The Collection

The majority of the Thomas E. Wilson Family Collection contains biographical information, personal ephemera, correspondence, and photographs belonging to two generations of the Wilson family, specifically Thomas E. Wilson, his wife Elizabeth Foss Wilson, their two children Helen Wilson Williams and Edward Foss Wilson, and Edward's wife Pauline Wyman Wilson. Some Foss and Wyman family papers are also included. The collection contains a small amount of company records for Wilson & Co. and its subsidiary, Wilson Sporting Goods. Materials date between circa 1850 and 2005, with the bulk of the material dating between 1900 and 1950.

Detailed information about the contents of the collection is available through an online guide, through which researchers may request to use the collection in the Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center reading room.

Additionally, a substantial amount of the collection has been digitized and PDFs are accessible via the Inventory section of the online guide.

The Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center is open to the public and welcomes visitors from around the world. For more information about how to access the Center's collections, please visit the Center's website.

Photograph of three archival boxes from the Thomas E. Wilson Family Collection. Two boxes are open to reveal folders inside. One folder is open, showing a 1920s Wilson & Co. print advertisement for pork sausage, featuring Edward Foss Wilson seated at a breakfast table.
Thomas E. Wilson Family Collection, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library