Historical Figure
Woodrow Wilson
1856–1924
President of the United States from 1913 to 1921
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"Address to the American Indians" — 1913
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Biography
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th president of the United States, serving from 1913 to 1921. He was the only Democrat to serve as president during the Progressive Era, when Republicans dominated the presidency and legislative branches. As president, Wilson made significant economic reforms and led the United States through World War I. He was the leading architect of the League of Nations, and his stance on foreign policy came to be known as Wilsonianism.
Timeline
The story of Woodrow Wilson, told in moments.
Elected president of Princeton University. He transforms it from a sleepy gentlemen's college into a serious research institution. He battles alumni over the eating clubs and the graduate school. He wins some fights and loses others. New Jersey Democrats take notice.
Elected president after Theodore Roosevelt splits the Republican vote by running as a third-party candidate. Wilson wins 42% of the popular vote. Without Roosevelt in the race, he likely loses.
Signs the Federal Reserve Act, creating the central banking system that still operates today. He also signs the Clayton Antitrust Act and establishes the Federal Trade Commission. It's the most productive domestic legislative stretch since Lincoln.
Asks Congress to declare war on Germany. "The world must be made safe for democracy," he tells the chamber. He'd won reelection five months earlier on the slogan "He kept us out of war." Two million American troops will deploy to Europe.
Announces his Fourteen Points to Congress. Open diplomacy. Freedom of the seas. Self-determination. And a League of Nations. He sails for Europe in December, the first sitting president to visit the continent. Crowds in Paris treat him like a savior.
Suffers a massive stroke while touring the country to rally support for the League of Nations. He's partially paralyzed. His wife Edith effectively runs the executive branch for the remaining 17 months of his term, screening documents and controlling access. The Senate rejects the treaty.
Dies at his home on S Street in Washington, D.C. He's 67. The League of Nations he championed exists, but without the United States. He told his wife near the end: "I am a broken piece of machinery. When the machinery is broken..." He didn't finish the sentence.
In Their Own Words (20)
Congress in session is Congress on public exhibition, whilst Congress in its committee-rooms is Congress at work.
Congressional Government, A Study in American Politics (1885; republished 1981), chapter 2, p. 69 (1981), 1981
There can be no equality or opportunity, the first essential of justice in the body politic, if men and women and children be not shielded in their lives, their very vitality, from the consequences of great industrial and social processes which they can not alter, control, or singly cope with.
First Inaugural Address (4 March 1913), 1913
Prosperity … is necessarily the first theme of a political campaign.
Campaign speech, 1912, PWW 25:99, 1912
Mr. House is my second personality. He is my independent self. His thoughts and mine are one. If I were in his place I would do just as he suggested.
As quoted in The Intimate Papers of Colonel House, vol. I (Houghton Mifflin) by Charles Seymour, p. 114-115; also referenced here. (1912), 1912
America lives in the heart of every man everywhere who wishes to find a region where he will be free to work out his destiny as he chooses.
Campaign speech in Chicago (6 April 1912), 1912
Artifacts (15)
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