The Ethel Armes Collection of Lee Family Papers consists principally of photocopies and transcripts of documents found in other repositories. Armes collected and assembled these in preparation for her book, (1936). Materials date from 1671 to 1936 and include family correspondence of the Lee and Shippen families pertaining mainly to life during the Revolutionary War period. The bulk of the correspondence is that of Henry "Lighthorse Harry" Lee, Revolutionary War general and father of Robert E. Lee, and Major Henry Lee, brother of Robert E. Lee. Subjects detailed in the correspondence include military activities during the Revolutionary War, politics and political appointments, financial affairs in the colonies, agriculture, planting, and slavery in Virginia, and family life on Shirley Plantation. Among other family members represented in the collection are Charles Carter Lee, Richard Bland Lee, Mary Randolph Custis and Robert E. Lee, Alice Lee Shippen, Thomas Lee Shippen, and William Shippen. One noteworthy item in the collection is a copy of a letter of former slave Eleanor Berry to Elizabeth Collins Lee, her previous mistress. Duff Green, Nathanael Greene, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Tyler, and George Washington are among the more prominent correspondents in the collection.

Copies of architectural plans and drawings of various Lee family estates, family genealogies, legal papers, maps, and newspaper clippings are included in the collection. The few original documents in the Ethel Armes Collection of Lee Family Papers consist mainly of research notes and correspondence of Armes and pertain to her book. Of particular interest is a letter of Franklin D. Roosevelt to Armes; Roosevelt wrote the foreword to her book.