Material in the Background series includes genealogical and biographical information supplied by the donor (a friend of Ringer's daughter) pertaining to William Ringer, his wife Gladys Wells, his brother Horace Thomas Ringer and his father Victor Howard Ringer. Five copy prints (sent by the donor as digital e-mail attachments) feature photographs of Ringer, his wife, and his brothers.
The Diaries series consists of three volumes used by Ringer as a combination diary and scrapbook. Ringer's diary entries are lengthy and well written containing observations of his impressions of the campus and town, course work, fellow students, social life and notable campus events. The entries are richest starting with his trip to Ann Arbor on September 27-28, 1920, and continuing through to February 25, 1922. Scrapbook-type content includes newspaper clippings, tickets, programs, mementoes and some letters and official university documents tipped in alongside the corresponding diary entries. One particularly noteworthy item is the ticket for a "modern poets" lecture series appearance by poet Carl Sandberg on April 5, 1922, along with clippings concerning Sandberg's appearance. (Other poets in the series on the ticket include Padraic Collum, Lewis Untermeyer, Amy Lowell and Vachel Lindsay).