Joseph Wilson stays at Jefferson College

While the effects are definitely post-1900, the POD is equally clearly pre-1900. That's why I put this here. Moderators: if this doesn't work with the rules, please move to the post-1900 venue.

Suppose that for any of a variety of reasons, Joseph Ruggles Wilson, father of Woodrow Wilson, remained at Jefferson College (now Washington and Jefferson) in Canonsburg, PA. Son Thomas Woodrow Wilson would probably (all else being equal) have been born there in late 1856.

So: how does this affect the life of Woodrow Wilson? Would he have chosen an academic career yet still ultimately gone into politics?
 
Suppose that for any of a variety of reasons, Joseph Ruggles Wilson, father of Woodrow Wilson, remained at Jefferson College (now Washington and Jefferson) in Canonsburg, PA. Son Thomas Woodrow Wilson would probably (all else being equal) have been born there in late 1856.

So: how does this affect the life of Woodrow Wilson? Would he have chosen an academic career yet still ultimately gone into politics?

First, does he become a chaplain in the Union Army? If he ends up resigning that as he did the CSA post and caring for wounded, etc., it's possible he in different battles and ends up dying.

His views on race would likely remain the same - my hunch is that Woodrow Wilson got some of his own thoughts from him, if not most. Wilson might not be quite as sympathetic to the South, but he'd probably still be racist.

Ironically, though, just as he moved up North OTL, he might possibly move South TTL to become head of a university. In seeing his father's main concern being binding up the wounded, it's possible that OTL he saw this as symbolic of trying to heal the divide that existed between North and South, and that this is one reason he felt a desire to use his educational knowledge to rise to Presidency of Princeton. Perhaps he endears himself to a Southern state 's people - admittedly, probably an Upper Souths tate - and is President of someplace like Vanderbilt or Duke.

Or, maybe I'm just reading to much into it.:)
 
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