John Mansir Wing (1844 - 1917)

Born 7 Apr 1844 in Oswego County, New York, United States

Ancestors

Died 14 Mar 1917 at age 72 in Chicago, Cook, Illinois, United States

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Biography

John Mansir Wing was born in 1844. He was the son of Mansir Wing and his second wife, Susan Mace. He never married and had no children. He died in Chicago in 1917.

Businessman, entrepreneur, and book collector, John Mansir Wing was born in 1844 in Oswego County, New York. At the end of the Civil War, he moved to Chicago to become a journalist. Wing served an apprenticeship at the type case at an early age and worked as a compositor in the newspaper offices in Rome and Utica. By the age of twenty he had become a proofreader and editorial writer. It was in this capacity that he journeyed to Chicago to work for the Chicago Times, where he remained for nine years.

Following a world tour as tutor to the son of an editor of the Boston Herald, Wing shrewdly took advantage of the expanding real estate market then existing in Chicago by founding a trade journal named the Land Owner. It became an immediate success, even surviving the great fire of 1871, although he had to go to New York to buy new equipment to keep his journal in operation. His next venture in trade periodicals was the Western Brewer which—along with the Land Owner—enabled him to retire at the age of 43 to devote his life to his one great interest, the collection of books^[1].

This eventually led to an agreement with the Newberry Library by which Wing would leave his property to the library for the establishment of a collection to be known as the John M. Wing Foundation. Although many of Wing's books were destroyed in the Chicago Fire of 1871, some of his diaries, scrapbooks, and extra-illustrated books survived and are all at the Newberry. Wing also left an endowment for employment of a custodian at the Newberry to continue collecting materials related to the history of printing and publishing ^[2].

Much of his early life can be reconstructed through his journals, which he kept from 1858-66. The diaries detail his work as a reporter, his travails as the owner of a newspaper in Waukegan, his enormous financial success in the publication of a pamphlet on the Chicago stock yards, and his travels to Europe with the son of the owner of the Boston Journal^[3]. Unfortunately, Wing’s diaries end when he was 24 years old—about the time he was becoming financially successful. He did, however, keep a number of scrapbooks in which he pasted all sorts of clippings on subjects that interested him, including the building of the Newberry. In Wing’s later years, he actually kept an office at the Newberry and became friends with a number of the librarians.

In 1919, two years after his death, the John M. Wing Foundation on the History of Printing was established. The Foundation contains examples of printing from the invention of movable type from the fifteenth century to the present day, calligraphic manuscripts, archival documents on notable designers and printers, and literature on the history of printing and related interests. Today it is one of the most important collections on the history of printing in the world.^[4].

Sources

1. ↑ https://www.alexanderslawsonarchive.com/march-14/
2. ↑ https://researchworks.oclc.org/archivegrid/collection/data/1184039088
3. ↑ https://www.amazon.com/Chicago-Diaries-John-Wing-1865-1866/dp/0809324830
4. ↑ https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/601988?journalCode=lq

• 1850 United States Federal Census; Richland, Oswego, NY
• 1860 United States Federal Census; Richland Oswego, NY
• 1870 United States Federal Census; Chicago Ward 10, Cook, Illinois
• 1880 United States Federal Census; Cook, Chicago, Illinois
• Cook County, Illinois, U.S. Death Index, 1878-1922. Name: John M Wing, Birth Date: 7 Apr 1844, Birth Place: New York, Death Date: 14 Mar 1917, Death Place: Chicago, Cook, Illinois, Burial Date: 16 Mar 1917, Cemetery Name: Forest Home, Death Age: 72, Occupation: Retired Publisher, Race: White, Marital status: Single, Gender: Male, Residence: Chicago, Cook, Illinois, Father Name: J Mansure Wing, FHL Film Number: 1308833
• John M. Wing papers, 1867-1916. https://researchworks.oclc.org/archivegrid/collection/data/1184039088
• A Typographical Library: The John M. Wing Foundation Of The Newberry Library. By Pierce Butler; The University of Chicago Press Journals, Vol. 15, Num. 2; 1921; https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdfplus/10.1086/pbsa.15.2.24292553
• A Typographical Library: The John M. Wing Foundation Of The Newberry Library. By E.E. Sheldon; from the May 1920, issue of The Inland Printer. https://ia601305.us.archive.org/24/items/johnmwingfoundat00shel/johnmwingfoundat00shel.pdf