Most of the records were created by or collected by the San Francisco office of the Friends of Terra Cotta. The records of the organization are organized into sub-series including administration, correspondence, the FOTC Newsletter, chapters, awards, programs and events; and workshops and seminars.

The research files are arranged in four subseries: [1] Terra Cotta organizations such as the American Terra Cotta program (1972-1975), Architectural Terra Cotta Institute (1956-1957), Brick Institute of America (1965-1973), National Terra Cotta Society (1923-1934), and the Tile & Architectural Ceramic Society (1982), [2] Information on the history, technological elements, and preservation of architectural terra cotta, [3] Terra Cotta Companies: the bulk of this material relates to the Gladding McBean Company in California. It includes copies of their publication Shapes of Clay and a few product catalogs, and [4] random individual terra cotta clad buildings by location or building type.