Correspondence, research notes, and printed material bearing significant marginalia collected or created by Mary Hudgins on a wide variety of research and writing topics. Most of the materials were created by Mary herself, but some of the notes appear to be those created by Dr. Francis J. Scully and may have been taken from his files by Hudgins when she obtained his collection. Although efforts have been made during processing to reduce the duplication of materials, they have not all been eliminated. Hudgins kept numerous carbons of her letters and notes which she filed under several different folder titles depending on the informational content. Freqently the relationship between the carbon copies and the folder titles is unclear without careful reading. Letters within the folders generally pertain to the title subject and are both to and from Hudgins as well as other parties. (For other letters sent or recieved by Hudgins consult those in Group 1, Series 1, General Correspondence; Group II, Series 6, Music Research Files.)

Significant groups of manuscript materials created by individuals and entities have been removed from this series and arranged as seperate collections within Group 3, Topical Manuscript Collections. Most of the printed materials originally in this series have been removed to Group 2, Series 9, Hot Springs Veritical File, where they have been arranged under Library of Congress subject headings to facilitate access. Preliminary and subsquent drafts of manuscript articles based on the research files have, for the most part, been removed to Group 2, Series 2 and 3, where they are arranged alphabetically by title and author.