Materials concerning the activities of the United States in World War I are extensive. Home-front accounts contain such materials as the Edwin F. Gay papers relating to the activities of the War Industries Board; the Alonzo Englebert Taylor papers concerning the activities of the War Trade Board, 1917–1919; and the dockets and records of the executive sessions of the National War Labor Board, 1918–1919.

Substantial numbers of books and pamphlets dealing with U.S. military participation in the war are complemented by manuscript reports and records concerning the activities of the American Expeditionary Forces in 1918, by many personal narratives from American combatants, and by official histories.

Examples of coverage on diplomatic efforts are the papers of George Davis Herron, unofficial adviser to President Wilson in 1917–1919; correspondence and interviews with leaders and statesmen of the United States and Europe on such subjects as the founding of the League of Nations, the Austrian and German peace moves, the civil war in Russia, and the establishment of the new governments in Europe; the diary of Vance C. McCormick, a member of the American War Mission to the Inter-Allied Conference in London and Paris in 1917 and an adviser to President Wilson at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919; and David Hunter Miller’s My Diary at the Conference of Paris, with Documents, a 21-volume set containing minutes of the various councils and committees at the conference.