Our 28th President, Thomas Woodrow Wilson, was born on December 28, 1856 to Joseph ( a prominent Presbyterian minister) and Jessie Wilson. After having earned a law degree, Wilson went on to receive one of the first Ph.Ds in Political Science from John's Hopkins University. Prior to becoming U.S. President, he served as president of Princeton University (1902-1910) and as Governor of New Jersey (1911-1913). During his formative years, Wilson's family lived in a home built (1871)by his father in Columbia, South Carolina. Even though the family moved around a bit because of the senior Wilson's ministerial obligations, the Columbia house was the only home the family ever owned. While the father designed and built this "cottage style" house, Jessie (his mother) designed the yard and gardens. Her landscape plans divided the grounds into a formal front yard and a working backyard (which included vegetable and flower gardens, a kitchen house, privy, and a carriage house). The family had planned on living here permanently, but in 1875 the elder Wilson was reposted to Wilmington, North Carolina. A grassroots movement developed in 1928 to save and preserve the home, which now serves as the only museum in America dedicated to interpreting the post-Civil War Reconstruction period (1865 to 1877). It opened to the public in 1932.
As evidenced by this display, the parent's bedroom was the most lavish...
Woodrow, with his wife and their three daughters.