The collection contains Holden's various personal and professional papers, accumulated during his life (1890-1993) as an architect and active Princeton University alumnus, as well as photographs, the papers of friends and family members, miscellaneous printed matter dating from the 1840s to the 1990s, and a taped interview with Holden.

Holden's personal papers include writings, his correspondence, and drawings. His writings include drafts of memoirs, articles, books, a play, and a great deal of poetry. Also included in his writings are his class notes from his time at Princeton and his graduate studies at Columbia. His correspondence consists of his correspondence with his first wife, Miriam Young Holden, his second wife, Rose Barnes Holden, other members of his family, and his friends, and also touches upon his wartime (1914-1917) experience, Princeton University, the Christodora House in New York City, his association with Frank Lloyd Wright, and his membership in the Cosmos Club and the Grolier Club. His drawings include mainly travel sketches and architectural sketches and plans.

Holden's professional papers include architectural plans, articles and reports on urban planning, papers regarding his association with Frank Lloyd Wright and the building of the Guggenheim Museum, and documents from various New York City commissions and planning boards such as the United Neighborhood Houses of New York.

Holden's photographs consist mainly of his friends and family, although there is a series of the staff of the Grolier Club Bindery probably dating from the very beginning of the twentieth century, as well as a series of portraits of young men dating from the 1910s, which in all likelihood are graduating portraits of members of Princeton's Class of 1912.

The papers of friends and family members include the correspondence between Arthur Cort Holden's parents, Edwin B. Holden and Alice Cort Holden, and Charles Eliot Norton, as well as a bound book of reproductions of letters (1854-1855) from Edwin Ruthven Holden to Sarah Elizabeth Kellogg. The miscellaneous printed matter in this collection consists chiefly of pamphlets and magazines, and includes a collection of articles by or about James Russell Lowell dating from 1845 to 1894, as well as an issue of Ladies Home Journal from 1858 and a scrapbook of newspaper clippings from 1902. Among memorabilia are two examples of the original stamps issued under the English Stamp Act of 1765.

The taped interview with Holden was recorded in1974 onto six audiocassettes.