The OHIO HISTORICAL Quarterly
VOLUME 67 ~ NUMBER 1 ~ JANUARY 1958
Woodrow Wilson's First Romance
By GEORGE C. OSBORN*
MUCH HAS BEEN WRITTEN about Abraham Lincoln's romance
with Ann Rutledge. Although Ann first
aroused Lincoln's romantic
emotions, very few facts are known
about this love affair. Indeed,
nearly all that has been written about
Ann and Abe's romance is
conjecture. Although most Americans
have heard of Lincoln's first
romance, not many realize that Woodrow
Wilson's initial venture
into the world of romance ended
unsuccessfully. Lincoln lost Ann
through death, but in the case of
Wilson, Hattie Woodrow rejected
his suit.
In the fall of 1879, Tommy Wilson, as
Woodrow was called
then, entered the law school of the
University of Virginia. Across
the Blue Ridge Mountains from
Charlottesville was Staunton,
where, more than twenty-two years
earlier, Tommy Wilson was
born. Here, in the fall of 1879,
several of his cousins were attending
the Augusta Female Seminary. The school
"was housed in the old
church where his father had once
occupied the pulpit and [where]
he himself had been baptised."1
Tommy knew a lot of people in
Staunton. As Tommy wrote, "I'm
made much of because I'm my
father's son: and I'm made much of with
all the cordial warmth of
* George C. Osborn is a member of the
department of history of the University
of Florida. Articles of his on Woodrow
Wilson's early life have appeared recently in
other historical journals.
He wishes to acknowledge his
indebtedness to Dean L. E. Grinter, chairman of
the University of Florida Research Fund,
for a grant which made possible the
research for and writing of this
article.
1 Ray Stannard Baker, Woodrow Wilson,
Life and Letters (New York, 1927-39),
I, 129.