The Bolt Family Papers are arranged in seven series. Series I consists of biographical materials, including sixteen boxes of family diaries (1893-1973); Series II contains family and business correspondence (1887-1957); Series III consists of eleven Bolt family scrapbooks(1913-1952); Series IV consists of the writings of Richard Arthur Bolt (1900-1960), while Series V contains Bolt Family memorabilia; Series VI contains various public health writings not by Dr. Bolt; and Series VII contains the family's substantial photograph collections, which include 17 boxes of images of China, Japan and Korea (1911-1916), Germany, Austria and Hungary (1933), as well as California (1899-1904) and elsewhere.

The scion of this distinguished family, Dr. Richard Arthur Bolt (1880-1959), was an authority on child health care. Bolt was Medical Director of the U.S. Indemnity (Tsing Hua) College, Beijing (1911-1916); Chief of the Bureau of Child Hygiene, Cleveland (Ohio) Department of Public Health (1917-1918); Instructor, Case Western Reserve University (1916-1920); Lecturer, Johns Hopkins University (1920-1925); Consultant to the U.S. Children's Bureau (1924-1937); Assistant Professor, University of California (1925-1929); Associate Professor, Case Western Reserve University (1929-1945); and, Lecturer in Maternal and Child Health, University of California (1945-1948). Bolt studied child health in Germany (1933) and was a member of the White House Conference on Children (1939). He was author of numerous monographs on public health topics. On domestic and overseas trips Dr. Bolt took many photographs that he later used to illustrate public and academic lectures.

Collection is open for research.