The collection is arranged in series as follows:

Series 1: Personal / Biographical

Series 2: Correspondence

Series 3: Writings

Series 4: Photographs

Arnow was born and grew up in Wayne County, Kentucky, attended Berea College for two years (1926-28), and graduated with a degree in sciences from the University of Louisville (1930). She taught school in Louisville and Pulaski County before moving to Cincinnati in 1934 to concentrate on her writing.  There she supported herself variously as a waitress, library clerk, and assistant in the Federal Writers’ Project. Writing as Harriette Simpson while in Cincinnati, she produced several essays and two novels, Mountain Path (1936) and Between the Flowers, which didn’t come to print until 1999. In 1939 she married Harold Arnow and they moved to Pulaski County where they lived five years writing and farming.         

In 1944, the Arnows moved to Michigan where Harold worked as a reporter for The Detroit News.  In 1947, they and their two children, Marcella and Tom, moved to a farm outside of Ann Arbor. Major publications that followed include Hunter’s Horn (1949), The Dollmaker (1954), Seedtime on the Cumberland (1960), Flowering of the Cumberland (1963), The Weedkiller’s Daughter (1970), The Kentucky Trace (1974), and Old Burnside (1977). A film rendition of The Dollmaker staring Jane Fonda was released in 1984. Arnow published numerous articles as well and served as an instructor at the Appalachian Writers Workshop held annually at Hindman Settlement School.  She died March 21, 1986 and was buried at her farm at Keno in Pulaski County, Kentucky.