The George H. Atkinson papers include correspondence, miscellaneous speeches, journals, pamphlets, expense books, ministerial manuals, and a biography of Atkinson. The collection provides information on missionary life on the Oregon frontier and documents the growth of the Oregon public education system. Also included are two publications by Atkinson describing the Pacific Northwest and the Columbia Basin: "Address delivered by Rev. G. H. Atkinson, D. D. before the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York upon the possession, settlement, climate and resources of Oregon and the Northwest coast, including some remarks upon Alaska" (1868) and "The Northwest Coast, including Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, a series of articles upon the N.P.R.R. in its relations to the basins of the Columbia and of Puget's Sound" (1878). The collection also includes letters from Nancy Bates Atkinson's sister Lydia Bates Grout, written while she was a missionary to the Zulus in Natal, South Africa, in the late 1840s and 1850s, and describing her work there.