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The Wilson family bible records Thomas Woodrow Wilson's birth in Staunton, Virginia,
ìon the 28th December, 1856 at 12 3/4 oíclock at night.î Growing up amid the tumult of
the Civil War and Reconstruction,
Tommy (as he was called) was immersed in the terror and despair of the South in those years.
On May 14, 1865, an 8-year-old Wilson watched as captured Confederate president Jefferson Davis was
led through town in chains. Though for many, life in the South would never be the same, Wilson, his
two older sisters, and a younger brother experienced a comfortable childhood, enjoying the affection
of a warm, attentive mother and the instruction of a gregarious yet demanding Presbyterian minister
father.
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Wilson was a poor student early in life, still unable to read at age ten.
Though teachers thought him slow, Wilson's parents provided him with plenty of support.
Historians now believe young Wilson was afflicted by a form of dyslexia. To help his son
overcome these difficulties, Wilson's father spent hours coaching him in the art of debate. From
these early years forward, the Presbyterian faith his father preached would be Wilson's guiding belief. Enrolling
first at Davidson College in North Carolina and then at the College of New Jersey in Princeton, Woodrow (
his mother's maiden name, and his newly adopted given name) excelled at oratory and debate, which led him to
the study of law at the University of Virginia as a means to public office. Wilsonís practice of
law quickly stalled; mundane case work could not compete with his sweeping ambitions in politics
and government. While on a rare business trip from his law office in Atlanta to nearby Rome, Georgia,
Wilson fell in love with an extremely intelligent young woman he saw in church, a burgeoning artist named
Ellen Axson. They were married in 1885
and brought the first of their three daughters into the world the following year.
Ellen and Woodrow agreed that to further his political ambitions, he should become a professor. He started
graduate study at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, where he virtually created his own curriculum
emphasizing literary-style commentary instead of specialized, primary research. Wilsonís first book,
Congressional Government, criticized the American model of government in favor of the British parliamentary
system. The bookís success landed Wilson teaching posts at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, and Wesleyan
College in Connecticut. An academic rising star, Wilson returned to Princeton in 1890 to become a professor
of jurisprudence and economics at his beloved alma mater. The most popular professor on campus, Wilson lectured
on the growing gap between the haves and the have-nots in America in the early 1890s. Captains of industry like
the Rockefellers,
Carnegies
and Morgans
had become fabulously wealthy,
while the majority of American workers lived in poverty.
Wilson proposed the federal government be given more power to rein in big business. Publishing his views in magazines like
Harper's and accepting numerous speaking invitations, Wilson soon became a nationally-known public figure.
In 1902, Wilson was unanimously elected president of Princeton University.
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As president of
Princeton, Wilson sought to build the university into the nation's
foremost center of scholarship. He proposed sweeping educational and
social reforms, including the creation of a world-class graduate
school in the center of campus. To make the university attractive to
serious scholars, Wilson planned to abolish Princetonís
fraternity-like eating clubs, filled with some of the schoolís
richest and laziest students. While Wilsonís proposals were
initially well received, they soon became the objects of strong
resistance from conservative trustees and rich alumni. As a result
of the highly publicized battle, Wilson gained a national reputation
for not only advocating educational reform, but for fighting social
inequity.
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Soon, Wilsonís name was mentioned as a leading candidate for public office.
The New Jersey Democratic Party political bosses, who mistakenly thought the college president
would play the part of political stooge, convinced Wilson that their support would guarantee his
election as the stateís governor. Once in office, Wilson successfully pushed a decidedly progressive
agenda, and along the way outwitted the very bosses who thought Wilson a puppet for their use. His
New Jersey successes positioned Wilson at the forefront of the cresting, national wave of progressivism.
Wilson became the Democratic Party candidate for
the 1912 presidential election and won the tight race,
helped in large part by the Republican Party's split between
William Howard Taft and
Theodore Roosevelt< a>.
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During his first two
years as president, Wilson demonstrated his political acumen in
accomplishing one of the most impressive strings of
domestic legislative victories
in history. In the summer of 1914, as the world's
first world war
erupted in Europe, Wilson watched helplessly as his wife of thirty
years died of a kidney disease. Losing Ellen threw Wilson into
despair, but with the world at war, clear thinking had never been
more important. Wilson maintained a precarious neutrality for nearly
three years, promising to keep the country out of war as he ran for
a second term in 1916, but then found no option but to lead the
nation into battle.
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Wilson hoped participation in the war would enable him to broker
a peace treaty that might end war forever. Central to the treaty
would be the creation of a forum for non-violent resolution of
international hostilities - a League of Nations.
At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, he painstakingly
won key points of the treaty from British prime minister
David Lloyd George and French premier Georges
Clemenceau, who vengefully favored heavy restitution from Germany.
But back home Wilson's dreams were thwarted by Senator
Henry Cabot Lodge and other powerful political enemies who blocked the treaty's ratification.
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The stress of a last-ditch, cross-country campaign to rally
popular support for the treaty, coupled with recurring health
problems, resulted in Wilson's suffering a physical breakdown and
then a paralytic stroke. Rendered incapable of executing his duties,
the president was sequestered from nearly all visitors by his
personal physician and by his second wife,
Edith Bolling Galt Wilson,
whom he had married in 1916.
"The country was effectively without a chief executive for the last months
of Wilson's term in office. In 1919, he was awarded the Nobel Peace
Prize. Woodrow Wilson left the White House in March 1921, and he lived the
next three years as a partial invalid in his Washington, D.C. home. He
died on February 3, 1924, and was interred at the National Cathedral."
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