Woodrow Wilson

December 28, 1856 – February 3, 1924

28th President who led the U.S. into World War I and proposed the League of Nations.

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Woodrow Wilson served as the 28th President of the United States from 1913 to 1921, leading the nation through the era of progressive reform and the crucible of World War I. He was born Thomas Woodrow Wilson on December 28, 1856, in Staunton, Virginia, the son of a Presbyterian minister, and he grew up in the American South during the Civil War and its bitter aftermath, an upbringing that shaped his outlook for life. Unusually among presidents, Wilson was a scholar first: he earned a doctorate in political science, became a celebrated professor, and rose to serve as president of Princeton University before entering politics. Wilson's rise in public life was remarkably fast. In 1910 he was elected governor of New Jersey, where he won a reputation as a reformer by breaking with the political bosses who had backed him. Just two years later, in 1912, a split in the Republican Party helped him win the presidency with only about 42 percent of the popular vote. He came to office with an ambitious domestic agenda he called the New Freedom. At home, Wilson pushed through some of the most important reforms of the Progressive Era. He signed the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, creating the central banking system that still manages the nation's money today. He strengthened antitrust law with the Clayton Antitrust Act, established the Federal Trade Commission to police unfair business practices, and lowered tariffs while introducing a modern federal income tax. Wilson's record on race, however, was a grave failure that his admirers long overlooked. His administration segregated the federal workforce, introducing separate facilities and screened-off workspaces in departments such as the Treasury and the Post Office, and many Black federal employees were demoted or dismissed. When the civil rights leader William Monroe Trotter confronted him at the White House in 1914 to protest, Wilson took offense and had him shown out. He also praised 'The Birth of a Nation,' a film that glorified the Ku Klux Klan. For millions of African Americans who had hoped for fair treatment, his presidency was a painful betrayal. In foreign affairs, Wilson tried for years to keep the United States out of the war raging in Europe. When a German submarine sank the British liner Lusitania in 1915, killing more than a thousand people including 128 Americans, outrage grew, but Wilson held back from war. He won reelection in 1916 on the proud slogan 'He kept us out of war.' Yet events soon overtook him. When Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare and the secret Zimmermann Telegram revealed a German scheme to draw Mexico into an attack on the United States, Wilson asked Congress to declare war, and America entered World War I in April 1917. Wilson framed the war in idealistic terms, declaring that the world must be 'made safe for democracy.' In January 1918 he laid out his Fourteen Points, a blueprint for a just and lasting peace, capped by his cherished idea of a League of Nations, an assembly of countries pledged to settle disputes and prevent future wars. When the fighting ended on Armistice Day in November 1918, Wilson sailed to France, the first sitting president to visit Europe, and helped negotiate the Treaty of Versailles. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1919 for his efforts. But Wilson's greatest hope ended in defeat. The Senate, led by Republicans wary of binding America to foreign commitments, refused to approve the treaty and the League. Determined to rally the public, Wilson set out on an exhausting cross-country tour, and in October 1919 he suffered a massive stroke that left him partly paralyzed and hidden from view, while his wife and doctor quietly shielded the true extent of his condition. The Senate rejected the treaty, and the United States never joined the League. Wilson left office broken in health and died on February 3, 1924. His vision of collective security outlived him, helping to inspire the United Nations after the next world war. You can trace the conflict that defined his presidency in the World War I journey.

Woodrow Wilson

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