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Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States of America. Photo by
Harris & Ewing-

Top 10 Facts about Woodrow Wilson

Thomas Woodrow Wilson was academic and an American politician and served as the 28^th President of America. He was president from 1913 to 1921.

He was born on 28^th December 1856. He was a son to Joseph Ruggles Wilson and Jessie Janet Woodrow. He was the first of four children.

Wilson attended Davidson College in North Carolina. However he transferred as a freshman to Princeton University. He studied political philosophy and history. He graduated from Princeton in 1879.

Wilson then attended the University Of Virginia School Of Law.  Poor health forced his withdrawal from the University of Virginia. He continued to study law on his own while living with his parents in Wilmington, North Carolina.

Wilson was admitted to the Georgia bar. He made a brief attempt at establishing a legal practice in Atlanta in 1882. Though he found legal history and substantive jurisprudence interesting, he did not like the practicality of it.

After less than a year, he abandoned his legal practice to pursue the study of political science and history.

1.Wilson Scottish decent

Woodrow Wilson. Photo by Harris & Ewing –

President Wilson’s ancestry on both sides is all Scottish and Scotch-Irish. His paternal grandfather, James Wilson, came to Philadelphia in 1807. He came from County Down, Ireland at only 20 years.

He secured employment in the newspaper office of the Aurora. Eventually, he became editor and manager of the paper. He married Anne Adams, a Scotch-Irish girl. They had three daughters and seven sons. All of had worthy careers, professional or military.

After the War of 1812, he moved to Ohio. He established The Pennsylvania Advocate, and The Western Herald. Both became widely influential newspapers. He successfully published until his death in 1837. 

Wilson was the only president since Andrew Jackson to have a foreign-born parent.

2. President Wilson was a big romantic

President Wilson and his second wife, Edith Bolling Galt Wilson. Photographer unknown-

He was the kind of man that needed a woman beside him.

In 1883, he met and married Elen Louse Axson and they were blessed with three children. However her health declined after he entered office. She succumbed on August 6th 1914. He was deeply affected by the loss, falling into depression.

A few months after the death of his wife, he met Edith Bolling Galt. Edith was a strong woman. She was the first woman to acquire a driving license in the District of Columbia. At first she did not take keen to him. After persistent wooing during long drives and three love letters a day, she finally gave in to his pursuit. They got married in 1915.

3. He was the first president to hold a PHD

In late 1883, he enrolled at the recently established Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore for doctoral studies. Wilson studied history, political science, German, and other areas.

He hoped to become a professor. He was obsessed with reading and writing. He spent much of his time at Johns Hopkins writing Congressional Government: A Study in American Politics, which grew out of a series of essays in which he examined the workings of the federal government.

He acquired a PHD in history and government from Johns Hopkins in 1886 making him the first president to hold a PHD.

4.His entry into politics was unplanned

President Wilson campaigning in Fredericktown, NJ. Photographer: Unknown-

He was an academic and very raw to politics. He attracted interest from New Jersey Democratic leaders due to his efforts at Princeton.  New Jersey was by then was the most corrupt state. The political bosses were looking for someone who would be easy to control to be the governor. Woe onto them he was not going to be anybody’s puppet!

He was a peoples’ president. He sought to bring the people to his level than speaking down to them. This made him very popular as he could connect with the ordinary citizens.

5. He came up with the Income Tax idea

President Woodrow Wilson. National Photo Company Collection – Library of Congress Catalog-

He had long seen high tariffs as equivalent to unfair taxes on consumers. Tariff reduction was his first priority upon taking office.

Following the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment in 1913, Democratic leaders sought out a major bill that would dramatically lower tariffs and implement an income tax.  The bill won approval only after extensive lobbying by the Wilson administration. He signed the bill into law on October 3, 1913.

The Revenue Act of 1913 lowered average tariff rates from 40 percent to 26.

Though a Republican-controlled Congress would later raise tariff rates, the Revenue Act of 1913 marked an important shift in federal revenue policy, as government revenue would increasingly rely on income taxes rather than tariff duties.

6. He was an above average president

Historians graded him as an above average president. His main objectives as president could be categorized in four: conservation of natural resources, banking reform, tariff reduction, and equal access to raw materials.

In his first few months as the President, he fought public corruption. The anti-corruption laws that he passed made him popular and earned him to be recognized as a reformist and a progressive thinker.

He also won in the front of labor laws. He restricted labor by women and children which was very prominent from the industrialization era. He also improved the standards of factory working conditions. Another law that he brought on compelled railway companies to  pay their employees twice monthly, regulated the working hours, health, safety, employment, and age of employeesss.

He mandated a State Board that saw to special classes for handicap children.

7. Wilson was a wartime president

President Wilson and General Pershing review the troops in Chaumont, France. Photographer: Unknown-

During his tenure in office is when the World War 1 broke out. 

America boasted itself as a neutral party but after several jabs thrown by Germany including sinking its ships and torpedoing of a submarine and a ferry where Americans died, he started expanding the army and the navy in preparation of war.

During his second term as president is when America entered into war. In the preparation for war he increased taxes, took loans, increased industrial and agricultural production to meet the needs of the military.

He attended the Â鶹APP Peace Conference. One of his objectives was to form a League of Nations in order to promote world peace and unity. He championed to make the world safer for democracy.

8. He was proud

 Portrait photograph of United States President Woodrow Wilson. Photo by Underwood & Underwood Derivative work: TharonXX – Wikimedia

His most criticized attribute was that he was a very proud and refused to compromise. Many are the times he disregarded Congress.

His slogan too proud to fight came up when he avoided at all cost to keep America neutral from the war. This however changed when he had no choice.

9. Wilson was racist

Being a southerner, he was popular in the black community in his campaigns. However the black community was greatly dismayed shortly after he was elected as he passed policy after policy where he segregated them despite being progressive.

Shortly after he came into office, many blacks were fired. The few that remained were excluded from administrative appointments. He also refused to commission new black soldiers in the army. Those that were already serving faced discrimination which eventually saw them out.

He was not also a fan of white immigrants and other minorities. His analogy was that he did not want to ‘contaminate’ the American bloodline. He regarded other cultures as being inferior. Even with this discrimination in mind he still preferred other whites over blacks.

10. He won a Nobel Peace Prize

President Woodrow Wilson upon thereturn to the U.S. from the World War I peace conference  by an unknown author –

In the 1920 elections, he aspired to run for the third term. This was however curtailed by poor health.

On December 10, 1920, he was awarded the 1919 Nobel Peace Price “for his role as founder of the League of Nations.” He became the second sitting United States president after Theodore Roosevelt to become a Nobel Peace Laureate.