Woodrow Wilson Family Home Virtual Interpretation

Historic Columbia Foundation has created an online “virtual tour” of several key rooms in the historic Woodrow Wilson Family Home in downtown Columbia. Online visitors can now see the passage/butler’s pantry, the main pantry, the water closet, and the bathing room and understand how they were used in the 19th century by the Wilson family and their staff. SC Humanities supported this project with a Major Grant in February 2011.

The Woodrow Wilson Family Home was built in 1872 and was the only home ever owned by Dr. Joseph Ruggles Wilson and Jesse Wilson, the parents of future President Woodrow Wilson. The rear section of this property, including the passage/butler’s pantry, the main pantry, the water closet, and the bathing room, was inaccessible to the public and has not previously been interpreted.

The virtual website tour allows visitors to see these unfinished spaces as they are currently as well as learn how they might have looked when the house was inhabited. Extensive interpretive content examines how daily life was lived in these rooms.

The virtual tour can be made by visiting the website: http://www.woodrowwilsonfamilyhome.com/.  More information about Historic Columbia Foundation and their other projects can be found on their website: http://historiccolumbia.org/.

The mission of SC Humanities is to enrich the cultural and intellectual lives of all South Carolinians. SC Humanities programs and initiatives are balanced, reflecting sensitivity to the diversity of ideas, encourage open dialogue, demonstrate integrity, and are ethical in operations.