Biographer A. Scott Berg on Woodrow Wilson

Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer A SCOTT BERG knew he would write a biography of America’s 28^th president, Woodrow Wilson. It’s taken over 35 years to complete the complicated story, undertaken by former biographers of the fellow Princeton graduate and university president. Wilson, a former professor of constitutional law (and the only president with a Ph.D.) briefly held office of the Governor of New Jersey, and went on to hold down the American presidency for two, tumultuous terms. A Virginian native who was raised in the aftermath of the American Civil war, he went into the White House establishing “The New Freedom,” including such legacies as the Federal Reserve, the Federal Trade Commission, the eight-hour workday, workers’ compensation and child labor laws. But at the end of his second term, Wilson’s health was compromised, and the formerly isolationist U.S. was left to pick up the political and moral pieces of WW1. Using newly discovered papers and previously unknown events, Berg comes in to discuss his new biography, “Wilson.”