The Louis M. Balfour Papers consist of letters, clippings, certificates, diary, poems, receipts, greeting cards, postcards, notebooks, manual alphabet cards, research notes, and business cards. The collection, which consists of approximately 22,100 pages, dates from 1926 to 2003. The bulk of the collection consists of his research papers on the history of Deaf education, especially on the families of Bolling, Braidwood, Gallaudet, Cogswell, and Clerc. There are some copies of biographies of individuals who are associated with Deaf education. The bulk dates are mostly between the 1940s and the 1990s.

The largest subject in the collection is focused on the history of Deaf peddling. Louis spent much of his time writing to the Federal authorities and State agencies and encouraged them to crack down on Deaf peddlers. Not only that, he also wrote to the Schools for the Deaf superintendents and principals and also to Deaf organizations about the exploitation of Deaf peddlers.

The most interesting collection is that there are some letters from members of the Boy Scouts from other countries that Louis received between 1930 and 1933. One Boy Scout member from India wrote many letters telling of the social revolution in India.