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Edith Bolling Wilson’s young life, as well as the period during which Woodrow Wilson held the Presidency (1913-21), took place amidst turbulent times. The period immediately following the Civil War (1870-1880) was tumultuous in its own right; then came yet another era of social change, spanning the decades from 1880 to 1920. No doubt, these decades offered some of the most socially disruptive of time periods in America’s (then) short history.

Image 1: Bolling Family on the Porch in Wytheville c. 1886 (Edith seated on the floor, looking away from camera, third from right; EBWB Museum Collection)

In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Though this declaration did not fully serve to end the enslavement of thousands of Africans, it was but one of many steps that led ultimately to the ratification of the 13th Amendment in 1865, officially ending slavery altogether. Such changes impacted Edith’s family directly; prior to her birth, enslaved people had worked on the Bolling plantation in Bedford County, Virginia. But that was now a thing of the past; in Wytheville, young Edith viewed the formerly enslaved workers who had relocated there with the Bollings almost as if they were members of the family, people who were always there to help her, her parents, and her grandmothers with the running of what was a large, bustling and unwieldly household (see Image 1).

Overall, however, post-Civil War America was not wholly tolerant or accepting of the four million formerly enslaved people who were now emancipated and free to follow their social and economic pursuits. Intimidation, violence, and racist rhetoric were but a few of the many responses that pervaded the country as these freedmen began their slow quest towards equal rights. Various legalisms and institutionalized racism (ex. the creation of “Jim Crow” laws [1899] instituting legal segregation), only further slowed what would come to be a long, arduous and at times, seemingly impossible process towards true freedom and equity with other (white) Americans.

Image 3: The Hyphenated American. “Why should I let these freaks cast whole votes when they are only half American?” (J.S. Pughe, for Puck Magazine, New York, New York, August 9, 1899.)

Meantime, over 50 million immigrants arrived on America’s shores soon after the Civil War, of whom 20 million originated from Central, Eastern and Southern Europe. These included more than three and a half million Italians, more than three million Russians, more than two and a half million Poles, and well over two million Jews. Another four and a half million immigrants of Irish descent arrived as early as the 1840s. By mid-century they comprised one-third of all immigrants to the U.S. at the time. By the turn of the century, nearly 15% of all those living in the U.S. were foreign born and another 12% were African American.

And yet, this significant increase in the number and variety of peoples and cultures from around the world did not initially result in the development of an “American Melting Pot” as is often believed and is nowadays imagined. On the contrary, groups were singled out, imaged not as complementary parts of the whole, but rather, as separate, distinct pieces that often were at odds, not only with one another but more, with the values and ideals of America itself.

Image 2: The Stranger at Our Gate. “Emigrant - Can I come in?” Uncle Sam – I ‘spose you can: there’s no law to keep you out. (Frank Beard, The Ram's Horn, New York, New York, April 25, 1896.)

The lampooning of immigrants and other minorities was commonplace throughout the turn of the century-era. The caricatured presentation of various ethnic and racial groups provided a safe mechanism through which to effectively criticize all manner of ills associated with the newcomers, from poverty, disease, superstition, and anarchy (Image 2) to political manipulation and dual allegiances (Image 3) to organized crime and other social ills (Image 4).

Image 4: The Unrestricted Dumping-Ground. ([President McKinley looking on from lefthand corner]; Louis Dalrymple, for Judge Magazine, New York, New York, 1903.)

As President and Mrs. Wilson came to realize through American involvement in WWI and the Paris Peace Conference that convened in its immediate aftermath, remaining isolated from the rest of the world was no longer possible, let alone desirable. And yet, as American power and domination expanded, so too did its encounters with “the Other,” whether he be Indigenous, a person of color, or someone who was “different” in any of a variety of ways. And though American political and military might and influence would increasingly hold sway, the power of culture – and of difference – would soon prove to be far greater than anything the country had previously encountered. ​

As such, a new civilization was born, and with it would come generations who in time would bear little resemblance to those who once set the standard and definition for what it meant to be “an American.”