Pinback button promoting Woodrow Wilson for president, 1916. Erhman Mfg. Co., Boston.
Wilson was the first professional academic to become president (and the only one until Barack Obama). Known chiefly for his work in political theory, he was president of Princeton University when elected governor of New Jersey in 1910. An unlikely candidate, Wilson was nominated for president by a deadlocked Democratic convention in 1912, and won over better recognized and financed rivals in the general election, including one former and one sitting president.
This button, from his reelection campaign in 1916, celebrates Wilson's professorial prowess.
