The 1912 U.S. pres­i­den­tial elec­tion was a turn­ing point for pro­gres­sivism, both for the nation and for Woodrow Wil­son.  An exhi­bi­tion now open at the Prince­ton Uni­ver­sity Library illus­trates this remark­able elec­tion and the life of the man who won it.

Drawn from the Uni­ver­sity Archives and the Pub­lic Pol­icy Col­lec­tion at the See­ley G. Mudd Man­u­script Library, the exhi­bi­tion fol­lows Wilson’s career as scholar, uni­ver­sity pres­i­dent, gov­er­nor of New Jer­sey, and newly elected pres­i­dent of the United States to tell the story of how his ideas were formed and changed in ser­vice of the nation. In addi­tion, the exhi­bi­tion fea­tures rare Wil­son mem­o­ra­bilia loaned by Anthony W. Atkiss, a mem­ber of Princeton’s class of 1961.

“The Elec­tion for Woodrow Wilson’s Amer­ica”  is free and open to the pub­lic, and is on dis­play in Fire­stone Library’s Mil­berg Gallery now through the end of Decem­ber 2012.

The 1912 elec­tion was a four-way race between a con­ser­v­a­tive incum­bent, William Howard Taft, a social­ist, Eugene Debs, and two pro­gres­sives, for­mer pres­i­dent Theodore Roo­sevelt and Wil­son. Grow­ing con­cern about the con­cen­tra­tion of wealth and influ­ence among the power elite and press­ing ques­tions about tax­a­tion, the wel­fare of farm­ers, bank­ing reg­u­la­tion, and labor rights made it almost inevitable that a pro­gres­sive can­di­date would take the White House.

“The exhi­bi­tion is filled with some excep­tional items, includ­ing love let­ters Wil­son wrote to his first wife, the com­plete text of Wilson’s first inau­gural address, the top hat he wore while cam­paign­ing for the pres­i­dency, a good num­ber of orig­i­nal polit­i­cal car­toons from the era, and a tremen­dous vari­ety of pins, but­tons, pen­nants, and other cam­paign mem­o­ra­bilia, gen­er­ously loaned to us by Mr. Atkiss,” said Dan Linke, the head of Mudd Library, who co-curated the exhi­bi­tion with Mau­reen Calla­han, a project archivist at Mudd.

Accord­ing to Calla­han, Wil­son rep­re­sented the model citizen-scholar that Prince­ton strove to pro­duce through­out the 20th cen­tury. Cos­mopoli­tan, seri­ous, and reformist, he had stud­ied the struc­tures that make polit­i­cal change hap­pen and was will­ing to lever­age his influ­ence to affect them. As Princeton’s pres­i­dent from 1902 to 1910, Wil­son trans­formed the uni­ver­sity into a far more schol­arly place than it had been when he was a stu­dent. Moti­vated by ambi­tion and a sin­cere desire to serve, Wil­son took on the polit­i­cal party sys­tem and local monop­o­lies as gov­er­nor of New Jer­sey from 1911 to 1913, and this work helped cat­a­pult him to the presidency.

“The Elec­tion for Woodrow Wilson’s Amer­ica” is cur­rently open from 8:45 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. Mon­day through Fri­day.  Start­ing Sept. 4, it will be open from 9 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. Mon­day through Fri­day until Dec. 28, 2012.  The exhi­bi­tion is open from noon to 5 p.m. on Sun­days. A curator’s tour of the exhi­bi­tion will be held Oct. 28, 2012, at 3 p.m.

The Mil­berg Gallery is located within Fire­stone Library at 1 Wash­ing­ton Road (#5 on map). For more infor­ma­tion, call 609–258-6345 or email .