This series, the largest of the collection, contains correspondence deemed "personal" by Wigglesworth and consists of letters and copies of letters between him and friends, acquaintances, and professional associates, as well as some family correspondence. Frequent correspondents include Wigglesworth and Booth family members, as well as Wigglesworth's close friends Oscar Haussermann and Jefferson Caffery and many other friends and associates from all aspects of Wigglesworth's personal and professional life. While Wigglesworth labeled this correspondence "personal," there is much in this series that pertains to his professional positions both abroad in the 1920s and at home and in Congress, and finally while serving as ambassador to Canada from late 1958 to his death in October 1960.

Papers in this series comprise correspondence and other papers that pertain to routine, personal (ongoing) business matters such as bills, legal papers, banking, club memberships, household maintenance, cars, insurance, and medical concerns. Also included are papers regarding the death of George Wigglesworth and estate papers (1950-1955) of Mary C. D. Wigglesworth, items relating to the Robert E. Lee Foundation (a project of Florence Joyes Booth Wigglesworth), records of charitable contributions, invitations, wedding and honeymoon materials, papers regarding the children's schooling, and anything else that is not strictly personal correspondence but rather a personal business-type of communication. The series was created based on Wigglesworth's own files and his method of keeping personal records.

Educational papers consist primarily of notebooks for Milton Academy, Harvard, and Harvard Law School courses. Also included are materials relating to Harvard in World War I, Harvard football (1919-1921), and Wigglesworth's post-graduate activities: class reunions, clubs, admissions, the Alumni Association, Harvard's tercentenary, Wigglesworth's 50th reunion (1962, after his death), and Harvard's 350th celebration (1986, after his death). Materials dated 1962 and 1986 were probably collected and kept by other family members.

Early papers in this series include articles leading up to, and about the beginning of, World War I. The series also contains papers related to Richard B. Wigglesworth's early (pre-war) military training at a camp in Plattsburgh, New York, as well as his training at Field Artillery School in Texas in 1917. Wigglesworth was in the army from 1916 to 1919, serving in France near the end of the war as captain and commanding officer of Battery E, 1st Battalion, 303rd Field Artillery, 76th Division.

Also included are Battery E papers arranged by year, Officers' Reserve Corps materials, some items pertaining to the Military Order of the World War (to 1930), and souvenir printed material from battlefields in France. This series does not contain any wartime correspondence home.

While the bulk of this material ends in 1928, some subject files extend to 1934, presumably as Wigglesworth continued to collect papers relating to his professional interest in the Dawes Plan.

This series comprises files arranged by year, covering political and Congressional topics of interest to Wigglesworth in his career as a U.S. Congressman from Massachusetts. He paid particular notice to the Federal Communications Commission and radio (House Select Committee on Broadcasting), the Republication National Committee, Republican politics in general, Roosevelt and the New Deal, the House Appropriations Committee, aeronautics (1940), and the Speakers Bureau (1940). The series also contains a great deal of ephemera connected to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Study Mission to Europe, and the Near East, Far East, and South Asia (1955). A few items date to 1960 and reflect Wigglesworth's continued interest in Congressional matters after his retirement.

Also included is a separate carton of speeches and addresses.

This series contains papers created in the course of Richard B. Wigglesworth's campaigns for Congress. The papers include correspondence (both before and after elections), nomination papers, expenditures, campaign literature (flyers, posters, etc.), donation information, etc. The campaigns took place every two years from 1928 to 1956.

This series consists of papers generated while Richard B. Wigglesworth served as ambassador to Canada (stationed in Ottawa), Dec. 1958-Oct. 1960. While Wigglesworth's official papers are not in this collection, this series contains material relating to the social aspects of the position, including travel around Canada as a representative of the U.S. Also included are a number of files labeled "scrapbook" or "Ottawa scrapbook" that were most likely intended to be gathered into scrapbooks, but never were. Some items date to after 1960 and were probably saved by Florence Joyes Booth Wigglesworth.

Richard B. Wigglesworth died after a short illness in October 1960 while serving as U.S. ambassador to Canada in Ottawa. All items in this series were apparently saved by Florence Joyes Booth Wigglesworth. They consist primarily of condolence letters, clippings, items related to memorial services, and published memoirs of Richard B. Wigglesworth. Also included is a small amount of material of Florence Wigglesworth relating to her later activities (1961-1977).

Scrapbooks form an integral part of the Richard B. Wigglesworth papers and were important to him as a form of recordkeeping. He kept scrapbooks all his life, and many contain personal correspondence, photographs, postcards, newspaper and magazine clippings, graphics, other printed matter, writings, notes, and ephemera.

This series includes two scrapbooks (Carton 54) that Wigglesworth kept to document the National Hughes Alliance presidential campaign for Charles E. Hughes in 1916, headed by W. Cameron Forbes with Wigglesworth as assistant. Carton 55 contains scrapbooks about Wigglesworth, created by his mother Mary C. D. Wigglesworth, and these hold the majority of his letters home to his parents. The oversize scrapbooks (onsite at Ms. N-463) are primarily Congressional scrapbooks of newspaper clippings, except for those pertaining to Wigglesworth's appointment as U.S. ambassador to Canada.

This series contains oversize items removed from different parts of the collection. All items have been dummied out from their original locations.