The Wolfsonian's two collections comprise approximately 180,000 pieces from the period 1885 to 1945—the height of the Industrial Revolution until the end of the Second World War—in a variety of media, including: furniture; industrial-design objects; works in glass; ceramics; metal; rare books; periodicals; ephemera; works on paper; paintings; textiles; and medals.

There are also significant holdings from a number of other countries, including Austria, Czechoslovakia, France, Hungary, Japan, and the former Soviet Union.

The Wolfsonian is named for Mitchell Wolfson Jr., a Miami Beach native and collector and expert on modern design, architecture, and the decorative arts.

He hired Peggy Loar, as the Foundation's founding director, who brought in experts in the fields to begin to document, research, and publish what the collection held.

In 1992, Wolfson hired the architect Mark Hampton to expand and renovate the Washington Storage Company building and convert it into a museum and research center.

Hampton, in collaboration with architect William Kearns, transformed the building to include a sleekly modernist lobby, museum café and shop, and, upstairs, permanent and temporary galleries dramatically arranged around light wells, a library, offices, and storage.

Loar departed the museum in fall 1996 and the Foundation Board hired Cathy Leff, then-vice president of The Wolfson Initiative Corporation and executive editor and publisher of The Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts, to step in as interim director.

On behalf of Wolfson and the Board, Cathy Leff negotiated the gifting of the collection and its state-of-the-art museum facility to Florida International University.

In 2009, The Wolfsonian–FIU, which is located several miles away from FIU's two large campuses in western Miami and the northern end of Biscayne Bay, received a three-year grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to strengthen its ties with FIU faculty and staff; the Mellon Foundation awarded the museum another three-year grant beginning in 2012, to run through 2015.

In 2012, The Wolfsonian completed a new strategic plan that would guide its next level of development, as it had successfully transitioned from a private collection to a reputable museum and research center.

In recognition of its new plan and to encourage greater access to the collection, physically and online, it was awarded a $5 million grant from the John S and James L. Knight Foundation.

This involves the renovation of the museum's main building on Washington Avenue and offsite storage in order to improve access to the collections by both FIU faculty and students and outside researchers.

The grants that The Wolfsonian has received recently are intended to help accommodate the absorption of these objects and printed materials over the next several years.

The items housed there are currently only accessible to non-museum personnel by special request, though it is believed that the museum's long-term plans are to renovate its offsite storage to make these collections more available to FIU students, faculty, and outside researchers.