Newly Arrived Prof. Woodrow Wilson Wants an American History Program at Princeton

Wilson was something of a prodigy. Just a decade after graduating from Princeton in 1879, he was already the well-known author of Congressional Government and The State, and holder of a fine teaching position at Wesleyan. In the summer of 1889, the new president of his beloved alma mater, Francis Patton, suggested he return there to join the faculty. The agreement of the Princeton Board of Trustees to the appointment was required, and its conservative members, knowing of Wilson’s progressivism, were hesitant.

However, in February 1890 Wilson was elected to the Chair of Jurisprudence and Political Economy, and in September 1890 found himself back at Princeton. His arrival caused a sensation and more than half the eligible students signed up for his course in public law. The future historian, Frederick Jackson Turner, wrote “Dr. Wilson is here. Homely, solemn, young, glum, but with that fire in his face and eye that means that its possessor is not of the common crowd.”

As professor of jurisprudence, Wilson built up a strong pre-law curriculum. He was soon voted the university’s most popular teacher and became friend and counselor to countless students attracted by his warmth and high-mindedness. He also wrote two best-selling books, a biography and a history, and spoke to audiences far and near. During the sesquicentennial celebration of 1896, he delivered the keynote address, “Princeton in the Nation’s Service,” and in 1902 became university president. All told he remained at Princeton for two decades.

It is a strange and interesting anomaly that one of the country’s greatest historians was coming to teach at a school where the subject of American history was not appreciated, and there was neither a history program nor department. In fact, no provision had been made at Princeton for history until 1883, when William M. Sloane was made Professor of History and Political Science. Sloane was a professional historian and was now allowed to teach a history class, but still no history program was established.

Moreover, at Princeton, he and Wilson were not considered historians, but political scientists. When Wilson became president of the university and set up the department system in 1904, history was finally given status as part of a History, Politics, and Economics Department. The following letter shows that, from the moment he arrived at Princeton, Wilson wanted the subject of American history to be recognized and a history department established. Another person who wanted to promote history at Princeton was Wilson’s old classmate of 1879, Adrian H. Joline, who established the Joline Prize in American Political History in 1890 (the same year Wilson returned). Joline was an avid collector of books and autographs and published several volumes on the subject, including The Diversions of a Book-Lover (1903), The Autograph Hunter and Other Papers (1907) and At a Library Table (1910).

He and Wilson took different paths after graduation. Wilson became a progressive, fighting for the underdog, while Joline went on to become an attorney who represented the railroads and other of the country’s wealthiest interests. He was influential and powerful, and a benefactor; Joline Hall at Princeton is named for him. Wilson and Joline: each representing everything the other opposed, and each disliking and distrusting the other. In this letter to Joline, Wilson discusses the new Joline Prize, laments the lack of an American history program, and urges on Joline the desirability of seeing the subject given its proper place.

Woodrow Wilson Autograph Letter Signed, two pages 8vo, Princeton, N.J., October 24, 1890, just weeks after returning to his alma mater. “The College Catalogue for the year 1890-91 is now being prepared and we are anxious to get the announcement of your prize in U.S. History into it. Will you not make a formal statement of your purpose in the matter and forward it to President Patton? I was about to prepare a note concerning it for the Catalogue Committee (who are daily clamorous for “copy”), but when I asked at the college offices for the official statement of the prize, found there was none. Prof. Sloane is to lecture this year on U. S. history, particularly, I believe, on the period named in your correspondence with me about the prize, and I have no doubt that interest will be greatly stimulated and the prize well competed for. Indeed the fact that there is no special and permanent provision in our course of study for instruction in American history is the only thing that can possibly jeopard the success of your prize. I believe that, in spite of that fact, we shall always have good men competing for it, with results that will please you; but we very much need an additional chair in history, in order that special provision might be made for American history and the Department be as well manned as in other colleges of our grade and aims. Can you not suggest a specific topic for the prize essay of this year?”

In time, when Wilson was president of the university, Joline would become his nemesis, opposing his every measure. One of Wilson’s last (and most gratifying) triumphs in that post was keeping Joline off Princeton’s Board of Trustees. To pay him back for this bitter loss, in 1910 Joline tried to destroy Wilson’s candidacy for governor of New Jersey by leaking a letter in which Wilson had spoken in a patronizing fashion of William Jennings Bryan. This ploy backfired, as Bryan and other Democrats rallied to the embarrassed Wilson’s side. But in 1890 that was all in the future. We instead see Wilson, in perhaps his first project at Princeton, turning his attention to promoting American history. Nothing could be more fitting for the man who made so much history himself. (Of course, Joline probably read this letter as a self-serving attempt by Wilson to secure for himself the prestige of a chair.) Today, not far from Joline Hall at Princeton sits the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Thus, after passage of a century, the two great antagonists still face each other down on the campus.