Historic Columbia is renaming the Woodrow Wilson house museum. Here’s why
The only U.S. president to hail from Columbia also was a powerful — and historically controversial — American leader in the decades after the Civil War.
The historic Columbia home that belonged to President Woodrow Wilson’s family has stood as a museum documenting the post-Civil War Reconstruction era, and it now is being renamed to highlight its focus on the historical period rather than on the former president.
The Historic Columbia nonprofit is renaming the “Woodrow Wilson Family Home: A Museum of Reconstruction” as “The Museum of Reconstruction at the Woodrow Wilson Family Home.”
The naming shift “does not erase the site’s history,” said Dawn Mills Campbell, a Historic Columbia representative who spoke Tuesday night to Richland County Council about the renaming. Rather, it “gives Historic Columbia and Richland County a more forward-facing role in addressing the dialogue around the importance of the Reconstruction era to current events.”
The Wilson family house is publicly owned by Richland County and managed by Historic Columbia.
The content of the museum will not change, but the new naming more accurately reflects its existing purpose, Campbell said.
The Wilson house museum is the only museum in the nation dedicated to interpreting the Reconstruction era, according to Historic Columbia. It is “the only place in the state where students, residents and tourists (have) access to the broad themes that address the complex racial and social issues rooted in Reconstruction, when South Carolina transitioned from a slave state to a free state,” Campbell said.
Reconstruction refers to the years immediately following the Civil War, from about 1865 to 1877, during which time Americans wrestled with the politics of emancipation and integration, while Black Americans were elected to political offices for the first time across the country.
The Wilson family home on Hampton Street in Columbia was built during Reconstruction, in 1871. Wilson spent part of his youth living in Columbia, where his father was pastor of First Presbyterian Church. Both of Wilson’s parents are buried in the church’s downtown graveyard.
Historic Columbia describes the Wilson house on its website as “a reminder of the complicated racial history of one of the most misrepresented and misunderstood periods of American history.”
More than three decades after Reconstruction, in 1913, Wilson became the first Southern president elected post-Civil War.
Wilson is generally well regarded for his leadership of the nation, though his legacy is also fraught by his notorious support of racist policies. While Wilson is lauded for founding the League of Nations and cementing America’s role as a superpower in and after World War I, Wilson also segregated federal buildings and once hosted a screening of the pro-Ku Klux Klan movie “Birth of a Nation” in the White House.
County Councilwoman Joyce Dickerson said during Tuesday night’s meeting that she has, until now, refused to visit the house “because of the naming.”
“You all know that I had a serious problem with that,” Dickerson said. “This just makes me really happy to know that this is being done. Maybe I’ll come visit now.”
Bristow Marchant contributed reporting.
This story was originally published October 21, 2020 at 2:43 PM.
