page_title: Woodrow Wilson
section_title: Historical reputation
hierarchical_section_title: Woodrow Wilson / Legacy / Historical reputation
caption_attribution_description: Composite image of three postage stamps each depicting Woodrow Wilson
context_page_description: Thomas Woodrow Wilson was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of Princeton University and as the 34th governor of New Jersey before winning the 1912 presidential election. As president, he oversaw the passage of progressive legislative policies unparalleled until the New Deal in 1933. He also led the United States into World War I in 1917, establishing an activist foreign policy known as "Wilsonianism." He was the leading architect of the League of Nations.
  Wilson spent his early years in the American South during the Civil War and Reconstruction. After earning a Ph.D. in political science from Johns Hopkins University, Wilson taught at various schools before becoming the president of Princeton University. As governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913, Wilson broke with party bosses and won the passage of several progressive reforms. His success in New Jersey gave him a national reputation as a progressive reformer, and he won the presidential nomination at the 1912 Democratic National Convention.
context_section_description: Wilson is generally ranked by historians and political scientists as one of the better presidents. More than any of his predecessors, Wilson took steps towards the creation of a strong federal government that would protect ordinary citizens against the overwhelming power of large corporations. He is generally regarded as a key figure in the establishment of modern American liberalism, and a strong influence on future presidents such as Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson. Cooper argues that in terms of impact and ambition, only the New Deal and the Great Society rival the domestic accomplishments of Wilson's presidency. Many of Wilson's accomplishments, including the Federal Reserve, the Federal Trade Commission, the graduated income tax, and labor laws, continued to influence the United States long after Wilson's death. Wilson's idealistic foreign policy, which came to be known as Wilsonianism, also cast a long shadow over American foreign policy, and Wilson's League of Nations influenced the development of the United Nations. Saladin Ambar writes that Wilson was "the first statesman of world stature to speak out not only against European imperialism but against the newer form of economic domination sometimes described as 'informal imperialism.'"
  Notwithstanding his accomplishments in office, Wilson has received criticism for his record on race relations and civil liberties, for his interventions in Latin America, and for his failure to win ratification of the Treaty of Versailles. Sigmund Freud and William Christian Bullitt Jr., an American diplomat, collaborated in the 1930s on a psychological study that was published in 1966.  They argued that Wilson resolved his Oedipus complex by becoming highly neurotic, casting his father as God and himself as Christ, the savior of mankind.  Historians rejected the interpretation. Diplomatic historian A. J. P. Taylor called it a "disgrace" and asked: "How did anyone ever manage to take Freud seriously?" 
  Many conservatives have attacked Wilson for his role in expanding the federal government. In 2018, conservative columnist George Will wrote on The Washington Post that Theodore Roosevelt and Wilson were the "progenitors of today's imperial presidency." 
  In the wake of the Charleston church shooting, during a debate over the removal of Confederate monuments, some individuals demanded the removal of Wilson's name from institutions affiliated with Princeton due to his administration's segregation of government offices.  On June 26, 2020, Princeton University removed Wilson's name from its public policy school due to his "racist thinking and policies." The Princeton University Board of Trustees voted to remove Wilson’s name from the university’s School of Public and International Affairs, changing the name to the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. The Board also accelerated the retirement of the name of a soon-to-be-closed residential college, changing the name from Wilson College to “First College.” However, the Board did not change the name of the university's highest honor for an undergraduate alumnus or alumna, The Woodrow Wilson Award, because it is the result of a gift. The Board stated that when the university accepted that gift, it took on a legal obligation to name the prize for Wilson.
caption: Stamps memorializing Wilson
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