• IdentificationMSJona66
  • TitleEdgar Allan Jonas papers MSJona66
  • PublisherSpecial Collections
  • LanguageEnglish
  • RepositorySpecial Collections
  • Physical Description15.25 Linear feet
  • Date1918-1959
  • AbstractEdgar Allan Jonas (1885-1965) was an attorney and member of the Illinois House of Representatives. The collection consists of correspondence, reports, speeches, diaries, legal and financial records, minutes, and newspaper clippings.
  • OriginationJonas, Edgar Allan, 1885-1965

Old Resource ID was EJonas

Edgar Allan Jonas (1885-1965) was born in Mischicot, Wisconsin. He attended public schools and graduated from the Mantiwoc County Normal School. From 1903 to 1907, Jonas taught in the rural schools of Mantiwoc County. He came to Chicago to attend the University of Chicago Law School, graduating with a LLB degree. In 1909, Edgar Jonas was admitted to the Illinois State Bar and established a private law practice in Chicago.

In 1919, Jonas became the Assistant Corporation Counsel of Chicago; a position he retained in 1920. He then served as the first assistant State's Attorney of Cook County from 1921 to 1923; judge of the Municipal Court of Chicago from 1923 to 1927; judge of the Superior Court of Cook County; and associate member of the Illinois Board of Pardons and Parole from 1945 to 1947.

In 1942, Edgar Jonas became a Republican committeeman representing the 48th Ward in Chicago. He was elected in 1948 by the people of the 12th congressional district of Illinois to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives, and was reelected to that position in 1950 and 1952. As a member of the House of Representatives, Jonas was appointed to the Judiciary Committee (1950), serving as chairman of the Subcommittee on Claims and as a member of the Special Committee to investigate the department of Justice and the committee to select federal district judges. Two of the most significant bills introduced by Representative Jonas were H.R. 3300, the Chicago Water Diversion, and H.R. 4927, amending the United States Revenue Code.

Edgar A. Jonas was defeated in his bid for reelection to the House of Representatives in 1954 and again in 1956 by Democratic candidate Charles A. Boyle. Jonas then resumed his private law practice in Chicago, joining his brother and partner, Frederic C. Jonas.

Jonas was a member of the Illinois and American Bar Associations and Phi Alpha Delta. He was a Mason and an Elk. He was also a director of the Independent Order of Foresters and president of the Board of Trustees of the Illinois Masonic Hospital Association and the Municipal Tuberculosis Sanitarium of Chicago.

The collection consists of correspondence, reports, speeches, diaries, legal and financial records, minutes, and newspaper clippings. The collection pertains chiefly to the operation of Edgar Allan Jonas' congressional office.

Edgar Allan Jonas papers, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Illinois at Chicago

  • NamesJonas, Edgar Allan, 1885-1965 -- Archives
  • Subject
    • Chicago Political and Civic Life.
    • Legislators.
  • Geographic CoverageIllinois.