Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. Prior to the presidency, Wilson served as the president of Princeton University and as the governor of New Jersey.
Wilson died at his home in Washington, DC in 1924.
Resources
- Woodrow Wilson: White HouseWoodrow Wilson, a leader of the Progressive Movement, was the 28th President of the United States (1913-1921). After a policy of neutrality at the outbreak of World War I, Wilson led America into war in order to “make the world safe for democracy.”
- Woodrow Wilson: Miller CenterWoodrow Wilson was one of America's greatest Presidents. His domestic program expanded the role of the federal government in managing the economy and protecting the interests of citizens. His foreign policy established a new vision of America's role in the world. And he helped to make the White House the center of power in Washington. Most historians rank him among the five most important American Presidents, along with Washington, Lincoln, and the two Roosevelts.
Archives, Research & Reference
- Papers of Woodrow Wilson: National ArchivesA comprehensive edition of the papers of Thomas Woodrow Wilson (1856 –1924), the 28th President of the United States, in office from 1913 to 1921. Wilson served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913. Running 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 was elected President as a Democrat in 1912. This massive collection includes all important letters, speeches, interviews, press conferences, and public papers. The volumes make available as never before the materials essential to understanding Wilson's personality, his intellectual, religious, and political development, and his careers as educator, writer, orator, and statesman. The Papers not only reveal the private and public man, but also the era in which he lived, making the series additionally valuable to scholars and others in various fields of history between the 1870s and the 1920s.
- Woodrow Wilson: Credo ReferenceA Credo Reference landing page on Woodrow Wilson. This page includes links to reference works, journal articles, and a mind map.
- Woodrow Wilson Papers: Library of CongressThe papers of Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), scholar, president of Princeton University, governor of New Jersey, and president of the United States (1913-1921), consist of approximately 280,000 documents, comprising approximately 620,000 images, most of which were digitized from 540 reels of previously produced microfilm. Held in the Library of Congress Manuscript Division, these papers constitute the largest collection of original Wilson documents in the world. The collection contains personal, family, and official correspondence, White House executive office files, drafts and proofs of books, articles, speeches, academic lectures, scrapbooks, shorthand notes, and memorabilia dating from 1786 to 1957 with the bulk of material falling in the period between 1876 and 1924.
Woodrow Wilson and the Rating of Presidents
How, exactly, should past presidents be judged? A provocative examination of Woodrow Wilson's presidency - judged a great success by some and a profound failure by others - provides an opportunity to explore the broader issues of presidential ratings in general.
Perspectives
Woodrow Wilson: A Biography
The first major biography of America's twenty-eighth president in nearly two decades, from one of America's foremost Woodrow Wilson scholars. A Democrat who reclaimed the White House after sixteen years of Republican administrations, Wilson was a transformative president--he helped create the regulatory bodies and legislation that prefigured FDR's New Deal and would prove central to governance through the early twenty-first century, including the Federal Reserve system and the Clayton Antitrust Act; he guided the nation through World War I; and, although his advocacy in favor of joining the League of Nations proved unsuccessful, he nonetheless established a new way of thinking about international relations that would carry America into the United Nations era. Yet Wilson also steadfastly resisted progress for civil rights, while his attorney general launched an aggressive attack on civil liberties. Even as he reminds us of the foundational scope of Wilson's domestic policy achievements, John Milton Cooper, Jr., reshapes our understanding of the man himself: his Wilson is warm and gracious--not at all the dour puritan of popular imagination. As the president of Princeton, his encounters with the often rancorous battles of academe prepared him for state and national politics. Just two years after he was elected governor of New Jersey, Wilson, now a leader in the progressive movement, won the Democratic presidential nomination and went on to defeat Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft in one of the twentieth century's most memorable presidential elections. Ever the professor, Wilson relied on the strength of his intellectual convictions and the power of reason to win over the American people. John Milton Cooper, Jr., gives us a vigorous, lasting record of Wilson's life and achievements. This is a long overdue, revelatory portrait of one of our most important presidents--particularly resonant now, as another president seeks to change the way government relates to the people and regulates the economy.
The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, Volume 10
This massive collection includes all important letters, speeches, interviews, press conferences, and public papers on Woodrow Wilson. The volumes make available as never before the materials essential to understanding Wilson's personality, his intellectual, religious, and political development, and his careers as educator, writer, orator, and statesman. The Papers not only reveal the private and public man, but also the era in which he lived, making the series additionally valuable to scholars in various fields of history between the 1870's and the 1920's.
Woodrow Wilson and the Great War
In recent years, and in light of U.S. attempts to project power in the world, the presidency of Woodrow Wilson has been more commonly invoked than ever before. Yet "Wilsonianism" has often been distorted by a concentration on American involvement in the First World War. In Woodrow Wilson and the Great War: Reconsidering America's Neutrality, 1914-1917, prominent scholar Robert Tucker turns the focus to the years of neutrality. Arguing that our neglect of this prewar period has reduced the complexity of the historical Wilson to a caricature or stereotype, Tucker reveals the importance that the law of neutrality played in Wilson's foreign policy during the fateful years from 1914 to 1917, and in doing so he provides a more complete portrait of our nation's twenty-eighth president. By focusing on the years leading up to America's involvement in the Great War, Tucker reveals that Wilson's internationalism was always highly qualified, dependent from the start upon the advent of an international order that would forever remove the specter of another major war. World War I was the last conflict in which the law of neutrality played an important role in the calculations of belligerents and neutrals, and it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that this law--or rather Woodrow Wilson's version of it--constituted almost the whole of his foreign policy with regard to the war. Wilson's refusal to find any significance, moral or otherwise, in the conflict beyond the law and its violation led him to see the war as meaningless, save for the immense suffering and sense of utter futility it fostered. Treating issues of enduring interest, such as the advisability and effectiveness of U.S. interventions in, or initiation of, conflicts beyond its borders, Woodrow Wilson and the Great War will appeal to anyone interested in the president's power to determine foreign policy, and in constitutional history in general.
American Experience: Woodrow Wilson
'American Experience: Woodrow Wilson - Part 1' is part of a series of films from PBS. AMERICAN EXPERIENCE's acclaimed Presidents series continues with a two-part profile of one of the most effective Democrat incumbents of the 20th century -- Woodrow Wilson. Born in 1856, Wilson lived through the American Civil War as a child and grew up to be history professor and president of Princeton University. He then entered politics as governor of New Jersey in 1911 and just a year later was elected the 28th president of the United States (the only one ever to have a PhD). With a clear mandate, Wilson pushed through an extensive legislative agenda, mostly aimed at stimulating the US economy. He initially kept the US out of World War I, even using that as a re-election slogan in 1916. However, German aggression forced him to change his stance to that of a bold war leader, generating funds, men and materiel for battle. In 1918, Wilson led the peace negotiations with Germany, and set about building the League of Nations -- the forerunner to the UN -- to prevent future conflicts. It was while working on this project, in 1919, that he suffered a stroke, and competed his term in office issuing orders via his (second) wife, Edith, from his sick bed. Wilson was not all sweetness and light, however. Black voters who flocked to his cause in 1912 felt betrayed by his support for segregationist policies and support for the southern white cause, while Irish immigrants, especially those who fled to the US after the Easter Rising of 1916, felt he had reneged on a deal to push for an independent Ireland after helping Britain in the war.