Fonds consists of correspondence; subject files; memoranda; reports; published articles, papers, and addresses; and photographs, including a series of coloured 35 mm slides of various campus buildings, events, and scenes, taken by W.A. Mackintosh during his time as the 12th Principal of Queen's University. There are important files on the Anti-Combines Investigation Act, the 1945 Dominion-Provincial Conference, the Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations, the National Employment Commission, the Economic Advisory Committee, 1939-1944, and Queen's University.

The fonds predominantly consists of of James' research notes, grant applications, interviews, correspondence, articles and drafts for his book and exhibition (at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre) on Albert Chesterfield: A Fur Trader's Photographs: A. A. Chesterfield in the District of Ungava, 1901-04 (1985). There is also a draft of his book Locations of the Sacred and material pertaining to Arthur Twomey's Needle to the North, which James edited for Oberon Press in 1982. Also includes James' research for the Religious Diversity Project, documenting religious organizations in Kingston, Ontario.