Wilson, Woodrow 1856-1924

PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, 1913-1921

A Wartime President.

At the outset of World War I President Woodrow Wilson believed that the United States had no stake in this conflict of imperialist European rivals and promised to keep America out of the war. Yet he ended up presiding over the first total mobilization of American troops for war and winning a Nobel Peace Prize for his role in negotiating the peace treaty that ended that war.

Early Life.

Born in Staunton, Virginia, on 28 December 1856, Thomas Woodrow Wilson was named after his maternal grandfather, but in his twenties Wilson dropped Thomas from his name. The son of a Presbyterian minister, he grew up in Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina and later recalled that one of his earliest memories was of standing outside a gateway in Augusta, Georgia, at the age of four and "hearing someone pass and say that Mr. Lincoln was elected and there was...

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