The collection contains items dating from Marrow's years in Chapel Hill (1912-1915) to his work on the state's public school laws following Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. Two letterpress books (PC 2.1 and 2.2) containing letters and memos sent out from the Superintendent's office from 1924 to 1941, provide an excellent source for studying the school consolidation movement of the 1920s and the subsequent impacts of the Great Depression in the 1930s.

Several county maps from the 1920s and 1940s are of local interest, particularly a circa 1921 map of the county's white schools and districts before consolidation (placed in Map Collection because of size). Also of local interest are the following pamphlets, booklets, and circulars: "A Select List of Public Speakers Who Offer their Services Free to the People of Johnston County" (1918); The Smithfield Schools: Annual Report of the Superintendent (1918); The Twenty-Fifth Anniversary, Short Journey School (1951). The latest items are speeches dealing with the Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and materials relating to Marrow's work on the state's public school law revisions (PC 2.3).