Wilson History and Research Center (WHRC) was a non-profit 501C3 charitable foundation that housed a private collection of twentieth century military headgear and other militaria in Little Rock, Arkansas. Robert M. Wilson, Jr. founded the WHRC in 2008. The collection was researched and presented online through the WHRC’s website. The site contained over three thousand individual items. Its goal was to provide a catalog of every piece of military headgear from the twentieth century.
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Highlights
The WHRC features the largest collection of military headgear in the world, according to the Book of Alternative Records. In addition to its collection, the WHRC has an exhibit design department that has created and displayed several exhibits in the local area, listed in detail below. Their website also provides a number of articles written by premier collectors of militaria, giving insight into the world of military headgear. Finally, the WHRC has published Exotische: Rare Cloth Headgear of the Third Reich and is currently working on future volumes as well as other books.
Archives
The WHRC collection features headgear from nearly every era of the twentieth century but especially focuses on World War I and World War II. The oldest piece in the collection is dated to the early 19th century, with the latest pieces coming from the War in Afghanistan and Iraq. A large amount of countries are represented, including Kazakhstan, North Korea, and Andorra. Both military and some civilian headgear are represented, along with other items such as equipment, uniforms, flags, period photographs and personal items. While not every item in the collection is published on the website, the WHRC continues to update the site daily.
The WHRC holds several items of great historical significance and rarity. These are often featured on the front page of their website. These items include:
Exhibitions
The WHRC has created multiple exhibits for various places around Little Rock. An exhibit on the peace talks that ended World War I and World War II and exhibits on the German Freikorps of the early 1920s were both on display at the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History. An exhibit on the Third Reich criminal court, titled Law in a Land Without Justice, was placed on display at the William H. Bowen School of Law.