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This series is divided into three sections: documents pertaining directly to Paul Leser, documents pertaining to other family members, and newspaper clippings primarily about Paul Leser. Included in this series are materials pertaining to the Leser family residence, located in the Plittersdorf section of Bonn, Germany, and include documentation of the estate, details of the original land purchase, wartime confiscation by the Nazis, later restitution claims, and final sale of the property in 1972.

This is the largest series in the collection and contains Leser's correspondence with other anthropologists and colleagues, life-long friends, as well as some students. (The bulk of the student correspondence is filed with the student records, Series 16).

This series contains Leser's institutional and organizational correspondence and documents his involvement with associations in the United States and worldwide, such as the African Studies Association, the American Anthropological Association, the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Völkerkunde, The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion and the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. Also included in this series is correspondence concerning travel arrangements and conferences, with publishers, churches and missionary groups, book dealers and museums, and correspondence with colleges and universities, including those where Leser taught: Black Mountain College, Olivet College, The New School for Social Research and the University of Hartford.

This series contains the majority of Paul Leser's essayistic publications, in manuscript or typescript, as well as in published form. Also represented in this series are samples of early poetry and prose attempts by Leser from his teen years, copies of his dissertation, and proof copies and reviews of his seminal work, Entstehung und Verbreitung des Pfluges (1931). Also present in this series are multiple copies of a Paul Leser Bibliography, published on the occasion of his 80th birthday.

The Graebner series is of interest to researchers in the history of anthropology and ethnology, and specifically those concerned with the cultural-historical approach to ethnology which Graebner spearheaded. Graebner was Leser's mentor and perhaps the greatest influence on his academic career and scholarly interests; Leser remained loyal to Graebner's anthropological methodology even after it had fallen out of favor in academic circles.

This series contains primarily reprints sent to Leser (many signed) by fellow ethnologists/ anthropologists, colleagues and former students. The series also contains some typescripts of essays and papers.

The collection of pamphlets is arranged in two series: unauthored and authored.