Wilson's extensive and detailed writings remain an important source of information for historians and anthropologists, as well as the Hidatsa people.
He earned a bachelor's degree from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1899 after graduating from Wittenberg College, and was ordained a Presbyterian minister in Moorhead, Minnesota.
In following years, he included other family members of Buffalo Bird Woman in his scholarship, most prominently her brother Henry Wolf Chief and her son Edward Goodbird.
His research used what was then considered state of the art methods, such as comprehensive notes and material samples, extensive photography and sketches, along with sound recordings on wax cylinders, and he was also one of the earliest practitioners of biographical anthropology with American Indians, although this is largely overlooked.
[1] According to Claude Lévi-Strauss, Wilson “had the inspired idea of letting his informants talk freely, and of respecting the harmonious and spontaneous fusion, in their stories, anecdotes, and meditation ..."[10] Beyond practicing relatively enlightened and sensitive anthropology, Wilson also left an enormous record of published writings, notes, photos, and letters.
This has been a boon to historians, archaeologists and other anthropologists interested in past cultures, as well as the Hidatsa people themselves, who after more than a century of systematic assimilation, can have a material record to complement what still exists in their collective oral literature.