The collection consists of the papers of Wigner, including correspondence, subject files, writings, and offprints reflecting his long career in physics. While some of the material concerns his work in the early 1930s as a professor at the Technische Hochschule in Berlin, the bulk of the papers relate to the period after Wigner moved to the United States. There is correspondence with other physicists and scientsts, such as John von Neumann, Pascual Jordan, Werner Heisenberg, Leo Szilard, Glenn T. Seaborg, Frederick Seitz, and Alvin M. Weinberg, as well as correspondence relating to his receipt of the Enrico Fermi Award, the Max Planck Medal, and the Nobel Prize for Physics. Additionally, there are 15 cassettes of taped interviews with Wigner discussing his entire life, conducted by Andrew Szanton from 1988 to 1989. Most of the papers and correspondence are in English; however, there is some material in German or Hungarian.

In addition, there are two sets of typewritten lectures on "Solid State" delivered at Princeton University. The first (138 pp.), dating from the 1930s, contains autograph notes by Frederick Seitz. The second set of lectures (181 pp.) is titled "Theory of Solid State" and was delivered at Princeton University between 1948 and 1949.