Presidential Biographies: Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson is another of the Presidents whose historic reputation is garnering a second look in modern times. He is like Ulysses Grant in reverse. Whereas Grant was once considered a terrible President because of the scandals that plagued his administration, historians have a new appreciation for him because of his strong commitment to civil rights, something that greater value is placed on today than in previous generations. Whereas Wilson was once considered to be a great President because of his reluctance to enter his nation into a world war and because of his role in attempting to shape a peaceful post-war world, two glaring sins of his mar his legacy.
The first is his blatant racism. At a time when African-Americans were starting to make progress, following the Reconstruction era when Jim Crow laws popped up like dandelions on an unkept lawn, Wilson set back what little progress had been made under the Republican presidents that preceded him with policies that not only allowed, but encouraged racist practices in the hiring of African-Americans in the federal civil service. Not that the times were roses and unicorns for African-Americans, but Wilson made a bad situation worse, even going so far as to allow a screening of the horribly racist film Birth of a Nation in the White House and giving it a glowing endorsement.
The second problem with Wilson was that he continued to hold on to power when he was unfit to do so for health reasons. Wilson suffered a series of strokes that kept him bed-ridden and unable to function as President. Rather than follow the Constitution and cede power to his Vice-President Thomas Marshall, Wilson, along with a trio composed of his doctor, his chief of staff and his wife, hid his true condition from everyone including Marshall, even going so far as to plant false news stories that minimized his ailment. He even allowed first lady Edith Wilson to make decisions that she was never elected to make. It's hard to give Wilson a mulligan for these transgressions.
For years, Wilson was praised and sanctified by many biographers who were his contemporaries and supporters. These included a four volume biography written by journalist Ray Stannard Baker, called Woodrow Wilson: Life and Letters, published in 1946. Wilson's private secretary, wrote Woodrow Wilson as I Knew Him, published in 1921. Josephus Daniels, Wilson's Secretary of the Navy, write The Life of Woodrow Wilson, published in 1924. Another famed journalist of the time, William Allen White, wrote Woodrow Wilson: The Man, His Times and His Task, published in 1924. Even Herbert Hoover wrote a biography of Wilson, published in 1944, called The Ordeal of Woodrow Wilson.
Modern biographers have presented a more realistic assessment of Wilson, with the best biography probably being Scott Berg's 2014 biography simply called Wilson. John Milton Cooper Jr.'s 2009 book Woodrow Wilson: A Biography also receives high praise and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize that year. August Hecksher's 1991 book shares the same title, Woodrow Wilson: A Biography. More recently, Patricia O'Toole's 2019 book The Moralist: Woodrow Wilson and the World He Made looks at how Wilson was a progressive who enjoyed success in that regard, but who was also far behind the times on racial equality and women’s suffrage.
Wilson won the 2012 election by taking advantage of a split Republican Party. Theodore Roosevelt had failed to win the Republican Presidential nomination that year and ran as a third party candidate for the Progressive Party (also known as the Bull Moose Party.) The story of that election is told in James Chase's 2004 book 1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft and Debs--The Election that Changed the Country, as well as in the University of Kansas Press's Presidential Election Series book Four Hats in the Ring: The 1912 Election and the Birth of Modern Politics, written by Lewis Gould and published in 2008. That series also contains a volume on Wilson's 1916 election, also written by Lewis Gould, called The First Modern Clash Over Federal Power: Wilson Versus Hughes in the Presidential Election of 1916, published in 2016.
A very good book about how first lady Edith Wilson took over some of her husband's duties after he suffered his most sever stroke, is Madam President: The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson by William Hazelgrove, published in 2016. Gene Smith's book When the Cheering Stopped: The Last Years of Woodrow Wilson, published in 1964, also describes Wilson's life and Presidency after the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, through his stroke and post-presidency, though somewhat more sympathetically than Hazelgrove does.
