Biography
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Thomas Woodrow Wilson was born on December 28, 1856, in Staunton, Virginia. His father, Joseph Ruggles Wilson, was a Presbyterian minister, and his mother, Janet Woodrow Wilson, was a minister’s daughter originally from England. Tommy Wilson, as he was called growing up, spent his childhood and teen years in Augusta, Georgia and Columbia, South Carolina. During the American Civil War, Wilson’s father served as a chaplain in the Confederate army and used his church as a hospital for injured Confederate troops.
Wilson graduated from Princeton University, in 1879 and went on to attend law school at the University of Virginia. After briefly practicing law in Atlanta, Georgia, he received a Ph.D. in political science from Johns Hopkins University in 1886. Wilson is the only U.S. president to earn a doctorate degree. He taught at Bryn Mawr College and Wesleyan College before being hired by Princeton in 1890 as a professor of jurisprudence and politics. From 1902 to 1910, Wilson was president of Princeton, where he developed a national reputation for his educational reform policies.
In 1885, Wilson married Ellen Axson, a minister’s daughter and Georgia native. The couple had three daughters before Ellen died of kidney disease in 1914, during her husband’s first presidential term. The following year, Wilson married Edith Bolling Galt, a widow whose husband had owned a Washington, D.C., jewelry business.
Wilson graduated from Princeton University, in 1879 and went on to attend law school at the University of Virginia. After briefly practicing law in Atlanta, Georgia, he received a Ph.D. in political science from Johns Hopkins University in 1886. Wilson is the only U.S. president to earn a doctorate degree. He taught at Bryn Mawr College and Wesleyan College before being hired by Princeton in 1890 as a professor of jurisprudence and politics. From 1902 to 1910, Wilson was president of Princeton, where he developed a national reputation for his educational reform policies.
In 1885, Wilson married Ellen Axson, a minister’s daughter and Georgia native. The couple had three daughters before Ellen died of kidney disease in 1914, during her husband’s first presidential term. The following year, Wilson married Edith Bolling Galt, a widow whose husband had owned a Washington, D.C., jewelry business.