The Alan Lonsdale Patterson Papers document Patterson's life and work in the United States and East Asia (1876-2021, inclusive; 1920-1981, bulk). Materials include correspondence, business records, journals and travel logs, photographs, negatives, films, sound recordings, ephemera, lithographs and hand-drawn sketches, as well as clippings and articles that ALP collected throughout his life. Subjects include ALP’s various companies and contracts, travels and life in Asia and the Middle East, early aviation in China and Taiwan, and early aviation manufacturing in Southern California. Patterson had correspondence with individuals such as William P. Lear, Hazel Ying-Lee, Pearl S. Buck, Claire Chennault, Soong Mei-ling, Howard Hughes, and others. The collection has been arranged into four series: Series I. Professional (1919-1982), Series II. Personal (1894-2002), Series III. Visual and Audiovisual Materials (1876-1990), and Series IV. Biographical Materials (1899-2021).

Series I. Professional makes up the bulk of the collection and consists of materials from ALP's various businesses, dating from 1919-1983. This series is organized chronologically by company with general materials at the end. Much of this series consists of business correspondence, meeting minutes, memos, reports, and small amount of photographs. In addition, there are legal and financial records that include balance sheets, price lists, contracts, orders, and statements. Most of the materials reside in the China Airmotive Company Fed. Inc. and Consolidated Trading Company subseries, with China Airmotive being the first company that ALP established in China in 1931. China Airmotive and Consolidated Trading Company worked together to finance and import aircraft to the Republic of China. There are other companies that ALP began that aren’t as well documented but are an important part of his work in aviation. One of the files include Waterhouse Incorporated, when in the early 1920s he helped fund and develop the Waterhouse Cruzair Monoplane, the prototype for the Spirit of St. Louis. Also included in the collection is a file on Fiji Airways that he established with Harold Gatty (1903-1957) in 1950.

Series II. Personal material consists primarily of correspondence that date from 1900-1991. The correspondence is mostly to ALP from family, friends, and various romantic partners. Mixed in with the correspondence are clippings and photographs that were sent along with the letters. Also included in the series are personal records of ALP, such as identification, military, and financial records. In addition, there are ALP’s journals and address book, his society club invitations and membership cards to his various associations. Contained within the files are also materials that ALP collected including clippings, assorted publications, some original drawings and lithographs, postcards and travel ephemera.

Series III. Visual and Audiovisual Materials includes a significant amount of materials related to both ALP's professional and personal lives. There is a large photographic component to the collection that includes predominately black-and-white photographs and a small assortment of color photographs. Most of the photographs date between the 1920s to the 1930s, although included with the collection are images of the Patterson family dating back to the 1870s up to the 1920s. There are a substantial amount of images dating from 1919 of ALP’s time as a barnstormer in a flying circus and his early career at Dycer Airport, in California where he ran a flight school and managed the airfield.

There is roughly 2.5 cubic feet of photographs that chronical ALP’s professional and personal life in China. The photographs include pictures of ALP’s skywriting event in Shanghai (1936), his social engagements at his home, friends and business associates, city scenes of various locations throughout, China and a large amount of images of the Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945).

There are photographs that depict graphic scenes of war; folders that contain such images have been cited in the inventory.

Included are images of other countries and locations that ALP either visited or worked with. There are photographs from his time working with the Royal Saudi Air Force and the Royal Thai Air Force, as well as his visit to New Delhi, India where he demonstrated the Pilatus PC-6 Porter for Jawaharlal Nehru and the Indian Air Force. In addition, the collection includes photographs of ALP and assorted individuals, some of which are aviators like Carl Alfred Nahmmacher (1899-1934) and Claire Lee Chennault (1893-1958). There are also images from aircraft companies, such as the China National Aviation Corporation and Waterhouse Incorporated. In addition, there are photographs of notable aircraft like the Mohawk Model M-1-C New Pinto, Curtiss Hawk III, and GAC Model 102 Aristocrat.

In addition to the still photographs, there are several 8mm and 16mm film reels, audiocassettes, and microcassettes. The films in the collection appear to be home movies created by ALP that document locations he visited and include a small amount of aircraft and war-related topics. The sound recordings in the collection appear to be related to interviews conducted of ALP and his life in aviation. The remaining recordings have minimal identification information or are untitled.

Series IV. Biographical Materials includes the unfinished biographical manuscript written by Richard J. Latham and many notes and correspondence related to the biography of Patterson's life. Many materials include Patterson’s or Latham's notes with them. The series includes clippings, notes, correspondence, photographs, manuscript drafts, and research documents including transcripts of an oral history conducted by the United States Air Force with ALP.