Lake County Gazette

Lake Forest College has been awarded a $3,000 grant by the Illinois State Historical Records Advisory Board to digitize correspondence between Joseph Medill Patterson and his three daughters. The project, which began on July 1, 2025, aims to make these materials publicly available online.

The Patterson family papers are highly requested archival holdings at the college, attracting researchers nationwide. Joseph Medill Patterson was a successful businessman and newspaper publisher. He was also the grandson of Lake Forest College’s first president, Rev. Robert W. Patterson, and Joseph Medill, an influential editor and co-owner of the Chicago Tribune who served as mayor of Chicago from 1871 to 1873.

The project is led by Natalia Gutierrez-Jones, who joined Lake Forest College in December 2024 as Archivist and Librarian for Special Collections. She applied for and secured the grant through the Illinois State Archives’ Historical Records Grant Program.

“By making these materials fully accessible online, we’re not only preserving them, we’re inviting researchers to ask new questions and see Patterson not just as a publisher but as a person,” said Gutierrez-Jones.

“This digitization project is really about unlocking new dimensions of the Joseph Medill Patterson collection,” she added. “While it’s often been used for its ties to the New York Daily News and the business world, there's a rich, more personal side that hasn’t been as widely explored—his relationships with his daughters, their roles in a media dynasty, and the family dynamics behind the headlines.”

Provost and Dean of Faculty Tara Natarajan expressed her congratulations: “We congratulate our archivist and commend our library for receiving this grant from the Illinois State Historical Records Advisory Board.” She noted that this makes it possible to digitize these letters for researchers near and far.

The initiative reflects Lake Forest College’s commitment to preserving historical narratives significant to Illinois and beyond. Once digitized, these letters will provide scholars with deeper insights into one of Illinois's prominent families.