Woodrow Wilson House will open a new exhibition, My Third Leg: Woodrow Wilson’s Walking Sticks on February 11th, 2010 just in time for President’s Day. This exhibition will showcase a selection of over 30 of President Wilson’s most prized walking sticks including elaborate examples of American folk art and historically significant presentation pieces. These important artifacts tell the story of Wilson’s life from his early years as a professor and later president of Princeton University, through his two terms in the White House, to his final struggle with disability.

On October 2, 1919 President Wilson suffered a serious stroke that would leave him physically debilitated for the rest of his life. From this point until his death in 1924 he depended upon his trusty cane--his “third leg,” as he called it--to get around. Wilson was not alone, of the 4.7 million Americans that fought in World War I, more than 200,000 returned wounded, many of these veterans would depend upon walking sticks and artificial limbs for support.

Today canes are often used exclusively for medical or utilitarian purposes. While Wilson certainly depended on his cane for support in later years, it was also much more than this. Wilson’s lifetime saw the heyday of cane carrying in America. Popular as a gentleman’s fashion accessory in the 19th century, walking sticks began to fall from fashion following the end of World War I as a younger generation took the stage. The same period saw women begin to carry canes as traditional fashion roles were turned upside-down. Wilson’s youngest daughter, Nell, an early practitioner of this new fashion craze, made headlines in 1915 by carrying a cane in Washington.

When the first family’s luggage arrived at the White House on March 5, 1913 after Wilson’s inauguration as President, it included “seven trunks, eleven suit cases, eleven umbrellas, and several canes.” As President, Wilson would add to this collection a number of walking sticks received as gifts from the American people, amassing a total of over 50 canes. Some of these are simple yet elegant fashion accessories, carried by a dapper young Wilson at Princeton; others are imaginative examples of American folk art, hand-crafted by self-taught artists and depicting snakes, dogs, or birds in flight; some are historically significant presentation pieces—a hickory stick once owned by President Andrew Jackson for instance; still others are sturdy, practical sticks which would support the ailing President following the debilitating stroke he suffered in October 1919 as he criss-crossed the country seeking support for America's participation in the League of Nations.

Highlights of the exhibition include a cane made entirely from horn by a life-term convict in the Atlanta Federal prison, which was presented to Wilson upon his marriage to Edith Bolling Galt in December 1915. An exquisite example of folk art, one cane features an alligator carved from hickory with a penknife by a Confederate veteran from Clayton, Alabama. A wide range of folk art carvings include everything from a dog’s head complete with miniature beaded eyes to a cane with handle shaped like a hand holding a hotdog. One unassuming cane conceals a blade of sharp Toledo steel, another practical model contains a hidden umbrella in case of unexpected rain.

Historically significant pieces include a cane carved from wood found at the grave of Confederate General “Stonewall” Jackson in Lexington, Virginia and another made from the wreck of the Confederate gunboat General Beauregard sunk off Memphis, Tennessee on June 6, 1862. In February 1914 Wilson was presented with President Andrew Jackson’s famous hickory stick, said to have been the stick with which “Old Hickory” located the United States Treasury on the corner of Fifteenth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, NW in 1836.

The exhibition will run from February 11th to August 15th, 2010.