In 1909, William Howard Taft entered the White House, pledging to preserve and expand the Progressive policies of his predecessor Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt, in turn, promised to stay out of politics. But over the next year, a controversy at the Department of the Interior convinced Roosevelt that his legacy was under threat. Soon, he would reenter the political arena, sparking a bitter struggle for control of the Republican party.

Roosevelt stirred the public with a bold agenda known as the “New Nationalism.” But Taft wasn’t his only adversary. As the 1912 election got underway, New Jersey Democrat Woodrow Wilson entered the fray with an alternative vision of Progressive reform.

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