Woodrow Wilson's record as President looks less stellar today that it did by those assessing it in the mid to late 20th Century. He was skilled when it came to progressive issues of his day, as well as in seeing his nation's role on the world stage. But for Wilson, it was very much a white man's world, with no place of importance for either women or African-Americans, a point of view that was no doubt common in Wilson's day among people like him, but not something to be admired or celebrated today.
The first is his blatant racism. At a time when African-Americans were starting to make progress, following the Reconstruction era when Jim Crow laws popped up like dandelions on an unkept lawn, Wilson set back what little progress had been made under the Republican presidents that preceded him with policies that not only allowed, but encouraged racist practices in the hiring of African-Americans in the federal civil service. Not that the times were roses and unicorns for African-Americans, but Wilson made a bad situation worse, even going so far as to allow a screening of the horribly racist film Birth of a Nation in the White House and giving it a glowing endorsement.
The second problem with Wilson was that he continued to hold on to power when he was unfit to do so for health reasons. Wilson suffered a series of strokes that kept him bed-ridden and unable to function as President. Rather than follow the Constitution and cede power to his Vice-President Thomas Marshall, Wilson, along with a trio composed of his doctor, his chief of staff and his wife, hid his true condition from everyone including Marshall, even going so far as to plant false news stories that minimized his ailment. He even allowed first lady Edith Wilson to make decisions that she was never elected to make. It's hard to give Wilson a mulligan for these transgressions.
For years, Wilson was praised and sanctified by many biographers who were his contemporaries and supporters. These included a four volume biography written by journalist Ray Stannard Baker, called Woodrow Wilson: Life and Letters, published in 1946. Wilson's private secretary, wrote Woodrow Wilson as I Knew Him, published in 1921. Josephus Daniels, Wilson's Secretary of the Navy, write The Life of Woodrow Wilson, published in 1924. Another famed journalist of the time, William Allen White, wrote Woodrow Wilson: The Man, His Times and His Task, published in 1924. Even Herbert Hoover wrote a biography of Wilson, published in 1944, called The Ordeal of Woodrow Wilson.
Modern biographers have presented a more realistic assessment of Wilson, with the best biography probably being Scott Berg's 2014 biography simply called Wilson. John Milton Cooper Jr.'s 2009 book Woodrow Wilson: A Biography also receives high praise and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize that year. August Hecksher's 1991 book shares the same title, Woodrow Wilson: A Biography. More recently, Patricia O'Toole's 2019 book The Moralist: Woodrow Wilson and the World He Made looks at how Wilson was a progressive who enjoyed success in that regard, but who was also far behind the times on racial equality and women’s suffrage.
Wilson won the 2012 election by taking advantage of a split Republican Party. Theodore Roosevelt had failed to win the Republican Presidential nomination that year and ran as a third party candidate for the Progressive Party (also known as the Bull Moose Party.) The story of that election is told in James Chase's 2004 book 1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft and Debs--The Election that Changed the Country, as well as in the University of Kansas Press's Presidential Election Series book Four Hats in the Ring: The 1912 Election and the Birth of Modern Politics, written by Lewis Gould and published in 2008. That series also contains a volume on Wilson's 1916 election, also written by Lewis Gould, called The First Modern Clash Over Federal Power: Wilson Versus Hughes in the Presidential Election of 1916, published in 2016.
A very good book about how first lady Edith Wilson took over some of her husband's duties after he suffered his most sever stroke, is Madam President: The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson by William Hazelgrove, published in 2016. Gene Smith's book When the Cheering Stopped: The Last Years of Woodrow Wilson, published in 1964, also describes Wilson's life and Presidency after the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, through his stroke and post-presidency, though somewhat more sympathetically than Hazelgrove does.
Woodrow Wilson's record as President looks less stellar today that it did by those assessing it in the mid to late 20th Century. He was skilled when it came to progressive issues of his day, as well as in seeing his nation's role on the world stage. But for Wilson, it was very much a white man's world, with no place of importance for either women or African-Americans, a point of view that was no doubt common in Wilson's day among people like him, but not something to be admired or celebrated today.