Joseph Medill (1823-1899) papers

The Medill-McCormick-Patterson family letters and early business papers were preserved originally by Joseph Medill and his wife, Katherine Patrick Medill, and passed on to their two daughters, Mrs. Robert W. (Eleanor Medill) Patterson and Mrs. Robert S. (Katharine) McCormick, mother of Robert R. McCormick. In a letter to Professor Tracey E. Strevey in 1934, Colonel McCormick stated, "Upon my mother's death two years ago, a trunk of letters came into my possession ... I am having them sorted and will run over them as soon as I can." These letters are incorporated into the Tribune Company Archives as III-9, III-10, and IV-4. In 1952, McCormick purchased the Patterson collection (now VI-5 in the Tribune Company Archives) from the estate of Eleanor Medill Patterson, daughter of Mrs. Robert W. Patterson. The collections of both sisters are similar, and complement each other; in any study of the family both should be consulted.

The Medill-McCormick-Patterson family letters and early business papers were in storage in Tribune Tower at the time of Colonel Robert R. McCormick's death in 1955. Parts of the material had been sorted, studied and described by various people assigned to the job from time to time by the Colonel and others after his death, but they remained stored in filing cabinets with his own early papers until 1973 when Tribune archivist Harold Hutchings began incorporating these into the Tribune Company Archives.