Dr. Herbert Adams was Wilson's most difficult professor at Johns Hopkins University. Educated in Germany, Adams believed in hard work and discipline and pushed Woodrow to develop his academic skills.
William E. Borah, a Republican Senator, led the opposition against Wilson's League of Nations in the Treaty of Versailles.
William Jennings Bryan ran for President four times in his lifetime and was defeated four times. He ran on the Populist Party ticket and the Democratic ticket between the years 1892 and 1908. He advocated printing more money to help impoverished farmers and eliminating the gold standard
Venustiano Carranza of the Constitutionalists became Mexico's president after Victoriano Huerta was deposed in 1915. His ascendancy spurred Pancho Villa to initiate a second civil war in which the U.S. became entangled. Carranza's soldiers and the U.S. Punitive Expedition clashed in Mexico twice before Wilson recalled the U.S. troops.
Georges Clemenceau was the Premier of France during and after World War I. He was a member of the Big Four at the Paris Peace Conference.
Bainbridge Colby served as President Wilson's third Secretary of State towards the end of his second administration. He and Wilson also established a Washington, D.C., law firm after Wilson stepped down as President.
James M. Cox ran for President of the United States on the Democratic ticket in 1920. He was defeated by Republican Warren G. Harding.
Eugene V. Debs ran for President against Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, and William Howard Taft on the Socialist Party ticket in 1912. After the United States entered World War I, he was imprisoned under the Sedition Act of 1918 for speaking out against the war.
Lloyd George was Great Britain's Prime Minister during and after World War I. He attended the Paris Peace Conference and was a member of the Big Four.
Warren G. Harding served as the twenty-ninth President of the United States. He defeated Democrat James M. Cox in the election of 1920.
George Harvey was one of New Jersey's most powerful political voices in the early 1900s when Wilson ran for governor. Although he was not a politician himself, he acted behind the scenes and helped Wilson get elected. He was also the editor of Harper's Weekly Magazine.
Colonel House became one of Wilson's most trusted friends and advisors shortly before Wilson was elected President in 1912.
Mexico dissolved into civil war shortly after Wilson's 1913 inauguration when Victoriano Huerta seized control of the nation's government from the Constitutionalists. Tensions between Mexico and the U.S. culminated in Wilson's seizure of the Mexican port of Veracruz. Wilson appealed to the ABC powers to arbitrate the dispute.
Charles Evans Hughes ran against Wilson for the Presidency in 1916 on the Republican ticket. He lost by only twenty-three votes in the Electoral College.
Hiram W. Johnson was a Republican Senator who led the isolationist opposition to the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations.
Abraham Lincoln served as the sixteenth President of the United States. His abolitionist and pro-Northern policies prompted many Southern politicians to push for secession after his election to the Presidency in 1860.
Henry Cabot Lodge was a Republican Senator who served throughout the first decade of the 1900s. During Wilson's second administration, he supported Wilson's League of Nations in the Treaty of Versailles, but had many reservations. As Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee he led the discussion and debate on the treaty and League.
William G. McAdoo served as Wilson's Secretary of the Treasury. He later married Wilson's daughter Eleanor in 1914.
Vittorio Orlando was the Premier of Italy both during and after World War I. He was a member of the Big Four at the Paris Peace Conference in 1918.
General John J. Pershing led the U.S. Punitive Expedition into Mexico in 1916 in pursuit of former Mexican general Pancho Villa. A year later, he commanded over 1,200,000 American troops in France during World War I. He is the only U.S. General to ever receive five stars.
Edward Renick attended law school at the University of Virginia with Woodrow Wilson in 1879. In 1882, the two practiced law together at their new firm "Renick and Wilson" until a lack of clients forced them out of business.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who later became the thirty-second President of the United States, served as the Assistant Secretary of the Navy during World War I.
Theodore Roosevelt served as the twenty-sixth President of the United States from 1901 to 1908.
James Smith, Jr. was New Jersey's most powerful boss of the state's Democratic political machine in the early 1900s. Along with George Harvey, he helped Wilson become governor of the state in 1910. After Wilson was elected, the two men fought over political reform.
William Taft was a loyal supporter of Roosevelt during his Presidency, and served as Roosevelt's Governor of the Philippine Islands and as Secretary of War. He and Roosevelt were steadfast friends. When Roosevelt refused to run for a third presidential term in 1908, he nominated Taft as the Republican candidate. Taft was elected as the twenty-seventh President in 1908, defeating William Jennings Bryan. After Roosevelt returned from Europe and Africa, the two men had a political disagreement that soon turned into a bitter personal hatred. They ran against each other in the election of 1912, Taft as the Republican candidate and Roosevelt as the Bull Moose Party candidate. They split the Republican Party, allowing Woodrow Wilson to become President. Taft later served as a U.S. Supreme Court Justice.
General Pancho Villa of the Mexican army began a civil war when his rival Venustiano Carranza was named the country's new president in 1915. To bring the United States into the war, Villa led several raids into the American Southwest. During his most destructive raid, he killed nineteen Americans and burned a small town in New Mexico. In response, Wilson sent General John J. Pershing and the Punitive Expedition into Mexico in pursuit of Villa, but he was never captured.
George Washington served as a General in the American Continental Army and as the first President of the United States.
Andrew Fleming West was the Dean of Graduate Studies at Princeton University while Wilson served as the president of the same institution. Towards the end of Wilson's tenure as the university's president, the two men battled over plans to build a new graduate school. West eventually won.
Edith Galt Wilson was Woodrow Wilson's second wife. The two married on December 18, 1915. They had no children together.
Eleanor Wilson was born in 1889 and was the last daughter born to Woodrow and Ellen Axson Wilson. She married William G. McAdoo in the White House on May 7, 1914.
Ellen Axson Wilson was Woodrow Wilson's first wife. They met in 1883 and were married two years later before Wilson entered Johns Hopkins University as a graduate student. The couple had three children, Margaret, Jessie, and Eleanor. First Lady Ellen Wilson died on August 6, 1914, from kidney failure caused by tuberculosis.
Jessie Woodrow was born in the summer of 1887, and was the second daughter of three born to Woodrow and Ellen Axson Wilson. She was named for Woodrow Wilson's mother.
Doctor Joseph Ruggles Wilson was a prominent Presbyterian minister and educator in the South. A highly educated man, Dr. Wilson taught his son Thomas Woodrow as much as he could during the Civil War when formal education had all but disappeared in the South. The future president also inherited a strong sense of morality from his father and from the Church.
Margaret Wilson was born on April 16, 1886, and was Woodrow and Ellen Axson Wilson's first child.
Hattie Woodrow was a cousin of Woodrow Wilson's on his mother's side. While attending law school at the University of Virginia, young Woodrow fell in love with Hattie and eventually proposed, although she refused.
