The story of the Brooks Stevens Archive began in 1935, when Stevens himself-acutely aware of his own place in history-first began documenting the activities of his design firm. The Milwaukee Art Museum acquired the Archive in 1997, as a gift from the designer's family and the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, which had cared for the materials since shortly before Stevens' death. The collection is composed primarily audio/visual materials in numerous formats, including:

1. several thousand photographs and corresponding negatives in both black and white and color, in a wide variety of sizes;
2. black and white and color slides, in primarily 35mm and lantern sizes;
3. moving images on reel-to-reel and video cassette formats;
4. reel-to-reel audio tapes, some of which are speeches given by Stevens.

Also included in the archives are paper documents, such as correspondence, clippings, internal memoranda, and patent copies, all of which span the length of Stevens' career.

The depth of the Brooks Stevens Archive makes it one of the paramount resources on American industrial design, and the Milwaukee Art Museum actively encourages independent researchers to take advantage of the wealth of information it contains. The archive is open to researchers by appointment only, but you can use this database to search the collection for specific images and objects.