“The Maid Narratives: Oral Histories from the Great Migration to Iowa” collection dates from 2006 to 2023 and measures 5 linear inches and 31.5 gigabytes. The collection is organized into three series: Oral history interviews, The Maid Narratives: Black Domestics and White Families in the Jim Crow South, and Iowa Women's Archives and The Maid Narratives.

The Oral history interviews series (2009-2011) consists of audio recordings and transcripts of 20 oral history interviews. The interviews with seventeen African American women, two African American men, and one white man were conducted in Iowa by Charletta Sudduth and Dr. David W. Jackson III as part of The Maid Narratives project. Interviewees were born between 1906 and 1952, with the majority born before 1940. Most were born in the southern states of Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee. Two of the interviewees were born in Iowa (Buxton and Waterloo) and worked for white families in Iowa. The interviews cover a wide range of topics such as access to education, midwifery, sharecropping, relationships with white employers, resistance to norms of segregation, and religion. The women describe daily incidents of racism in the lives of Black domestic workers, such as underpayment, having to use the back door, whether they were allowed to use the bathroom where they worked, and whether they experienced sexual harassment or assault from their employers.

The Maid Narratives: Black Domestics and White Families in the Jim Crow South (Approximately 2009-2018) series comprises materials related to the book of the same title published in 2012 by Louisiana State University (LSU) Press. Materials include abridged oral history interview transcripts, color photographs of the interviewees, an LSU Press information sheet, and a note about the project written by Katherine van Wormer.

The Iowa Women's Archives and The Maid Narratives (2006-2023) series consists of materials related to the Iowa Women’s Archives (IWA) 2020 Women’s History Month event at the Iowa City Public Library, titled “Iowa Women of the Great Migration: The Maid Narratives,” as well as IWA archivist subject files, such as oral history interviewee biographies and obituaries.