In our previous episode, we covered Theodore Roosevelt and his time in office as the first progressive president of the United States.

He had left office in March of 1909, leaving the nation in the hands of his close friend and partner, William Howard Taft.

Roosevelt hoped that Taft would continue his progressive policies at home while expanding America's

role abroad. The new president would end up having a difficult time living up to the expectations

of his popular predecessor. At the same time, a new figure was rising, one who would challenge

Roosevelt's status as America's most prominent progressive. He was the

governor of New Jersey, and his name was Woodrow Wilson. Although he and Roosevelt agreed on the

need to expand the federal government's role in society and America's role in the world,

they represented different visions of progressivism, a difference that continues to affect our

politics today. Wilson's rise to power and his difficult relationship with Theodore Roosevelt

are the subjects of this episode of this American president.

Music I'm The story of Thomas Woodrow Wilson is one of the most complex and unlikelyest in American history. He was a devout Presbyterian from Virginia, the son of a minister,

born to a slaveholding family, and he rose to the peak of the academic world in America.

That success he parlayed into a career in New Jersey politics. He came from the same generation

as Theodore Roosevelt. They were both men too young to fight in the Civil War, but whose first childhood memories were dominated by it.

In fact, Woodrow Wilson's earliest memory was of him playing in his yard at the age of three and hearing from a passerby that Abraham Lincoln had just been elected president of the United States.

Wilson was born on December 28, 1856 in Stanton, Virginia, the third child and first son of Joseph

Ruggles Wilson and Jesse Janet Woodrow. His family strongly identified with the Confederate cause. Jesse was a prominent member of the

Presbyterian community, helping to found the Southern Presbyterian Church in the United States,

and later becoming a professor at the Columbia Theological Seminary. Young Woodrow saw his father

preaching from the pulpit, and he practiced oratory and rhetoric from a young age.

Like Theodore Roosevelt, young Woodrow had to overcome certain challenges, specifically dyslexia.

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