Index

Predecessor
page 1

Current
president
page 1

Early
life
page 2

WOODROW WILSONS FIRST

ADMINISTRATIONpage 3

WOODROW WILSONS SECOND ADMINISTRATION: WORLD WAR

Ipage 4

WOODROW WILSONS SECOND ADMINISTRATION: DOMESTIC

ISSUESpage 5

WOODROW WILSONS FINAL

YEARS. page 5

Conclusion
.page 6

Bibliography................................
......................page7
 Predecessor

William Howard Taft

William Howard Taft was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on September 15,
1857. ... Taft finally achieved his dream of being appointed chief
justice of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1921, becoming the only person
to have served both as a chief justice and president. Taft died in
Washington, D.C., on March 8, 1930. He was the 27th president of
United States of America.

Current president

Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson summary: Woodrow Wilson was the 28th president
of the United States of America. He was born in Virginia in 1856. He
was the son of a Reverend and traveled quite a bit as a child with his
family. ... He later taught at Princeton, and became president of the
university in 1902.

Early life

Thomas Woodrow Wilson was born on December 28, 1856, in Staunton, Virginia.
(Because his mother said he arrived around midnight, some sources list Wilsons
birthday as December 29.) His father, Joseph Ruggles Wilson (1822-1903), was a
Presbyterian minister, and his mother, Janet Woodrow Wilson (1826-1888), was a
ministers daughter and originally from England. Tommy Wilson, as he was called
growing up, spent his childhood and teen years in Augusta, Georgia, and
Columbia, South Carolina. During the American Civil War (1861-1865), Wilsons
father served as a chaplain in the Confederate army and used his church as a
hospital for injured Confederate troops.
Did You Know?
Woodrow Wilson, who had an esteemed career as an academic and
university president before entering politics, did not learn to read until
he was 10, likely due to dyslexia.
Wilson graduated from Princeton University (then called the College of New Jersey)
in 1879 and went on to attend law school at the University of Virginia. After briefly
practicing law in Atlanta, Georgia, he received a Ph.D. in political science from Johns
Hopkins University in 1886. (Wilson remains the only U.S. president to earn a
doctorate degree.) He taught at Bryn Mawr College and Wesleyan College before
being hired by Princeton in 1890 as a professor of jurisprudence and politics. From
1902 to 1910, Wilson was president of Princeton, where he developed a national
reputation for his educational reform policies.
In 1885, Wilson married Ellen Axson (1860-1914), a ministers daughter and Georgia
native. The couple had three daughters before Ellen died of kidney disease in 1914,
during her husbands first presidential term. The following year, Wilson married
Edith Bolling Galt (1872-1961), a widow whose husband had owned a Washington,
D.C., jewelry business.
 WOODROW WILSONS FIRST
ADMINISTRATION

At the age of 56, Woodrow Wilson was sworn into office in March 1913. He was the
last American president to travel to his inauguration ceremony in a horse-drawn
carriage. Once in the White House, Wilson achieved significant progressive reform.
Congress passed the Underwood-Simmons Act, which reduced the tariff on imports
and imposed a new federal income tax. It also passed legislation establishing the
Federal Reserve (which provides a system for regulating the nations banks, credit
and money supply) and the Federal Trade Commission (which investigates and
prohibits unfair business practices). Other accomplishments included child labor
laws, an eight-hour day for railroad workers and government loans to farmers.
Additionally, Wilson nominated the first Jewish person to the U.S. Supreme Court,
Louis Brandeis (1856-1941), who was confirmed by the Senate in 1916.

When World War I broke out in Europe in the summer of 1914, Wilson was
determined to keep the United States out of the conflict. On May 7, 1915, a German
submarine torpedoed and sank the British ocean liner Lusitania, killing more than
1,100 people (including 128 Americans). Wilson continued to maintain U.S.
neutrality but warned Germany that any future sinkings would be viewed by
America as deliberately unfriendly.
In 1916, Wilson and Vice President Marshall were re-nominated by the Democrats.
The Republicans chose Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes(1862-1948) as
their presidential candidate and Charles Fairbanks (1852-1918), the U.S. vice
president under Theodore Roosevelt, as his running mate. Wilson, who campaigned
on the slogan He kept us out of war, won with a narrow electoral margin of 277-
254 and a little more than 49 percent of the popular vote.

WOODROW WILSONS SECOND

ADMINISTRATION: WORLD WAR I

Woodrow Wilsons second term in office was dominated by World War I. Although the president
had advocated for peace during the initial years of the war, in early 1917 German submarines
launched unrestricted submarine attacks against U.S. merchant ships. Around the same time,
the United States learned about the Zimmerman Telegram, in which Germany tried to
persuade Mexico to enter into an alliance against America. On April 2, 1917, Wilson asked
Congress to declare war on Germany, stating, The world must be made safe for democracy.

