The subject files and photographs series of the Hughes Electronics Corporation Records date from 1935-2003. This series contains subject files on the company history, some of its major technological developments, and its purchase by General Motors. Photographs in this series document Hughes developed technologies in use by NATO forces, development of the Galileo probe, the H-1 Racer, and communication satellites. Also in this series are files and photographs of the NASA Pioneer 10/Jupiter encounter.

The corporate executive biographies with photographs series of the Hughes Electronics Corporation Records date from 1944 to 2003. The series contains biographies and headshots of the Hughes leadership team as well as some General Motors leadership team.

The publications and reports series of the Hughes Electronics Corporation Records date from 1949 to 2003. The materials include product and service brochures, employee resource literature and newsletters, organizational charts, directories, annual reports, and reports on the United States defense industry. This series also contains publications that were not produced by Hughes Electronics but were collected on topics relating to the work of the company or Howard Hughes. These include marketing material from other aerospace/defense companies, newspaper articles, and popular magazines including Look, Fortune, and Variety.

The audiovisual materials series dates from 1984 to 20003 and chronicles Howard Hughes and various aspects of Hughes Electronics. In addition to the documentary “Howard Hughes the Aviator,” the series contains historical footage of Howard Hughes. There are also interviews with top executives of the company and footage relating to significant events in the company’s history such as mergers, Chinese President Jiang’s visit to Hughes’ headquarters in 1997, and the 1996 shooting at the Hughes facility in El Segundo, California. Promotional materials relating to the accomplishments of various divisions of the company also feature prominently, as do presentations highlighting company products particularly in relation to communication satellites and DirecTV.

The information in this series resides on number of different media types. The most common media type is the VHS cassette (primarily in the NTSC format, with some in the PAL format). There are also a sizeable number of Umatic (3/4 inch NTSC format), Betacam, and Betacam SP cassettes. Other media included in the series are reels of different sized magnetic tape, a Zip 100 diskette, and two 650 MB CD-R recordable CDs.