Frank Aucella, executive director at the Woodrow Wilson House, discusses a portrait of Wilson by John Christen Johansen, on view at the National Portrait Gallery in the exhibition "America's Presidents."Elected to the White House after winning wide acclaim as the reforming governor of New Jersey, Woodrow Wilson left an impressive legacy of change that sought to curb abusive business practices and improve conditions for workers. But Wilson was not as successful in winning approval for his international idealism during World War I. Determined to make this conflict "the war to end all wars," he sought at its end to create a world order that put peace ahead of national self-interest. America's European allies, however, undermined these hopes, insisting on a postwar peace settlement that contained the seeds of another war. A far worse disappointment for Wilson himself was his failure to persuade his own country to join the League of Nations, an organization he had conceived as the best hope for avoiding future wars. Having suffered a stroke while campaigning for American entry into the league, he left office in 1921, broken in both health and spirit. Recorded at NPG, September 24, 2009. Image info: Woodrow Wilson / John Christen Johansen / Oil on canvas, c 1919 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; transfer from the Smithsonian American Art Museum; gift of an anonymous donor, 1926