The John and Alan Blum Northwest Aviation Collection consists of visual and textual materials that highlight the personal lives of the Blum brothers and their work at Northwest Air Service, which John Blum founded in 1929. The collection consists of a photograph album and loose photographs, assorted ephemera, and a scrapbook related to the life and careers of the Blum brothers, dating to the 1920s-1940s.

At the beginning of the collection are five folders of assorted textual and ephemeral items relating to Alan Blum and Northwest Air Service, including pilot licenses, an issue of The Pennzoiler, and a log book. Please note that the materials in Folder 1 were found inside of the logbook. Additionally, there is a scrapbook comprised primarily of newspaper clippings, many regarding the Renton Airport and the Blums' work at Northwest Air Service. Other topics include aviation events, such as races and crashes. Additional materials include two issues ofTail Spins [a Pacific Northwest aviation newsletter] by Walt Bohrer, and event programs. There is also a clipping about the fatal crash of P. F. "Pop" Hotchkiss in 1938.

The bulk of the collection consists of approximately 800 black-and-white photographs, most of which are housed in the photograph album while the remaining images are loose. The photographs are a mix of personal and career-related, depicting vacations, people, aircraft, and aviation-related events. The photographs vary in size from 2x3" to 8x10" and are primarily casual snapshots and also include a small number of photographic holiday greeting cards. Album images are affixed to pages with very brief handwritten captions, which identify people (often by only first or last name), aircraft, dates, events, and locations. Some of the loose images include brief captions and/or stamps on the reverse of the image. Stamps include "Oliver R. Phillips" and "U.S. Army Air Service 91st Observation Squadron."

In general, the personal images in the collection show family and friends participating in a variety of leisure activities, such as camping, skiing, and flying. However, the majority of the images are aviation-related and include planes, events, locations, and people that the Blums were associated with. A small list of names includes Gene Meyring, Frances Winslow, Dorothy Hester Stenzel, William Boeing, and Wiley Post, among many others. There are also snapshots of the facilities where the Blums worked, including Renton Airport and Boeing Field. Additionally, an impressive array of aircraft are featured, many of which are at least partially identified. A very small sampling includes a Boeing Model 299, a Lockheed Vega, a Lockheed Electra, and others by aircraft manufacturers such as Sikorsky, Waco, Ford, Arrow, and Stinson.

Events featured include the 1930 Northwest Air Tour, the Seattle to Chicago Air Derby, and a 1937 "Trip Around Olympic Peninsula." Additionally, some pictures touch upon notable events in Pacific Northwest aviation history, such as the fatal flight of Wiley Post and Will Rogers, the crash landing of a Northwest Air Service plane on the roof of the Bon Marche department store building in Seattle, and activities at the then-newly founded Sand Point Naval Air Station, including a panoramic group portrait of U.S. Navy Air Squadrons based at the Sand Point Naval Air Station in 1929. On the front of the image, along the bottom of the image, are two captions, "[Asahel?] Curtiss 55391" and "VN Squadron R[D?] 13, Sand Point 1929."

Also depicted are scenic images of nature and outdoor activities in locations across the Pacific Northwest in the 1920s and 1930s, including various locales and cities in Alaska, Oregon, Washington (state, and Canada. There is also one aerial image accompanied by a clipping from an unidentified publication. The photograph features Mount Blum [formerly Bald Mountain] while the clipping discusses how the name was changed to honor John Blum and his forestry service work after his fatal aircraft crash.