The French Papers consist primarily of correspondence, manuscripts, field notes, research files, teaching materials, reports, subject files, census data, publications, a bibliography, lantern slides and card files.

These papers contain a large body of personal and professional correspondence and published and unpublished manuscripts (as well as related notes and drafts) on topics spanning the linguistics, ethnobotany, contact history, social organization, and ceremonialism (to name only a few) of Wasco-Wishram and Sahaptin people.

The papers of David H. French also contain data and correspondence related to botany and, to some extent, ethnobotany. These focus on the plant family Umbelliferae (now named Apiaceae), in which he had special expertise: a new species of the genus Lomatium, whose members were important food and medicinal plants for Northwest Native peoples, bears his name (Lomatium frenchii).

Some of David French's long career at Reed College is also documented in this collection, including teaching materials, correspondence, and memoranda with Reed students and administration.

David and Kathrine French's years working for the War Relocation Authority (WRA) at the Colorado River Relocation Center in Poston, Arizona, generated an interesting collection of correspondence, reports, census data, subject files and other materials documenting the experience of Japanese-American internees in the camp.

The papers of Kathrine S. French include a rich body of materials from her undergraduate and graduate education at Pomona College and Columbia University, respectively. Some highlights are lecture notes from courses with Morris Opler, Ralph Linton, Ruth Benedict, and others; material from her work on race relations in Portland in 1948-1950 for the League of Women Voters and for the State of Oregon Fair Employment Practices Division; and materials from her work in medical anthropology at Oregon Health Sciences University.

Also included are the primary field data (including audiotape recordings) from Kathrine French's 1984-1988 research on Warm Springs ceremonialism, and the records of her contract ethnography work with Archaeological Investigations Northwest, Inc. (AINW) during the 1990s-2000s. Included also is a body of personal correspondence, most of it dating from the years after David's death (1994-2006).