Woodrow Wilson Research Paper

Thomas Woodrow Wilson served as the 28th president of the United States. Wilson was born on December 28th, 1856 in Staunton, Virginia and died February 3rd, 1924 in Washington, D.C. Wilson was born to Jessie Janet Wilson and Joseph Ruggles Wilson. Wilson grew up with older sister Annie E. Wilson Howe and younger brother Joseph Ruggles Wilson, Jr. Wilson and his family had moved to Augusta, Georgia when he was just over a year old. In his early teenage years, Wilson and his family moved to Columbia, South Carolina and then to Wilmington, North Carolina, in 1874. Wilson attended Davidson College from 1873-1874, Princeton University from 1875-1879, the University of Virginia School of Law and finished his education at Johns Hopkins University with the graduating class of 1886. Woodrow Wilson was one of the best educated presidents of the United States. Wilson once stated “The object of education is not merely to draw out the powers of the individual mind: it is rather it’s right to draw all minds to a proper adjustment to the physical and social world in which they are to have their life and their development: to enlighten, strengthen and make fit.” ("Woodrow Wilson." Wikiquote. Web.) Before Wilson got interested in politics, he was a college professor. He had later become the president of Princeton University and then was elected Governor of New Jersey.
Whenever Wilson became president of the old Ivy league school, Princeton University, he tried to change the university into a modern liberal university.
He replaced their learning method of impersonal lecture with the preceptorial mode. Wilson also redesigned and organized the departments and curriculum at the university. After 1906, things started to go down hill whenever a plan to build a new graduate college was denied. Wilson’s last years as president at Princeton were filled with stress. When the representatives of the New Jersey Democratic Party spoke to Wilson about running for governor in 1910, Wilson agreed. The representatives said they needed an honest leader like Wilson to persuade the voters about Democratic scandals and they figured they could control him very easily. Wilson won the nomination and shocked the politicians once he had declared his independence from party bosses. He won in the general election against his Republican opponent and the declared war on machine politics. At age 56, Wilson was elected president. Woodrow Wilson’s presidential term lasted from March 4th, 1913 to March 4th, 1921. Wilson led America through World War one which lasted from 1914 to 1918. Wilson tried to keep America out of the war but was later brought in and declared war on Germany on May 7th, 1915 due to the Lusitiana sinking and killing 1,100 people. Wilson is often raked as one of America’s greatest presdients by
historians.