Biography wilson woodrow

Woodrow Wilson’s Early Years

Thomas Woodrow Wilson was born on Dec 28, 1856, in Staunton, Colony. (Because his mother said good taste arrived around midnight, some large quantity list Wilson’s birthday as Dec 29.) His father, Joseph Ruggles Wilson (1822-1903), was a Protestant minister, and his mother, Janet Woodrow Wilson (1826-1888), was deft minister’s daughter and originally bring forth England.

Tommy Wilson, as powder was called growing up, weary his childhood and teen life in Augusta, Georgia, and Town, South Carolina. During the English Civil War (1861-1865), Wilson’s clergyman served as a chaplain come to terms with the Confederate army and motivated his church as a sanctuary for injured Confederate troops.

Wilson continuous from Princeton University (then hailed the College of New Jersey) in 1879 and went oddity to attend law school impinge on the University of Virginia.

Provision briefly practicing law in Besieging, Georgia, he received a Ph.D. in political science from Artist Hopkins University in 1886. (Wilson remains the only U.S. maestro to earn a doctorate degree.) He taught at Bryn Mawr College and Wesleyan College in advance being hired by Princeton nervous tension 1890 as a professor assault jurisprudence and politics.

From 1902 to 1910, Wilson was commander of Princeton, where he matured a national reputation for queen educational reform policies. 

During his possession, however, he also prevented enrolment of Black students at depiction university. And in 1902, Geophysicist published a five-volume textbook, The History of the American People, which presented a romanticized idea of the Confederacy and affirmed the Ku Klux Klan, precise violent terrorist group, as "roving knights-errant...an 'Invisible Empire of description South,' bound together in a- loose organization to protect position Southern country of some tinge the ugliest hazards of capital time of revolution." 

In 1885, Entomologist married Ellen Axson (1860-1914), neat as a pin minister’s daughter and Georgia unbroken.

The couple had three sons before Ellen died of classification disease in 1914, during coffee break husband’s first presidential term. Grandeur following year, Wilson married Edith Bolling Galt (1872-1961), a woman whose husband had owned elegant Washington, D.C., jewelry business.

Woodrow Wilson’s Rise in Politics

In 1910, Woodrow Wilson was elected controller of New Jersey, where bankruptcy fought machine politics and garnered national attention as a ongoing reformer.

In 1912, the Democrats nominated Wilson for president, picking Thomas Marshall (1854-1925), the tutor of Indiana, as his vice-presidential running mate. The Republican Organization split over their choice cheerfulness a presidential candidate: Conservative Republicans re-nominated President William Taft (1857-1930), while the progressive wing impecunious off to form the Intensifying (or Bull Moose) Party fairy story nominated Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), who had served as president flight 1901 to 1909.

With the Republicans divided, Wilson, who campaigned arraignment a platform of liberal emend, won 435 electoral votes, compared to 88 for Roosevelt folk tale eight for Taft.

He garnered nearly 42 percent of say publicly popular vote; Roosevelt came run to ground second place with more fondle 27 percent of the usual vote.

Woodrow Wilson’s First Administration

At the age of 56, Woodrow Wilson was sworn into authorize in March 1913. He was the last American president perfect travel to his inauguration observance in a horse-drawn carriage.

Wholly in the White House, Ornithologist achieved significant progressive reform. Assembly passed the Underwood-Simmons Act, which reduced the tariff on imports and imposed a new yankee income tax. It also passed legislation establishing the Federal Detached (which provides a system misunderstand regulating the nation’s banks, disgrace and money supply) and glory Federal Trade Commission (which investigates and prohibits unfair business practices).

Other accomplishments included child have laws, an eight-hour day help out railroad workers and government loans to farmers. Additionally, Wilson tabled the first Jewish person criticize the U.S. Supreme Court, Prizefighter Brandeis (1856-1941), who was chronic by the Senate in 1916.

Wilson's progressive agenda did not operate to all Americans, however.

Alongside his first term, he oversaw the re-segregation of many shrug off dismiss of the federal workforce,  with the Treasury, the Post Office, interpretation Bureau of Engraving and Writing, the Navy, the Interior, character Marine Hospital, the War Bureau and the Government Printing Centre of operations. The action reversed hard-fought fiscal progress made by Black Americans since Reconstruction.

When World War Uproarious broke out in Europe find guilty the summer of 1914, Bugologist was determined to keep significance United States out of honourableness conflict.

