This series contains records of the War Fund Committee of the City of Brooklyn and the County of Kings, including printed items describing the origins and activities of the Committee and its members as well as several forms used by the Committee to assist soldiers and their families in applying for welfare benefits. The series also contains financial records of the Committee, including a list of recipients of the Committee's charity, transactional documents, a subscription book, receipts/expense ledger, and a bank register from the Nassau Bank of Brooklyn. A Cash Book includes records for associated relief funds: the Home Trust of the Volunteers; the East Tennessee Fund; the Committee for Relief of Sick and Wounded Soldiers; and the Calico Ball Fund for Relief of Soldiers and Families. Additional information on the activities of the Home Trust of the Volunteers is contained in the Minute Book in the series. The series includes some material, such as that concerning the Calico Ball, associated with the Brooklyn and Long Island Fair, but generally items relating to the War Fund Committee's involvement in the Fair are found in Series 3.

This series contains records of the Women's Relief Association of Brooklyn (WRA), including printed materials and reports submitted for the years 1863-1865. Detailed information regarding donations of goods and cash is found in two day books and a register of receipts. Minutes of the Association are documented in the Secretary's Book. The series includes a certificate presented by the Women's Central Association of Relief (a precursor to the WRA) to the Soldier's Aid Society in commemoration of their shared work on behalf of the sick and wounded. Artifacts included in the series are a WRA stamp and a swatch of linen from a wedding dress used for bandages (with related correspondence).

This series contains records relating to the Brooklyn and Long Island Fair in Aid of the United States Sanitary Commission (also known as the Sanitary Fair), held in 1864. Approximately half of the series concerns financial aspects of the Fair and donations of goods to it. The other half concerns the Fair's events and exhibits.

Financial and donation records include a cash ledger, numbered invoices, subscription books recording donations of goods (principally to the Fine Goods Committee), and correspondence of the Finance Committee. Of particular interest is Invoice 149, from George Templeton Strong, Treasurer of the USSC, acknowledging $300,000 sent to that organization as a result of the Brooklyn Fair.

The printed forms and documents related to planning the event include a handwritten letter from Henry Ward Beecher in support of a proposal to collect autographs in an album to be auctioned at the Fair. The Committee on Art, Relics and Curiosities contains catalogs of the artwork and other items that were exhibited at the Fair. The Business Committee material contains a handwritten memo from Mrs. J.S.T. Stranahan (President of the Women's Relief Association) providing the women with "hints" regarding how best to interact with the business community and coincidentally offering posterity an interesting insight into nineteenth century behavior norms. The series also holds floor plans for the Academy of Music Fair site, stereographs of the New England Kitchen exhibit taken by photographer W.E. James, and programs, announcements, and admission tickets for various events. There are several posters, placards, and broadsides advertising Fair events or events held in the weeks leading up to the Fair; among these is the string of numbers used by the Treasurer to announce the Fair's final receipts tally of $400,000. The folder for dramatic events includes a handwritten copy of a scene from "Jem Bags in The Wandring Minstrel" and the script of "Woman in History" performed by Packer Collegiate Institute. The series includes a full run of the Fair's daily newspaper, Drum Beat, as well as a scrapbook and clippings concerning the Fair.

The series also includes a variety of items that were exhibited and auctioned at the Fair, or believed to have been so. One of these items is an album of autographed writings by such nineteenth century literary notables as William Cullen Bryant, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. (The complete list of contributors is noted in the series container list below.) The album also includes a page from manuscripts by James Fenimore Cooper and Washington Irving. The album was compiled by Gertrude Lefferts Vanderbilt specifically to be auctioned at the Fair. Another item, less certain as to its relation to the Fair, is a set of Mexican War-era correspondence, in Spanish, between Maria Forises and her husband, Juan, at San Luis Potosi. Other artifacts include a strand of George Washington's hair, a piece of Henry Clay's coat, a scrapbook of poems/lyrics from the Confederate states, a printing plate for a leaflet from the Fair, ribbons worn by Fair officials, and sheet music for a song also called "The Drum Beat."

A folder in the series includes material from the Long Island Historical Society (now the Brooklyn Historical Society) concerning its effort to attract donations of items acquired at the Fair. The folder also holds a historical account of the Fair written by Harriet Stryker-Rodda in 1964 to commemorate its centennial anniversary.

This series contains materials from the fund established by the War Fund Committee to raise money for a statue in honor of Abraham Lincoln following his assassination in 1865. The correspondence largely relates to individual donations. Additional material regarding donations is contained in the documentation of one dollar subscriptions solicited from individuals at their places of employment. These records were used to compile an alphabetical index of contributors, contained in a bound ledger also found in the series. The contract with H. K. Brown, sculptor of the Lincoln statue, is in the series and includes signed statements noting dates and amounts of payment received.

This series contains materials relating to various relief organizations as well as events to raise money on their behalf, primarily to assist the war effort. The series includes information concerning the Brooklyn bureau of the American Freedmen's Friend Society, led by prominent African-Americans including James N. Gloucester and William J. Wilson. Other local organizations represented include the Brooklyn and Long Island Christian Commission and the records of a collection taken in Brooklyn in response to a fire in Portland, Maine. Several other cities' Fairs are represented in the series, including newspapers printed for the Fairs at Boston, Indianapolis, New York City, Philadelphia, and Springfield, Mass. There is a small amount of information relating to the U.S. Sanitary Commission, including an overview of its operations as presented at a statistical conference in Berlin in 1863, among other documents.

This series contains a wide variety of materials principally concerning the Civil War or from the Civil War era. A small number of documents date from prior to the Civil War. It might be that some of the items were exhibited at the Brooklyn and Long Island Fair, but this is unknown. Civil War-related materials include poems; a manuscript by Capt. Samuel Whiting read to the Long Island Historical Society describing his experiences at Fort Sumter in 1861 and as U.S. Consul to the Bahamas afterward; printed remarks at the presentation of a flag to the 26th Regiment, U.S. Colored Troops (raised in New York by the Union League Club); a printed solicitation by Edward Everett on behalf of Lieut. Worden of the ship "Monitor"; a sheet of tax notes from the city of Charleston, S.C.; Confederate regiment documents such as pay accounts and quartermaster requisitions; and several other documents.

Documents dating from the Civil War era include materials relating to the 1864 Presidential campaign, including the first number of The World, a newspaper supporting McClellan, covering the Democratic National Convention; orders and other documents concerning two New York State National Guard regiments, the 13th and the 26th (these documents do not relate to the regiments' service in the war); proposed alphabets for the blind (with raised lettering); commercial advertisements; and some items printed in response to Lincoln's assassination. The advertisements include two broadsheets, one documenting 1864 financial and other data for all fire insurance companies doing business in New York State and the second soliciting the general public to purchase tax-exempt U.S. government bonds. A Bradstreet's Commercial Reports circa 1865 for the New England states and eastern Canada is in the series, used in part as a scrapbook for poems.

Some of the material throughout the series relates to local Brooklyn or New York organizations, such as the articles of association for the Sewing Society of the Summerfield Methodist Episcopal Church in Brooklyn. These local connections are highlighted with notes in the container list below.