The collection consists of material documenting the entrepreneurial and performing activities of Orpheus M. McAdoo as a member of the Jubilee Singers and director of the Virginia Concert Company and Jubilee Singers, as well as material relating to Mattie Allen McAdoo and the McAdoo and Allen families. Highlights include scrapbooks containing announcements, clippings, and ephemera for the Fisk Jubilee Singers Tour of Australia in 1886-1888 and "McAdoo's Virginia Jubilee Singers and Concert Company, Clippings from Papers throughout Australasia" in 1893-1895; photographs of Orpheus McAdoo, Mattie Allen McAdoo, and one or more of McAdoo's troupes (possibly the Virginia Jubilee Singers and/or the Georgia Minstrels and Alabama Cakewalkers); and artifacts, such as beads, beaded jewelry, a spearhead and pipe, presumably collected by the McAdoos while on tour in South Africa. Also found are the license and invitation for the marriage of Orpheus and Mattie McAdoo and the certificate and announcement for the birth of their son, Myron; sheet music for songs perhaps performed by Orpheus McAdoo and Mattie Allen McAdoo; numerous family photographs (many of which are unidentified); personal and financial papers of Mattie Allen McAdoo; and material relating to various members of the McAdoo and Allen families, including Myron McAdoo, Myra McAdoo, and Lula Allen.