The Presidential Campaign Staff records include the director's files, correspondence, public relations materials, reports, speeches, and statements. The director's files include chronological correspondence, post-convention correspondence, special issues correspondence, regional reports, subject files, and materials pertaining to the presidential primaries generated by the campaign director, James A. Finnegan. The chronological correspondence documents the early planning of the campaign, while the post-convention correspondence is arranged alphabetically by state and documents contributions, suggestions, local activities, and offers of support. The special issues correspondence is arranged alphabetically by issue, then alphabetically by the correspondent's last name. Among the issues discussed were civil rights, Richard Nixon, highways, social security, vice presidential candidates, Harry S. Truman, senior citizens, and the Middle East. The regional reports include responses to questionnaires on issues of the campaign, centered on various regions of the country. The subject files are arranged alphabetically by subject, including civil rights, Dollars for Democrats, election data, Estes Kefauver, Israel, and the Speaker's Bureau. The material in Finnegan's subject files complements materials pertaining to these issues and activities located elsewhere in the subseries.

The staff correspondence is arranged alphabetically by last name of the correspondent, with many of the same staff members as the 1952 campaign, including William McC. Blair, Jr., Newton Minow, John Bartlow Martin, and Carol Evans. The staff correspondence does not differ significantly in content from the director's correspondence. The files on Stevenson's primary opponents Averell Harriman and Estes Kefauver include newsclippings, campaign materials, and biographical sketches. Because Kefauver was considered to be a more serious rival, the staff gathered more information on him, including press releases from his campaign headquarters and his attendance and voting records in Senate. The public relations materials include materials generated by the national committee, local committees and the Democratic National Committee. The materials distributed by the Democratic National Committee include brochures and the party's newsletter, The New America, addressing specific topics, such as health reform, education, and senior citizens.

The reports include both public opinion surveys and state reports, providing profiles of local politicians, demographics, and influential local organizations. The speeches and statements are arranged alphabetically by the name of the speaker, including both prominent Democratic politicians and lesser-known, local Stevenson supporters. The state files include correspondence pertaining to the primaries for states with particularly significant primary elections, such as California, Florida and Minnesota. Much of this correspondence predates the organization of a formal campaign structure and was answered by Blair, Evans, or Stevenson himself. A planning meeting was held in July 1955 among political leaders and Stevenson supporters to plan his campaign; correspondence and notes from this meeting are included in the strategy file, as are a review of the shortcomings of the 1952 campaign and materials from subsequent planning meetings in the autumn of 1955.

The Volunteers for Stevenson-Kefauver records include correspondence, financial materials, meeting minutes, public relations materials, reports, and a large amount of documentation concerning special groups of Stevenson supporters. Much of the correspondence is between the Volunteer leaders, Archibald Alexander (director), Barry Bingham (co-chair), and Jane Dick (co-chair), and individuals in their geographic areas of responsibility. Bingham corresponded frequently with Edward McDougal concerning contributions and the recruitment of leaders for state and local volunteer committees. The correspondence of John Horne, who served as a liaison with politicians in Washington, D. C. prior to the convention, shows the extent of pre-convention politicking undertaken by the Volunteers. Horne also corresponded with state politicians, labor leaders, and campaign officials regarding the organization of regional campaign offices.

Materials from the Democratic National Convention includes lists of delegates, convention committees, and correspondence regarding hotel arrangements. The financial materials include contribution acknowledgements, payroll information, budgets, correspondence of finance committee leaders John S. Graham, Mitzi Harrison, Louis Kohn, George McGhee, and Desmond Meehan, and documentation for the Shoe Pin Division. Volunteers in California initiated an enormously successful fundraising drive by selling sterling silver pins in the shape of a shoe, with (of course) a hole in the sole. These pins were sold in bulk to state committees who then sold them at a profit to raise funds for both the local and national committees.

The early planning of the campaign is documented through meeting minutes and the records of the National Committee for Stevenson, the pre-convention predecessor group of the Volunteers. These records include the precis of organization, meeting minutes, and memoranda between the principal members, Dick, Bingham, and Alexander. The public relations materials include newsletters, pamphlets, press releases, publicity kits, state files, and documentation of the use of various media, including radio, television, newspaper, and audio recordings. Files of the principal public relations staff members, Chloe Fox, Lemoine Skinner, and Don Pryor, are also included.

Following the convention and just prior to the commencement of the official campaign, the Volunteers held a series of regional conferences to coordinate the efforts of the state committees. Telegrams, schedules, and correspondence concerning these regional meetings are included. The special groups, more numerous in 1956 than 1952, included conservationists, educators, physicians, lawyers, minorities, business people, speakers' bureau, and students. Chapters of Students for Stevenson, administered by Jane Dick's daughter Letitia, were organized on college and university campuses throughout the country in an effort to win the support of first-time voters. Documentation for the Students for Stevenson groups and the mock conventions they held consist of correspondence, questionnaires, newspaper clippings, and telegrams.

The voluminous state files are arranged alphabetically by state name, with organizational information and interoffice memoranda arranged chronologically and correspondence arranged alphabetically by name of correspondent. These files reflect the relative zeal of Stevenson supporters in various states, many of whom had well-organized state committees prior to the primaries, but some of whom never organized state committees. The state files also show the loyalty of Stevenson supporters as many local organizers from 1952 utilized their experience in 1956. The New York state files also include the files of publisher Cass Canfield who spearheaded fundraising efforts in New York, and organized additional special groups, including the Committee for the Arts and New York Businessmen for Stevenson.