The Charles Black Hutchinson Papers primarily include Charles Hutchinson's correspondence and schoolwork from the period 1935 to 1944, when Hutchinson was a student at the Lawrenceville School (1935 to 1939), at Princeton University (1939 to 1943), and serving in the Army's 681st Glider Battalion (beginning in 1943). Hutchinson was a relatively typical student who came from a farming family in Jobstown, NJ and enjoyed a lively social network in Philadelphia and New York. His father had gone to Princeton, as did his older brother. He joined the Army for three years beginning in 1943, and returned to the family fruit farm before moving into the transportation industry in 1951. He lived in New Jersey for most of his life.

Correspondence reflects Hutchinson's early social life and friendships, undergraduate life at Princeton during World War II (many of Hutchinson's class, the class of 1943, graduated on an accelerated plan in order to enter the military), life at the Army bases of Fort Sill, OK, Fort Bragg, NC, and Camp Rucker, AL, as well as the experience of serving with the Army overseas—Hutchinson seems to have been stationed in England from the period September through December 1944.

Schoolwork, both notes and graded work, demonstrates something of the academic standards at both the Lawrenceville School and at Princeton in the 1930s and early 1940s. Coursework from Princeton is primarily in Art and Architecture courses, as well as in the Department of Military Science.

The Hutchinson Papers also include event programs, ephemera, photographs and newspaper clippings that reflect Hutchinson's social life and activities during his school and undergraduate years. The collection contains receipts and bank statements that reveal expenses at both Lawrenceville and Princeton, as well as meal tickets from the Officers' Mess at Fort Bragg, NC.