, it very much functioned as a cog in the engine of an informal Protestant establishment that claimed that without the inculcation of Christian (i.e., Protestant) virtues, students would lack the necessary self-restraint that citizens in a self-governing republic required. After seminar discussions of the secondary sources that survey the social, intellectual, and institutional reasons that prompted universities and eventually colleges to buck the Protestant establishment and its hold upon the curriculum, students focus upon Whitman College and its history, choose topics for archival research, assemble and examine primary and secondary sources, formulate historical questions and thesis statements, and eventually produce a 20 to 25 page research paper. The goal of the course is to help students, particularly majors in Religion, graduate from writing short analytical papers characteristic of Whitman’s first-year Encounters and survey courses in Religion to writing a senior thesis, required of every major in the Religion Department.

These collections include student works created in the context of Whitman classes or research experiences, selected Whitman College course materials including syllabi and student projects, and open access faculty scholarship.

The collection consists of the correspondence, journals, manuscripts, speeches and sermons of Henry Harmon Spalding. The collection also contains the writings of his wives, Eliza Hart Spalding and Rachel J. Smith Spalding. These items are a selection from the overall collection.

The collection contains the program for the weekend long event and also a collection of the speeches delivered during the commemoration. The Correspondence file consists primarily of invitations to and responses from dignitaries invited to attend the event.The publicity file provide information about the dissemination of information about the event and its reception.These documents are a selection of the overall collection.

The Switzer Collection consists of the invoices, business records, correspondence, fraternal organization materials, civic organization information and public office and election records of pioneer Angus McKay. Homestead certificates, deeds and a journal containing the minutes from meetings of the Russell Creek Farm Bureau and associated documents are included in the collection. These photographs are a selection from the overall collection.

The Whitman College Pioneer was a student-run newspaper that covered campus news, sports, arts, special events, and more. The Pioneer was published weekly during the academic year from 1896-2016. In 2016, the name of the paper was changed to the Whitman Wire.

This collection contains promotional material for the city of Walla Walla such as Up to the Times magazine,and the Walla Walla Souvenir book. The Walla Walla City Directories are also included and they provide information on businesses and residents from their respective years. These documents are a selection of the overall collection.