This collection contains several thousand photographs relating to the Mannes School of Music, from its early days in the 1910s through the 2000s, primarily representing the 1970s through the 1990s. Included are images of Mannes buildings; performances put on by different Mannes ensembles; administrative and academic events; the Mannes family; and Mannes personnel, including students, faculty, alumni, and guest artists and performers.

The scrapbook, compiled by Nellie Lane Woodruff (1867-circa 1944), contains ephemera about opera singer Lilli Lehmann (1848-1929). It appears from the contents of the scrapbook that Lehmann and Woodruff were acquaintances, if not friends. The scrapbook contains photographs, clippings, programs, and other ephemera documenting Lehmann's professional singing career at the Metropolitan Opera of New York, the Bayreuth Festival, and at other venues.