Woodrow Wilson (1856 - 1924) was an American academic and statesman who served as the 28th President of the United States from 1913 to 1921. [1] A political scientist and former president of Princeton University, he enacted a broad programme of economic reform, led the United States into the First World War in 1917, and set out the Fourteen Points as a basis for peace. [2] He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1919 for his role in founding the League of Nations, which the United States Senate ultimately refused to join. [3]
Early life and academic career
Wilson was born on 28 December 1856 in Staunton, Virginia, the son of a Presbyterian minister. He studied at Davidson College and then at Princeton, read law at the University of Virginia, and took a doctorate in political science at Johns Hopkins University, where his dissertation Congressional Government argued that real power in Washington lay with congressional committees rather than the presidency. [1]
He taught at Bryn Mawr and Wesleyan before returning to Princeton, becoming its president in 1902, and there reorganised the undergraduate curriculum and introduced a preceptorial system of small-group teaching. [2]
Entry into politics
Wilson was elected governor of New Jersey in 1910 and broke with the party organisation that had backed him, pushing through direct primaries, workers' compensation and utility regulation. That record made him a national figure, and in 1912 he won the Democratic presidential nomination and then the general election, aided by the split of the Republican vote between William Howard Taft and Theodore Roosevelt. [1]
Domestic policy
Wilson's New Freedom programme produced one of the most productive legislative periods in American history. Congress passed the Underwood Tariff with a federal income tax, created the Federal Reserve System in 1913, and established the Federal Trade Commission and the Clayton Antitrust Act in 1914. [2]
His administration also extended racial segregation within the federal civil service, a policy that removed or demoted Black federal employees and drew protest at the time; it remains central to modern reassessments of his record. [1]
First World War and the peace
Wilson kept the United States neutral during the first years of the European war and won re-election in 1916 on that basis. German resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare and the Zimmermann Telegram led him to ask Congress for a declaration of war in April 1917, framing the conflict as a fight to make the world "safe for democracy". [2]
In January 1918 he set out the Fourteen Points, proposing open diplomacy, freedom of the seas, national self-determination and a general association of nations. He travelled to Europe in person for the Paris Peace Conference, and secured the inclusion of the League of Nations Covenant in the Treaty of Versailles, though many of his other points were diluted. [3]
Illness and final years
Returning home, Wilson toured the country to build support for ratification of the treaty. In October 1919 he suffered a severe stroke that left him partially paralysed; the extent of his incapacity was concealed, and his wife Edith controlled access to him for the remainder of the term. The Senate rejected the treaty, and the United States never joined the League. [1]
Wilson left office in March 1921 and died at his home in Washington, D.C., on 3 February 1924.
Legacy
Wilson's conception of a rules-based international order shaped the later creation of the United Nations, and "Wilsonianism" remains a standard term for a foreign policy grounded in self-determination and collective security. [3] Assessment of his presidency has been substantially revised in recent decades because of his record on race; in 2020 Princeton University removed his name from its school of public and international affairs. [1]