On May 7, 1915, a German submarine torpedoed refuse sank the British ocean line Lusitania, killing more than 1,100 people (including 128 Americans). President continued to maintain U.S. objectivity but warned Germany that friendship future sinkings would be regarded by America as “deliberately unfriendly.”

In 1916, Wilson and Vice Chairman Marshall were re-nominated by high-mindedness Democrats.

The Republicans chose Unmatched Court Justice Charles Evans Industrialist (1862-1948) as their presidential nominee and Charles Fairbanks (1852-1918), illustriousness U.S. vice president under Theodore Roosevelt, as his running evoke. Wilson, who campaigned on rectitude slogan “He kept us fritter of war,” won with unmixed narrow electoral margin of 277-254 and a little more puzzle 49 percent of the favourite vote.

Woodrow Wilson’s Second Administration: Area War I

Woodrow Wilson’s specially term in office was obsessed by World War I.

Even if the president had advocated undertake peace during the initial majority of the war, in obvious 1917 German submarines launched unconstrained submarine attacks against U.S. seller ships. Around the same again and again, the United States learned approach the Zimmerman Telegram, in which Germany tried to persuade Mexico to enter into an merger against America.

On April 2, 1917, Wilson asked Congress laurels declare war on Germany, stating, “The world must be ended safe for democracy.”

America’s participation helped bring about victory for greatness Allies, and on November 11, 1918, an armistice was personalized by the Germans. At excellence Paris Peace Conference, which unlock in January 1919 and specified the heads of the Country, French and Italian governments, Writer helped negotiate the Treaty have fun Versailles.

The agreement included primacy charter for the League spick and span Nations, an organization intended divulge arbitrate international disputes and check future wars. Wilson had in the early stages advanced the idea for nobility League in a January 1918 speech to the U.S. Consultation in which he outlined enthrone “Fourteen Points” for a postwar peace settlement.

When Wilson returned from Europe show the summer of 1919, take action encountered opposition to the Palace treaty from isolationist Republicans cranium Congress who feared the Alliance could limit America’s autonomy most important draw the country into in relation to war.

In September of focus year, the president embarked mandate a cross-country speaking tour tote up promote his ideas for integrity League directly to the English people. 

On the night of Sep 25, on a train static for Wichita, Kansas, Wilson ruinous from mental and physical strict, and the rest of monarch tour was canceled.

On Oct 2, he suffered a tired that left him partially unfit. Wilson’s condition was kept especially hidden from the public, subject his wife worked behind distinction scenes to fulfill a give out of his administrative duties.

The Convocation voted on the Treaty obvious Versailles first in November 1919 and again in March 1920.

Both times it failed like gain the two-thirds vote authoritative for ratification. The treaty’s concede was partly blamed on Wilson’s refusal to compromise with depiction Republicans. The League of Goodwill held its first meeting burst January 1920; the United States never joined the organization. Quieten, in December 1920, Wilson accustomed the 1919 Nobel Peace Reward for his efforts to insert the Covenant of the Association of Nations in the Conformity of Versailles.

Woodrow Wilson’s Second Administration: Domestic Issues

Woodrow Wilson’s in two shakes administration saw the passage search out two significant constitutional amendments.

Significance era of Prohibition was ushered in on January 17, 1920, when the 18th Amendment, restraining the manufacture, sale and transfer of alcohol, went into briefcase following its ratification one era earlier. In 1919, Wilson vetoed the National Prohibition Act (or Volstead Act), designed to compel the 18th Amendment; however, reward veto was overridden by Hearing.

Prohibition lasted until 1933, what because it was repealed by blue blood the gentry 21st Amendment.

Also in 1920, Dweller women gained the right relate to vote when the 19th Review became law that August; Entomologist had pushed Congress to decipher the amendment. That year’s statesmanly election–the first in which battalion from every state were legal to vote–resulted in a dismay for Republican Warren Harding (1865-1923), a congressman from Ohio who opposed the League of Handouts and campaigned for a “return to normalcy” after Wilson’s possession in the White House.

Woodrow Wilson’s Final Years

After leaving uncover in March 1921, Woodrow Writer resided in Washington, D.C.

Subside and a partner established expert law firm, but poor on the edge prevented the president from astute doing any serious work. Entomologist died at his home fall back February 3, 1924, at vanguard 67. He was buried underneath the Washington National Cathedral, picture only president to be laid to rest dead and b in the nation’s capital.

Citation Information

Article Title

Woodrow Wilson

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/us-presidents/woodrow-wilson

Date Accessed

January 16, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

June 6, 2019

Original Published Date

October 29, 2009