would have prevented world calamity Today the United Nations and collective security pacts are viewed as fulfillment of Wilson’s internationalist vision Wilson was probably the only president who was a brilliant student and teacher as well as a statesman Readers of this volume will learn that Wilson was a college professor president of Princeton University and author of books on American government He was also governor of New Jersey He worked out his political beliefs in the classroom Then he entered politics to put his theories of government government into practice 10 Woodrow Wilson
Chapter 1 Woodrow Wilson was born into a family of Presbyterian ministers and teachers Naturally enough the Presbyterian church played a key role in his upbringing Another important influence as he grew up in the South was his experience of the horrors of the American Civil War Although he had no formal schooling schooling in his early years Wilson nevertheless developed passionate interests in literature and politics By his teens he already envisioned envisioned himself as a statesman First however he prepared for the life of an academic He would eventually become the only president to have earned a PhD 11 Early Life and Education
Family Childhood and Schooling Wilson’s grandfather James Wilson migrated to the United States from Ulster Ireland in 1807 He married Anne Adams who came on the same ship James Wilson became a newspaper publisher in Steubenville Ohio One of his sons Joseph Ruggles Wilson was Woodrow Wilson’s father He became a Presbyterian minister and teacher Janet Wilson’s mother was Jessie Woodrow She was born in Carlisle England just across the border from Scotland Her father Thomas Woodrow was a Scottish Presbyterian minister In 1836 he brought his family to the United States In time he settled settled in Ohio and there his daughter married and Joseph Ruggles Wilson Thomas Woodrow Wilson was born on December 28 1856 in Staunton Virginia where his father was minister of the First Presbyterian Church Staunton lies along the Shenandoah River 39 miles 63 kilometers northwest of Charlottesville Tommy as he was called in his childhood had two older sisters Marion and Anne A brother Joseph Ruggles Wilson Jr was ten years younger 12 Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson’s boyhood home is located at 419 Seventh Street in downtown Augusta Georgia Today it is a National Historic Landmark and house museum Tommy was a year old when the family moved to Augusta Georgia He remembered remembered standing as a child of four beside the garden gate and hearing a man say in great excitement that Abraham Lincoln was elected and there was to be war He ran into the house to ask his father what it meant He would see a great deal of the destruction and waste from war in the South and learn to hate it His father although having grown up in the North supported some of the South’s causes and served during the Civil War as a chaplain with the Confederate 13
