Thomas Wilson

author

Thomas Wilson

1832–1902

Best known for bringing the study of prehistoric archaeology to a wider American audience, he moved from a long legal and diplomatic career into museum scholarship later in life. His writing ranges from broad surveys of early human culture to the widely noted study The Swastika: The Earliest Known Symbol.

2 Audiobooks

The Swastika, the Earliest Known Symbol, and Its Migration With Observations on the Migration of Certain Industries in Prehistoric Times

The Swastika, the Earliest Known Symbol, and Its Migration With Observations on the Migration of Certain Industries in Prehistoric Times

by Thomas Wilson

Blue-beard: A Contribution to History and Folk-lore Being the history of Gilles de Retz of Brittany, France, who was executed at Nantes in 1440 A.D., and who was the original of Blue-beard in the tales of Mother Goose

Blue-beard: A Contribution to History and Folk-lore Being the history of Gilles de Retz of Brittany, France, who was executed at Nantes in 1440 A.D., and who was the original of Blue-beard in the tales of Mother Goose

by Thomas Wilson

About the author

Born in New Brighton, Pennsylvania, Thomas Wilson built an unusually varied career. Memorial and archival sources describe him first as a lawyer and later as a U.S. consul in France before he turned fully toward archaeology and anthropology.

He became curator of prehistoric archaeology at what was then the United States National Museum in Washington. Contemporary accounts remembered him as an energetic scholar of prehistoric and protohistoric Europe, and Smithsonian records show him as the author of works on prehistoric anthropology and related subjects.

Wilson is especially associated with clear, ambitious books that tried to trace symbols, tools, and ideas across cultures and time. That mix of public-facing explanation and museum research helped make him an important early interpreter of archaeology for American readers at the end of the nineteenth century.