Happy Birthday Woodrow Wilson
On December 28, 1856 (167 years ago today) Thomas Woodrow Wilson, the 28th President of the United States, was born in Staunton, Virginia. Although he was known as "Tommy" as a child, he would go by his middle name Woodrow for most of his life.
Although his family was originally from Ohio, Wilson's parents moved to Virginia in 1851 and sided with the Confederacy during the Civil War. His father, the Reverend Joseph Ruggles Wilson defended slavery, owned slaves and set up a Sunday school for them. The Wilson family cared for wounded soldiers at their church. Joseph also briefly served as a chaplain in the Confederate Army. Woodrow Wilson claimed that his earliest memory, from the age of three, was of hearing that Abraham Lincoln had been elected and that a war was coming. He said that he recalled, as a child, standing for a moment at Robert E. Lee's side and looking up into his face.
Wilson was an academic. He began his graduate studies at Johns Hopkins University in 1883 and three years later completed his doctoral dissertation, "Congressional Government: A Study in American Politics" and received a PhD in history and political science. Wilson was a visiting lecturer at Cornell University, but failed to gain a permanent position. He joined the faculty of Bryn Mawr College and then Wesleyan University where he also coached the football team and founded the debate team - still called the T. Woodrow Wilson debate team.
In 1890, Wilson joined the Princeton faculty as professor of jurisprudence and political economy. While there, he became the first lecturer of Constitutional Law at New York Law School where he taught with Charles Evans Hughes. He served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, where he developed a strong profile which led to his election as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913.
Wilson was nominated at the Democratic candidate and ran against Republican incumbent William Howard Taft, Socialist Party of America candidate Eugene V. Debs, and former President Progressive ("Bull Moose") Party candidate Theodore Roosevelt. Wilson won the election and in his first term as President he persuaded a Democratic Congress to pass major progressive reforms. According to historian and Wilson biographer John Milton Cooper, in his first term, Wilson successfully pushed a legislative agenda that few presidents have equaled. This agenda included the Federal Reserve Act, Federal Trade Commission Act, the Clayton Antitrust Act, the Federal Farm Loan Act and an income tax. Child labor was curtailed by the Keating-Owen Act of 1916, but the U.S. Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional in 1918. Wilson also had Congress pass the Adamson Act, which imposed an 8-hour workday for railroad workers.
At first unsympathetic to the cause, Wilson later became a major advocate for women's suffrage after public pressure convinced him that to oppose woman's suffrage was politically unwise. Although Wilson promised African Americans "fair dealing...in advancing the interests of their race in the United States" the Wilson administration implemented a disgraceful policy of racial segregation for federal employees.
Narrowly re-elected in 1916, Wilson presided over American entry into World War I, and his second term centered on World War I and the subsequent peace treaty negotiations in Paris. He based his re-election campaign around the slogan, "He kept us out of war", but U.S. neutrality was reconsidered in early 1917 when the German Empire began unrestricted submarine warfare despite repeated strong warnings and tried to enlist Mexico as an ally. In April 1917, Wilson asked Congress to declare war. During the war, Wilson focused on diplomacy and financial considerations, leaving the waging of the war itself primarily in the hands of the Army. On the home front in 1917, he began the United States' first draft since the American Civil War, borrowed billions of dollars in war funding through the newly established Federal Reserve Bank and Liberty Bonds, took over control of the railroads, and suppressed anti-war movements.
In the late stages of the war, Wilson took personal control of negotiations with Germany, including the armistice. In 1918, he issued his Fourteen Points, his view of a post-war world that could avoid another terrible conflict. In 1919, he went to Paris to create the League of Nations and shape the Treaty of Versailles, with special attention on creating new nations out of defunct empires. In 1919, Wilson engaged in an intense fight with Henry Cabot Lodge and the Republican-controlled Senate over giving the League of Nations power to force the U.S. into a war. For his sponsorship of the League of Nations, Wilson was awarded the 1919 Nobel Peace Prize.
Wilson collapsed with a debilitating stroke that was largely covered up by his wife Edith, until he left office in March 1921. The Senate rejected the Treaty of Versailles, the U.S. never joined the League of Nations, and the Republicans won a landslide in 1920 by denouncing Wilson's policies.
