In Staunton, Virginia, we visited the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library and Museum. I think this is our third presidential library after JFK’s and Rutherford B. Hayes. Tours of his birthplace house are offered. We made the mistake of touring the house and not spending enough time in the museum. Also, beware of the number of steps.
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- At the entrance to the museum.
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- At the exit of the museum.
The display at the end summarized his legacy. It reads:
Woodrow Wilson left the White House in 1921. He drove with President-elect Harding to the inauguration, but did not attend the ceremony itself due to his physical infirmity. Woodrow and Edith Wilson retired to a house on S Street in Washington, DC. He passed away in that home on February 3, 1924.
Wilson’s legacy is complex and consequential. During his presidency, the United States endured a pandemic, fought a world war, and engaged in civil rights and suffrage issues. Legislation he supported and helped write created the Federal Reserve, National Park Service, and the eight-hour workday, all of which still play an influential role. At the same time, his government’s expansion of segregation actively damaged the civil rights of Black Americans.
Wilson’s idealism and hope for a “New World Order” as detailed in his Fourteen Points speech did not come to fruition. The peace treaties with the Central Powers were unduly harsh and the weakness of the League of Nations directly contributed to another global conflict just twenty years after the first. By then, Franklin Roosevelt was president, He sought to learn from Wilson’s failures and successes as he planned for post-war peace.
Wilson restricted the rights and freedoms of minorities at home while championing the rights of peoples in Europe, though not in their colonies. Streets, buildings, and statues dedicated to Wilson can be found throughout Europe in recognition of his efforts at the Paris Peace Conference.
The legacy of Woodrow Wilson continues to be evaluated. There is a great deal to learn from how Woodrow Wilson and his peers handled issues so similar to those of today,