University of Virginia Woodrow Wilson Letters Finding Aid

University of Virginia Woodrow Wilson Letters Finding Aid

Unknown

FA100027

1881-1926

University of Virginia Special Collections

Cataloging of archival materials

English

Letters from Wilson to friend Richard Heath Dabney, a UVA professor; letters to other individuals, series of photos

Wilson writes to Dabney, his former University of Virginia classmate (and later history professor at the University) regarding his life after ill health forced him to discontinue his studies. Of interest are twenty letters, 1881-1889, written after Wilson left the University of Virginia. In them he discusses his law studies, health, the University, the Jefferson Society, fellow students including future University of Virginia professor Charles Kent, impressions of Johns Hopkins and Bryn Mawr, his early writings, marriage, history, and politics. Later letters are shorter and more conventional in content, but contain occasional allusions to public affairs and the presidency. The collection also contains one letter from Wilson to the University of Virginia Board of Visitors recommending the hiring of Dabney as a professor. In addition to the letters from Wilson, the collection contains letters or telegrams from Ellen A. Wilson, Edith Bolling Wilson, Newton Baker, John Randolph Bolling, A. S. Burleson, Assistant Secretary of State William Phillips, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, William Howard Taft, J. P. Tumulty and the Italian ambassador. Most of these letters concern issues that Dabney brought to Wilson's attention.