The additions to the Richard Critchfield Papers (1952-1987) consist of papers relating to Critchfield's work overseas, and to his work on Those Days. Grouped by document type is correspondence, newspaper and magazine clippings, drafts of his articles, miscellaneous project notes and reports, and notes, drafts and final copies of several of his published books. Filed in a separate section is material on the Critchfield family history manuscript “All The Days,” later to become published as Those Days: An American Album.

The most informative section in these additions is the correspondence, including everything from business mail to intimately personal letters written to family and close friends. Among Critchfield's correspondents are Norman E. Borlaug, Peter Bird Martin, R. P. Bosshart, Lester M. Brown, Lisa Redfield Peatie and Daniel P. Moynihan. His correspondence with his family and close friends (located in Box 24, folders 1-4), consisting mostly of carbons of Critchfield's letters, goes into detail about his work, the projects he's involved with, the books he's writing, the people he meets, and also his personal and family situations. His correspondence with Brian Beedham of the Economist (located in Box 25, folder 5) covers Critchfield's views on the political, technological and agricultural issues in the various countries and villages he studied. These letters are quite lengthy and go into great detail about the different situations in these countries and villages at the times the letters were written.

The major focus of Critchfield's writings is on the subject of the technological and agricultural advances being made in the Third World countries he studied. The article entitled, “Science and The Villager: The Last Sleeper Wakes” (located in Box 27, folder 1) is a complete summary of Critchfield's village work.

Among the miscellaneous project notes and reports in Boxes 31 & 32, are interviews with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marcos (Critchfield was once said to have been one of the only American journalists to have taken an “objective view” of Marcos). In the folders labeled “Reports for the Alicia Patterson Fund” and “Fieldstaff Reports” are additional summaries of Critchfield's various studies in the Third World.

Critchfield called his family history project a “Manuscript on Cultural and Agricultural, Rural-Urban Change in 1880 to 1940 as Seen in the Life of an American Family.” The focus of this manuscript is a direct continuation of his village work, except staged in America and based on the Williams and Critchfield families. The material in the family history project section includes: research notes, photocopied literature, notes from newspapers, chronologies and interviews, and progressive manuscript drafts. The book was later published as Those Days: An American Album.