The Elizabeth Poe Kerby papers span the years 1951-2003 (bulk 1953-1957) and encompass 1.2 linear feet. The papers primarily consist of clippings, correspondence, periodicals, unpublished manuscripts, court documents and research material gathered by Kerby for magazine articles and contributions to John Cogley's 1956 report on blacklisting, and interview notes with individuals blacklisted within the Hollywood film industry. Periodicals include the original issues of "Frontier" magazine which feature her articles on SALT OF THE EARTH (1954) and the Hollywood blacklist along with other issues featuring her work. There is extensive correspondence between Kerby and Cogley, including a memo from Kerby discussing the possibility of Sidney Buchman paying off members of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) to receive leniency during his hearing. Of interest is the letter from Kerby to Robert M. Hutchins asking why the Fund for the Republic did not come to her defense when she was accused of being "friendly to the communists." There are statistics compiled in 1960 noting the number of screen credits for Hollywood individuals before and after the HUAC hearings or as a result of being listed in communist reports. Also of interest is a list of studio executives who participated in the blacklist and their criteria for blacklisting. Kerby conducted telephone interviews with blacklisted individuals and the collection contains interview notes typed by Kerby following the interviews. Interviewees include Howard Da Silva, Marsha Hunt, Dorothy Parker, Anne Revere, Jack Solomon, Gale Sondergaard, and others.

Elizabeth Poe Kerby (1921-2008) was born Elizabeth Poe in New Mexico. Initially drawn to journalism in high school, she eventually earned a Master's Degree from the Columbia School of Journalism and landed a job at "Time" magazine in 1949. Around 1953, she sought out Philip Kerby, editor of "Frontier," a left-leaning journal based in Los Angeles. A month after a meeting between Poe and Kerby in Los Angeles, Kerby flew to New York and proposed to Poe. They were married soon thereafter. For "Frontier" she covered the making of SALT OF THE EARTH (1954) in which blacklisted Hollywood workers produced a semi-documentary about striking miners. Kerby came to prominence following her 1954 "Frontier" article on blacklisting, titled "The Hollywood Story."

Robert M. Hutchins, president of the Fund for the Republic, an organization funded by the Ford Foundation which encouraged freedom of thought, took interest in the article and asked Kerby to consider expanding it into a book. She accepted the offer and sent her initial work to Hutchins. Hutchins soon grew wary of her close ties with blacklisted individuals and instead assigned John Cogley, the executive editor of "Commonweal," a liberal Catholic journal, to head the project with Kerby as a contributor. Cogley and Kerby did not see eye-to-eye, and furthermore, Kerby grew tired of the accusations that she was a Communist and was bothered by the failure of the Fund for the Republic to rally to her defense. Although "The Report on Blacklisting" was published in 1956, she had misgivings regarding the final report as she found it to lean more towards the perspective of the blacklisters. Following the birth of her son in 1964, Kerby retired from journalism for the most part, but made a few attempts to publish a book on blacklisting during the 1970s.