Woodrow Wilson

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Woodrow Wilson



The 28th President of
The United States of America
(1912-1920)
"As some of the injuries done us have become intolerable we have still been clear that we wished nothing for ourselves that we were not ready to demand for all mankind-fair dealing, justice, the freedom to live and to be at ease against organized wrong."



Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson was born in Staunton, Virginia on December 28, 1856. He was the first son of Joseph Ruggles Wilson, a Presbyterian minister, and Jessie Janet Woodrow. During this time period Abraham Lincoln had just been elected president and the Civil War was to begin. In 1859 the family moved because Mr. Wilson had been named pastor of a church in Augusta, Georgia. The Civil War was difficult because the elder Wilson was an ardent Confederate sympathizer, and young Wilson witnessed, firsthand, the ruthless behavior of General William T. Sherman and his federal troops who invaded Georgia and South Carolina. He remained an ardent Southerner throughout his lifetime. After the war, the Wilson’s moved to Columbia, South Carolina where Mr. Wilson became a professor at the Columbia Theological Seminary during the Reconstruction time period.
Woodrow was educated at home and at private schools in Augusta, Georgia and Columbia, South Carolina. In 1873 they moved again, to Wilmington, North Carolina where Wilson attended Davidson College, a small Presbyterian school where his father was a trustee. He enrolled at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), where he pursued his interest in English literature and politics the following year. He studied classic speakers and the techniques of public speech and was a leader among the school debaters. From 1879-1883 Wilson went back to school and studied both law and history. He received his degree in law from the University of Virginia and went into business with a fellow by the name of Edward I. Renick. When it b...