Explore American history through the official blog of the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum. Read expert articles on President Wilson's life and legacy, World War I, the Progressive Era, the League of Nations, and behind-the-scenes stories from our Staunton, Virginia museum. Discover fascinating insights into presidential history.
On June 28, 2026 the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum opens four new permanent galleries across an expanded second floor, the culmination of nearly a decade of planning. Spanning 1917 to 1924 and beyond, they trace the years that built modern America, and they argue that those years rhyme unmistakably with our own
Read MoreWe are taught to read history through documents: speeches, treaties, the papers of presidents. But a dress is a document too, and often a more honest one. What a woman wore records who she really. You can read a life in a hemline. The weight of a fabric tells you whether she worked; a mended elbow, what she could afford; a waistline, what her body was expected to be. Women’s clothing has too often been treated as trivial, precisely because it belonged to women. This exhibition treats it as evidence. Walk the galleries in order. You will see women’s freedom grow.
Read MoreFrom a dairy farm to the helm of a presidential library — Robin Von Seldeneck's journey is one worth hearing. In this episode, Samantha sits down with the President & CEO of the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library and Museum in Staunton, Virginia, to explore how museums are becoming something more than collections of artifacts. They're becoming places where communities can wrestle with hard truths. Robin shares her vision for honest dialogue around Wilson's complicated legacy on race, power, and democracy, and what it means for a small city to carry the weight of a president's story.
Read MoreWoodrow Wilson died peacefully at his Washington home on February 3, 1924, surrounded by family. Discover the final days of America's 28th president.
Read MoreThe Prohibition Amendment became the only addition to the United States Constitution to inhibit a freedom rather than expand one.
Read MoreOn January 8, 1918, President Woodrow Wilson addressed Congress to outline the USA’s goals for World War I. His speech, known as the Fourteen Points, would reshape international relations and lay the groundwork for modern diplomacy.
Read MoreOne of the most visited sites in Arlington National Cemetery is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The story of this monument to America’s unidentified war casualties begins during the presidency of Woodrow Wilson. In WWI, over 100,000 American men lost their lives.
Read MoreFor several years, beginning in the spring of 1918, a flock of sheep grazed on the White House Lawn. After America entered World War I, the sheep helped to save manpower by keeping the grass trimmed. We don’t exactly who came up with the idea, but Dr. Cary Grayson contacted his horseracing friend Wiliam Woodward about getting some sheep for the president. Woodward sent along a small flock from his farm in Maryland by wagon.
Read MoreThe earliest historical evidence produced by Woodrow Wilson were doodles written in a school geography textbook in 1870. Alongside drawings of a greyhound and hot air balloons, there is a sketch of a baseball diamond and two line ups of the Light Foot Base Ball Club of Augusta, Georgia. As second baseman and club secretary, Wilson clearly had a great interest in the game from a young age.
Read MoreAfter the end of World War I, President Wilson traveled to Europe to participate in the negotiations of the Paris Peace Conference, ultimately producing the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. However, he first traveled to London, England and met with the British Royal family on Boxing Day, December 26, 1918.
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