Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States from 1913-21. He was known for progressive reforms and international leadership, serving two terms. Wilson was a graduate of Princeton University and Johns Hopkins University, and taught political science at various colleges before entering politics. He passed important legislation expanding the federal government’s ability to manage the economy, protect citizens’ interests, and establish foreign policy. Wilson married twice and died in 1924.
Woodrow Wilson was president of the United States from 1913-21. As the 28th American president, he is remembered for progressive reforms and international leadership. Wilson presided as leader of the United States as it entered World War I. He served two terms as president.
Born Thomas Woodrow Wilson in 1865 in Staunton, Virginia, he was a graduate of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) and the University of Virginia’s Law School. After earning a doctorate from Johns Hopkins University, Wilson taught political science at the collegiate level.
Early in his career, he taught at Bryn Mawr College, near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He later taught at Wesleyan College in Connecticut before accepting a position at Princeton, where he taught for twelve years before accepting the college presidency.
Woodrow Wilson’s political career began with his election as Governor of New Jersey in 1910. Just two years later he was nominated President of the United States by the Democratic Party. His campaign, known as New Freedom, promoted individual and state rights. Known as an idealist, writer, thinker and diplomat, Woodrow Wilson is nicknamed the “schoolmaster in politics”.
Because of his success in expanding the federal government’s ability to manage the economy, protect the interests of its citizens, and establish foreign policy, Wilson is considered by some to be one of America’s greatest presidents. Important pieces of legislation passed during the Wilson administration include: the Underwood Act, a reduction in fares; the Federal Reserve Act, which succeeded in providing the United States with elastic money; and a piece of anti-trust legislation that established the Federal Trade Commission. In 1916, Wilson supported a law to ban child labor and one that limited the work day for railroad workers to eight hours.
Other important acts during Wilson’s administration include the Revenue Act of 1913, the Federal Farm Act of 1916, the National Park Service Act of 1916, the Jones Act of 1917, the Espionage Act of 1917, and the Sedition Act of 1918.
Woodrow Wilson married Ellen Louise Axson, a Georgia native and daughter of a Presbyterian minister, in 1885. The Wilsons had three daughters: Margaret Woodrow Wilson, Jessie Woodrow Wilson, and Eleanor Randolph Wilson. His first wife wasn’t particularly enamored with life in the public eye, though she handled the role gracefully. Art and painting became his creative outlets. He died of Bright’s disease in 1914.
Wilson married Edith Boling Gait, of Virginia, in 1915. Gait was the daughter of a judge. In 1919, Woodrow Wilson suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed. His wife, Edith, assumed some of Wilson’s more routine responsibilities at the time, allowing department heads to handle the most important decisions. The Wilsons retired in 1921 to Washington. Wilson was said to be a car and baseball aficionado. He died in Washington, DC, in 1924 and is buried in the Washington National Cathedral.
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