There are more than 400 collections of personal papers in the Sophia Smith Collection accumulated by individual women or by families. They include such materials as letters, diaries, scrapbooks, and photographs. Among the most widely used collections are those of birth control crusader Margaret Sanger; Ellen Gates Starr, co-founder with Jane Addams of the Chicago settlement, Hull House; Mary van Kleeck, social researcher and reformer; and the Garrison, Hale, and Ames families. More recent acquisitions include the papers of author and activist Gloria Steinem and lesbian feminist and architect, Phyllis Birkby.