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The Life and Presidency of Woodrow Wilson

Woodrow Wilson was born in Staunton, Virginia, on December 28, 1856. He was the third of four children of Janet Woodrow and Joseph Ruggles Wilson, a Presbyterian minister. He spent his childhood in Augusta, Georgia, and Columbia, South Carolina; graduated from Princeton (then the College of New Jersey) in 1879; and attended the University of Virginia Law School. In 1885 he married Ellen Louise

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The Life and Presidency of William Howard Taft

William Howard Taft was born on September 15, 1857, in Cincinnati, Ohio, to judge Alphonso Taft and his wife Louisa. He graduated from Yale, and then returned to Ohio, studied at the Cincinnati Law School, and began his law practice. He made a swift climb in politics through Republican judiciary appointments, while a seat on the Supreme Court was his ultimate ambition.

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The Life and Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt

While McKinley had been popular and had brought major changes to presidential prestige as well as the nation's world status, Theodore Roosevelt during his seven years and six months in office dramatized the presidency and its image. Both admirers and critics, in praise or scorn, would call his actions "imperial." Roosevelt's 1902 White House restoration created the idea of the residence

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The Life and Presidency of William McKinley

Born in Niles, Ohio, on January 29, 1843, McKinley briefly attended Allegheny College, and was teaching in a country school when the Civil War broke out. His mother, Nancy Allison McKinley, a devout Methodist, was a guiding influence in his life. It was against her wishes that he joined the Union Army. As a commissary sergeant during the Battle of Antietam, he

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The Life and Presidency of Grover Cleveland

Grover Cleveland's reelection in 1892, unprecedented for the four-year gap following an unsuccessful first bid for re-election, demonstrated his tenacity and the electorate's desire for a commanding leader. By presidential standards of the twentieth century, Cleveland was not a powerful chief executive. However, in the context of the 1880s, he boldly asserted powers that had been left dormant since the Civil

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The Life and Presidency of Grover Cleveland

ROAD TO THE WHITE HOUSE One of nine children of a Presbyterian minister and his wife, Stephen Grover Cleveland was born in Caldwell, New Jersey, on March 18,1837, and raised in upstate New York. He grew to an imposing appearance; nearly six feet tall and almost three hundred pounds, he was distinguished by a bulldog set of the jaw, piercing eyes,

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The Life and Presidency of Benjamin Harrison

Born in North Bend, Ohio, on August 20, 1833, Benjamin Harrison was the grandson of "Old Tippecanoe," William Henry Harrison, ninth president of the United States. The second of ten children to John and Elizabeth Harrison, Benjamin grew up at The Point, his grandfather's six hundred acre farm near North Bend. His early education included attendance at a nearby one-room schoolhouse. At