WILSON, WOODROW

born Dec. 28, 1856, Staunton, Va., U.S. died Feb. 3, 1924, Washington, D.C. Woodrow Wilson. in full Thomas Woodrow Wilson 28th president of the United States (191321), an American scholar and statesman best remembered for his legislative accomplishments and his high-minded idealism. Wilson led his country into World War I and became the creator and leading advocate of the League of Nations, for which he was awarded the 1919 Nobel Prize for Peace. During his second term the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, giving women the right to vote, was passed and ratified. He suffered a paralytic stroke while seeking American public support for the Treaty of Versailles (October 1919), and his incapacity, which lasted for the rest of his term of office, caused the worst crisis of presidential disability in American history. John Milton Cooper, Jr. Additional reading Arthur S. Link (ed.), The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, 69 vol. (196693), is an annotated documentary record.Biographies include Ray Stannard Baker, Woodrow Wilson: Life and Letters, 8 vol. (192739, reprinted 1968), an authorized work; Arthur S. Link, Wilson, 5 vol. (194765), the definitive biography up to World War I; Arthur Walworth, Woodrow Wilson, 3rd ed. (1978), comprehensive, thoroughly documented, and carefully balanced; John M. Mulder, Woodrow Wilson (1978), an account of his early intellectual and religious development; Henry W. Bragdon, Woodrow Wilson: The Academic Years (1967), an examination of Wilson's career at Princeton; Stockton Axson, Brother Woodrow, a memoir by Wilson's brother-in-law; Edwin A. Weinstein, Woodrow Wilson (1981), a psychobiography; John Milton Cooper, The Warrior and the Priest (1983), comparing Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt; August Heckscher, Woodrow Wilson (1991); and Jan Willem Schulte Nordholt, Woodrow Wilson (1991).David H. Burton, The Learned Presidency: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson (1988), advances the concept that the philosophies of these three presidents helped transform the passive presidencies of the 19th century into the dynamic presidencies of the 20th century. Kendrick A. Clements, The Presidency of Woodrow Wilson (1992), discusses his terms in office; and Niels Aage Thorsen, The Political and Economic Thought of Woodrow Wilson, 18751910 (1988), explores the formation of Wilson's political philosophy. Wilson's first wife is the subject of Frances Wright Saunders, Ellen Axson Wilson (1985); while Tom Schachtman, Edith & Woodrow (1981), relates the story of the widower's second marriage. John Milton Cooper, Jr.