EARLY LIFE
Woodrow Wilson, son of Joseph Ruggles Wilson and Janet "Jessie" Woodrow Wilson, was born in Staunton, Virginia, United States on December 28, 1856.
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| Official presidential portrait of Woodrow Wilson (1913) |
"Woodrow" was his middle name. His first name was Thomas.
Woodrow Wilson's father was a Presbyterian minister. He served as a chaplain in the Confederate army and hosted wounded rebel soldiers in his church.
As a child, Woodrow grew up in the South during the American Civil War. His oldest memory was of him playing in his yard at the age of three, when he heard a passerby announce in disgust that Abraham Lincoln had been elected and that a war was coming.
Though Wilson's parents placed a high value on education, he struggled with reading and writing until the age of thirteen, possibly because of developmental dyslexia.
He studied from 1875 to 1879 at the University of Princeton in New Jersey. Between 1879 and 1883, Wilson studied law at the University of Virginia.
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| Wilson c. mid-1870s |
EARLY CAREER
After poor health forced Wilson's withdrawal from the University of Virginia, he continued to study law on his own while living with his parents in Wilmington, North Carolina. Wilson was admitted to the Georgia bar and made a brief attempt at establishing a legal practice in Atlanta in 1882.
After less than a year, Wilson abandoned his legal practice to pursue the study of political science and history.
In 1885, he obtained a Ph.D. in history and political science at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Wilson was the only US President to hold a doctorate degree, making him the highest educated head of state in American history.
Wilson started to teach political science at Princeton University in 1886.
Between 1890 and 1902, Wilson worked as professor for law at the Princeton University.
He became president of Princeton University in 1902.
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| Wilson in 1902 |
PRESIDENCY
On November 4, 1912, Wilson became the 28th President of the United States. He won with 42 percent of the popular vote and 435 of the 531 electoral votes against the incumbent president William Howard Taft.
He was elected president of the United States again in 1916.
Wilson was one of the two Democrats (alongside Grover Cleveland) elected to the presidency in the era of Republican political domination dating from 1861 to 1933.
He initiated antitrust legislation and secured valuable social reforms in his progressive New Freedom program.
Woodrow Wilson held the first open presidential news conference in 1913.
Wilson signed the act creating the National Park Service in 1916. It was established to manage all the national parks, many national monuments, and other conservation and historical properties around the United States.
Woodrow Wilson, was the first President to show a motion picture in the White House. The movie, Birth of a Nation, later became the most banned film in American history because of its racist content.
The 28th U.S. President narrowly won re-election in 1916 under the slogan: "He kept us out of war." However, a year later he led his country into World War I, as a crusade to make the world "safe for democracy" after the German U-boat campaign forced him into the conflict.
In January 1918 Wilson issued his '14 Points' as a basis for a just peace settlement.
When President Woodrow Wilson set sail for the World War I peace talks in Versailles in 1918, he became the first US president to travel to Europe while in office.
At the peace conference in Paris, Wilson was successful in securing the inclusion of the League of Nations in the Treaty of Versailles, but the Treaty was not ratified by Congress so the US did not join it.
He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1919.
Woodrow Wilson was the last U.S. president to write his own speeches.
MARRIAGES
In April 1883, Wilson met Ellen Louise Axson, the daughter of a Presbyterian minister from Savannah, Georgia. At that time, she was keeping house for her widowed father. Woodrow Wilson thought of Ellen, "What splendid laughing eyes!"
They fell in love and married on June 24, 1885, at her paternal grandparents' home in Savannah, Georgia. The wedding was performed jointly by his father, the Reverend Joseph R. Wilson, and her grandfather, the Reverend Isaac Stockton Keith Axson.
They honeymooned at Waynesville, a mountain resort in western North Carolina.
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| Ellen Axson Wilson, Wilson's future wife, in 1883 |
They had three daughters, Margaret, Jessie and Eleanor.
As First Lady, Ellen devoted much effort to the cause of improving housing in Washington D.C's largely black slums. She visited dilapidated alleys and brought them to the attention of debutantes and Congressmen.
Ellen Wilson died of Bright's disease at the White House on August 6, 1914.
Helen Woodrow Bones, US President Woodrow Wilson's first cousin, became a "surrogate First Lady" for 16 months between the death of his first wife and his second marriage.
Wilson's doctor, Cary Grayson, introduced him to a girl named Edith Galt, whose husband had also passed away. After two months they fell in love.
Wilson married Edith on December 18, 1915, at her home in Washington, D.C. The groom's pastor, Reverend Dr. James H. Taylor of Central Presbyterian Church, and the bride's, Reverend Dr. Herbert Scott Smith of St. Margaret's Episcopal Church, Washington, D.C., performed the wedding jointly.
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| Edith Wilson |
Edith Galt was a direct descendant of Pocahontas, with the linkage dating back 10 generations. She was also related to Thomas Jefferson, Robert E. Lee, Martha Washington, and Letitia Tyler.
Edith survived her husband by 37 years. She died on his 105th birthday, on December 28 1961.
PERSONAL LIFE
President Woodrow Wilson referred to himself as a Presbyterian in the "Reformed" tradition.
Woodrow Wilson kept a flock of sheep on the White House lawn. He sold the wool and gave the money to the Red Cross.
Among the sheep was a ram, Old Ike, who liked to chew tobacco.
Wilson was passionate about golf despite his lack of prowess on the links.
He suffered all his life with attacks of severe indigestion accompanied by headaches. He never found a cure. Wilson tried special diets, fasting, and a variety of medicines and neck massages, all to no avail.
Woodrow Wilson was in the middle of a lecture tour when on October 2, 1919 he suffered a major stroke, resulting in brain damage and paralysis. Edith Wilson began to screen all matters of state and decided which to bring to the bedridden president. In doing so, she de facto ran the executive branch of the government for the remainder of Wilson's second term.
Below is Woodrow Wilson's first posed photograph after his stroke, which was taken in June 1920. He was paralyzed on his left side, so Edith holds a document steady while he signs.
The American president was out of action for many months, however the general public was unaware of this. On the occasions when the ailing president had visitors, his aides propped him up in a chair, hiding his paralyzed left arm. Another aide whispered the names of his guests in his ear so Wilson could greet them by name. The American government succeeded in concealing the president's infirm condition from his people.
LAST YEARS AND DEATH
Wilson's health did not markedly improve after leaving office; his left arm and left leg were both paralyzed, and he frequently suffered digestive tract issues.
His health declined throughout January 1924, and Woodrow Wilson died on February 3, 1924.
The only president buried in Washington, DC proper, Wilson was laid to rest in the National Cathedral.
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| The final resting place of Woodrow Wilson By Tony Fischer Photgraphy |
Herbert Hoover later wrote The Ordeal of Woodrow Wilson, the first biography of one president written by another.
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