Americas participation helped bring about victory for the Allies, and on November 11, 1918, an
armistice was signed by the Germans. At the Paris Peace Conference, which opened in January
1919 and included the heads of the British, French and Italian governments, Wilson helped
negotiate the Treaty of Versailles. The agreement included the charter for the League of
Nations, an organization intended to arbitrate international disputes and prevent future wars.
Wilson had initially advanced the idea for the League in a January 1918 speech to the U.S.
Congress in which he outlined his Fourteen Points for a postwar peace settlement.
When Wilson returned from Europe in the summer of 1919, he encountered opposition to the
Versailles treaty from isolationist Republicans in Congress who feared the League could limit
Americas autonomy and draw the country into another war. In September of that year, the
president embarked on a cross-country speaking tour to promote his ideas for the League
directly to the American people. On the night of September 25, on a train bound for
Wichita,Kansas, Wilson collapsed from mental and physical stress, and the rest of his tour was
cancelled. On October 2, he suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed. Wilsons condition
was kept largely hidden from the public, and his wife worked behind the scenes to fulfill a
number of his administrative duties.

The Senate voted on the Treaty of Versailles first in November 1919 and again in March 1920.
Both times it failed to gain the two-thirds vote required for ratification. The treatys defeat was
partly blamed on Wilsons refusal to compromise with the Republicans. The League of Nations
held its first meeting in January 1920; the United States never joined the organization. However,
in December 1920, Wilson received the 1919 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to include the
Covenant of the League of Nations in the Treaty of Versailles.

WOODROW WILSONS SECOND

ADMINISTRATION: DOMESTIC ISSUES

Woodrow Wilsons second administration saw the passage of two significant constitutional
amendments. The era of Prohibition was ushered in on January 17, 1920, when the 18th
Amendment, banning the manufacture, sale and transportation of alcohol, went into effect
following its ratification one year earlier. In 1919, Wilson vetoed the National Prohibition Act (or
Volstead Act), designed to enforce the 18th Amendment; however, his veto was overridden by
Congress. Prohibition lasted until 1933, when it was repealed by the 21st Amendment.

Also in 1920, American women gained the right to vote when the 19th Amendment became law
that August; Wilson had pushed Congress to pass the amendment. That years presidential
electionthe first in which women from every state were allowed to voteresulted in a victory for
Republican Warren Harding (1865-1923), a congressman from Ohio who opposed the League
of Nations and campaigned for a return to normalcy after Wilsons tenure in the White House.

WOODROW WILSONS FINAL YEARS

After leaving office in March 1921, Woodrow Wilson resided in Washington, D.C. He and
a partner established a law firm, but poor health prevented the president from ever doing
any serious work. Wilson died at his home on February 3, 1924, at age 67. He was
buried in the Washington National Cathedral, the only president to be interred in the
nations capital.

Conclusion
After Warren G. Harding was elected President in 1920, Wilson retired to public life in
Washington, D.C. That year he won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts at the Paris
Peace Conference. He founded a law firm in the city with one of his former cabinet
members, but never seriously worked on any cases. He lived quietly until he died in his
sleep on February 3, 1924. He was buried two days later in the Episcopal cathedral in
Washington, D.C.

Bibliography
 Serial
Topic Source
Number
http://www.biography.com/people/
Internet & Other william-howard-taft-9501184
Predecessor
resources Berg, A. Scott. Wilson (2013), full-
scale scholarly biography
http://www.historynet.com/woodro
w-wilson
Internet & Other
Current president Blum, John. Woodrow Wilson and
resources
the Politics of Morality (1956);
short scholarly biography
http://www.history.com/topics/us-
presidents/woodrow-wilson
Internet & Other
Early life Maynard, W. Barksdale. Woodrow
resources
Wilson: Princeton to the
Presidency (2008)
http://www.history.com/topics/us-
presidents/woodrow-wilson
Bailey; Thomas A. Wilson and the
WOODROW Peacemakers: Combining Woodrow
Internet & Other
WILSONS FIRST Wilson and the Lost Peace and
resources
ADMINISTRATION Woodrow Wilson and the Great
Betrayal (1947); detailed coverage
of 1919

http://www.history.com/topics/us-
WOODROW presidents/woodrow-wilson
WILSONS SECOND i Internet & Other Hofstadter, Richard. "Woodrow
ADMINISTRATION: resources Wilson: The Conservative as
WORLD WAR I Liberal" in The American Political
Tradition (1948), ch. 10.
WOODROW
WILSONS SECOND Internet & Other http://www.history.com/topics/us-
ADMINISTRATION: resources presidents/woodrow-wilson
DOMESTIC ISSUES
WOODROW
Internet & Other http://www.history.com/topics/us-
WILSONS FINAL
resources presidents/woodrow-wilson
YEARS

Internet & Other http://www.history.com/topics/us-

Conclusion
resources presidents/woodrow-wilson