The Frank Donner papers document the history and use of political surveillance in the United States, primarily from the late 1940s through the early 1990s. The collection also generally serves as a resource for researchers studying the history of the twentieth century American left, civil liberties struggles and the lawyers who fought them, and the American political intelligence establishment. The papers reflect Donner's political and intellectual work and interests in civil liberties, progressive political movements, and the government's use of surveillance and informers. The collection includes extensive documentation on every major political informer from the anti-Communist wave of the 1950s to the social protest movements of the 1960s and 1970s. The informer files include biographical information, court documents and testimonies, and interview transcripts with and about individual informers. The collection also holds files on a significant cross-section of the social and political protest groups of the 1960s through the 1980s. Finally, the collection includes manuscripts of Donner's writings, including many unpublished articles and two unpublished books. The papers hold relatively little biographical or personal information about Frank Donner.