Correspondence primarily concerns state, federal, and military activities during World War I. Wartime topics include fuel conservation, daylight-saving time, patriotism, savings stamps, censorship, aliens operating businesses in Illinois, citizens demonstrating against German consulates, home defense, sale of liberty bonds, teaching German in schools, sedition, speakers at munitions plants, German sympathizers, "fight or work" orders, activities of the Bureau of Investigation of the Justice Department, Americanization plans, the federal takeover of railroads, and the lynching of a "pro-German agitator" in Collinsville. Military information in the correspondence concerns such matters as the draft (e.g., evasions, exemptions for farm workers, special classifications), army camps, uniforms, food, pay, furloughs, hospitals, safety at Scott Field, the Rock Island Arsenal, voting by soldiers, discharges, demobilization, and provision of work on farms for soldiers after the war.

Other significant topics relate to agriculture (e.g., barberry plants, stem rust, livestock feed, soft corn, rabbit raising); law enforcement (e.g., executive clemency for 100 Swedes in Rockford, new police and detective systems); national laws concerning roads, farm loans, child labor, and wage tax withholdings; and state or local concerns (e.g., license tags, the Civil Administrative Code, fraternities and sororities, motorboats and yachts, vocational education for Negroes, building and loan association interest rates, the Socialist Party, the Spanish-American War Veterans' Fund).

A small portion of this file concerns the Chicago Commission on Race Relations appointed by the Governor to investigate the 1919 Chicago race riot and to offer recommendations for new laws or other state action for the prevention of further outbreaks. Composed of leading Chicago black and white citizens, the commission inquired into racial tensions not only locally but also throughout the state and, in some matters, the nation. At the conclusion of its work the commission sent the Governor its plans, investigation reports, memoranda, minutes, financial statements, hearing transcripts, and letters dealing with racism and its effects in schools, churches, industries, housing, and unions.

In addition, this file includes the Governor's correspondence concerning the riot and the progress of the commission's investigation, orders of the acting Governor to mobilize the National Guard, communications from the mayor of Chicago, coroners' reports, and police data. Other matters discussed in the commission correspondence include bomb threats, lynchings, U.S. Supreme Court decisions, the Star Order of Ethiopia, the International Workers of the World, the NAACP, The Crisis, the Springfield Ministerial Association, The Journal of Negro History, the Pullman Company, and W.E.B. Du Bois's The Souls of Black Folk. Most correspondents are local, state, and federal officials or leaders in business, social, or cultural organizations such as executives of the National Urban League and the East St. Louis Urban League, the director of the Division of Negro Economics of the U.S. Department of Labor, Republican Party national leaders, and Baptist ministers.

Governor, "Frank Orren Lowden Correspondence," Record Series 101.027, Illinois State Archives.