Wilson died as a result of a stroke in his S Street home on February 3, 1924. He was buried in Washington National Cathedral, the only president buried in Washington, D.C.
Although his family was originally from Ohio, Wilson's parents moved to Virginia in 1851 and sided with the Confederacy during the Civil War. His father, the Reverend Joseph Ruggles Wilson defended slavery, owned slaves and set up a Sunday school for them. The Wilson family cared for wounded soldiers at their church. Joseph also briefly served as a chaplain in the Confederate Army. Woodrow Wilson claimed that his earliest memory, from the age of three, was of hearing that Abraham Lincoln had been elected and that a war was coming. He said that he recalled, as a child, standing for a moment at Robert E. Lee's side and looking up into his face.
Wilson was an academic. He began his graduate studies at Johns Hopkins University in 1883 and three years later completed his doctoral dissertation, "Congressional Government: A Study in American Politics" and received a PhD in history and political science. Wilson was a visiting lecturer at Cornell University, but failed to gain a permanent position. He joined the faculty of Bryn Mawr College and then Wesleyan University where he also coached the football team and founded the debate team - still called the T. Woodrow Wilson debate team.
In 1890, Wilson joined the Princeton faculty as professor of jurisprudence and political economy. While there, he became the first lecturer of Constitutional Law at New York Law School where he taught with Charles Evans Hughes. He served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, where he developed a strong profile which led to his election as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913.
Wilson was nominated at the Democratic candidate and ran against Republican incumbent William Howard Taft, Socialist Party of America candidate Eugene V. Debs, and former President Progressive ("Bull Moose") Party candidate Theodore Roosevelt. Wilson won the election and in his first term as President he persuaded a Democratic Congress to pass major progressive reforms. According to historian and Wilson biographer John Milton Cooper, in his first term, Wilson successfully pushed a legislative agenda that few presidents have equaled. This agenda included the Federal Reserve Act, Federal Trade Commission Act, the Clayton Antitrust Act, the Federal Farm Loan Act and an income tax. Child labor was curtailed by the Keating-Owen Act of 1916, but the U.S. Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional in 1918. Wilson also had Congress pass the Adamson Act, which imposed an 8-hour workday for railroad workers.
At first unsympathetic to the cause, Wilson later became a major advocate for women's suffrage after public pressure convinced him that to oppose woman's suffrage was politically unwise. Although Wilson promised African Americans "fair dealing...in advancing the interests of their race in the United States" the Wilson administration implemented a disgraceful policy of racial segregation for federal employees.
Narrowly re-elected in 1916, Wilson presided over American entry into World War I, and his second term centered on World War I and the subsequent peace treaty negotiations in Paris. He based his re-election campaign around the slogan, "He kept us out of war", but U.S. neutrality was reconsidered in early 1917 when the German Empire began unrestricted submarine warfare despite repeated strong warnings and tried to enlist Mexico as an ally. In April 1917, Wilson asked Congress to declare war. During the war, Wilson focused on diplomacy and financial considerations, leaving the waging of the war itself primarily in the hands of the Army. On the home front in 1917, he began the United States' first draft since the American Civil War, borrowed billions of dollars in war funding through the newly established Federal Reserve Bank and Liberty Bonds, took over control of the railroads, and suppressed anti-war movements.
In the late stages of the war, Wilson took personal control of negotiations with Germany, including the armistice. In 1918, he issued his Fourteen Points, his view of a post-war world that could avoid another terrible conflict. In 1919, he went to Paris to create the League of Nations and shape the Treaty of Versailles, with special attention on creating new nations out of defunct empires. In 1919, Wilson engaged in an intense fight with Henry Cabot Lodge and the Republican-controlled Senate over giving the League of Nations power to force the U.S. into a war. For his sponsorship of the League of Nations, Wilson was awarded the 1919 Nobel Peace Prize.
Wilson collapsed with a debilitating stroke that was largely covered up by his wife Edith, until he left office in March 1921. The Senate rejected the Treaty of Versailles, the U.S. never joined the League of Nations, and the Republicans won a landslide in 1920 by denouncing Wilson's policies.
Wilson died as a result of a stroke in his S Street home on February 3, 1924. He was buried in Washington National Cathedral, the only president buried in Washington, D.C.