Series I. Correspondence contains letters dating from 1942-1975 and includes personal, professional and official military correspondence. The letters have been divided into two subseries, Personal and Official, and arranged by date.

Subseries I. Personal includes both personal and professional correspondence. Professional letters include those from The American Sugar Refining Company, Abbott Laboratories, Associated American Artists, New York Times, and Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. Personal letters include correspondence from soldiers and officials he met abroad including Elliot Colby, M.D., Richard Holtz, M.D., and Lt. William Hewitt.

Subseries II. Official consists of letters from military sources regarding his trips to the Pacific during World War II. Included are letters containing Benney's orders, transportation instructions and permits for departure as well as letters to military officials regarding his credentials. Also found are memos of instruction including Field Sanitation, Medical and sanitary data on Micronesia, and What to do if a Man is Shot During Combat. Located at the end of this subseries are a group of envelops without attached correspondence, one of which has a small sketch on its reverse.

Series II. Personal Papers contains biographical information, lists and inventories of artwork, handwritten notes, and ephemera. Of note are two diaries: Benney's datebook from 1944, mainly recording addresses, lists and travel expenses and a diary of military doctor Col. Elliot Colby, dated May 28 through November 5, [1944], recording events in Saipan. Other material includes Benney's vaccination record, his blood donor card, invitations and an Overseas Edition for Armed Forces of The New Yorker, from July 22, 1944.

Series III. Printed Matter is comprised of a variety of publicity and includes printed examples of Benney's work. Newspaper and magazine articles illustrated by Benney as well as articles about Benney and his work can be found in this series. Publications include Pageant, Argosy, The American Legion, Our Navy and The Saturday Evening Post. Also included are exhibition announcements and catalogs from shows that featured his work.

Much of this material is oversized and has been separated. Included are several reproductions of his sketches, some of which are signed. One flat file folder contains several halftone prints of various paintings and illustrations, including an image of the Domino Sugar Factory in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, drawn for the American Sugar Refining Company.

Series IV. Photographs includes images of Benney taken primarily during his travels in Saipan, Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Many of these photographs were taken while he was working as a war artist-correspondent in the Pacific during World War II and show Benney, in uniform, drawing soldiers in hospitals and in the field. Another series of portraits show Benney in Cuba while on assignment for The American Sugar Refining Company, posed with sugarcane cutters.

Series V. Scrapbooks contain loose pages with attached newspaper and magazine clippings, letters, photographs, book covers and other examples of Benney's work. Scrapbooks are sorted by content, and are annotated with handwritten notes, which Benney added to describe various items. One group of pages contains letters from military offices and business contacts, most regarding commissioned artwork. Scrapbook pages labeled "Illustration" contain clippings of magazine work, covers of novels and other examples of commercial work. "Printed Matter" pages include some of the same type of clippings, but also include ephemera, invitations, photographs and other pieces not related to commercial illustration. Many of these pages are brittle and must be handled with care. There are photographic reproductions of some of these scrapbook pages, filed at the end of the series.