The fonds reflects Margaret Peterson’s artistic processes and practices, research interests, pedagogy, her relationship with Howard O’Hagan, and her relationships with friends, patrons, fellow artists, galleries and various institutions.

The fonds consists of correspondence, photographs, biographical documents, diaries and notebooks, financial and business-related documents, grant applications, teaching materials, unpublished poetry and manuscripts, exhibition catalogues, clippings and publications, drawings and small artworks, painting materials, objects collected by Peterson, and various ephemera.

Correspondents include Howard O’Hagan, Elza Mayhew, Glenn Wessels, J. Russell Harper, Jean Varda, Dorothy and John B. Grover, Joy Ling, Walter Askin, Robert and Sarah Amos, Helen Anderson, R.W. Peterson, Ellen Charlotte Peterson, and Jane Hanks.

The fonds has been arranged into five series: Biographical, Art Practice, Publications, clippings and collected ephemera, Teaching, and Howard O’Hagan Materials.