Victoria Woodhull
Encyclopedia
Victoria Claflin Woodhull (September 23, 1838 – June 9, 1927) was an American
leader of the woman's suffrage
movement, an advocate of free love; together with her sister, the first women to operate a brokerage in Wall Street; the first women to start a weekly newspaper; an activist for women's rights and labor reforms and, in 1872, the first woman candidate for President of the United States
.
Woodhull went from rags to riches twice, her first fortune being made on the road as a highly successful magnetic healer
before she joined the spiritualist movement in the 1870s. While authorship of many of her articles is disputed (many of her speeches on these topics were collaborations between Woodhull, her backers and her second husband Colonel James Blood
), her role as a representative of these movements was powerful. Together with her sister, she was the first woman to operate a brokerage firm in Wall Street
, and they were the first women to found a newspaper, Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly.
At her peak of political activity in the early 1870s, Woodhull is best known as the first woman candidate for the United States presidency, which she ran for in 1872 from the Equal Rights Party
, supporting women's suffrage and equal rights. Her arrest on obscenity
charges a few days before the election, for publishing an account of the alleged adulterous affair between the prominent minister, Henry Ward Beecher
, and Elizabeth Tilton, added to the sensational coverage of her candidacy. She did not receive any electoral votes, and there is conflicting evidence about popular votes.
Many of the reforms and ideals which Woodhull espoused for the working class, against what she saw as the corrupt capitalist elite, were extremely controversial in her time. Generations later many of these reforms have been implemented and are now taken for granted. Other of her ideas and suggested reforms are still debated today.
, Licking County, Ohio
. Her mother Roxanna Hummel Claflin was illiterate and had been born illegitimate. She had become a follower of the Austrian mystic Franz Mesmer
and the new spiritualist
movement. Her father Reuben Buckman Claflin was a con man and snake oil
salesman. He came from an impoverished branch of the Massachusetts
-based Scots-American Claflin family
, semi-distant cousins to Governor William Claflin
. Victoria became close to her sister Tennessee Celeste Claflin
(called Tennie), seven years her junior and the last child born to the family. They worked together as adults.
Victoria wrote later that she was "a child without a childhood," as her parents hired her out as a menial. Her own connection to spiritualism began at an early age; Woodhull recounted that when the work was overwhelming, heavy objects seemed to be lifted by unseen hands and "...when walking it seemed my feet did not touch the ground." By age 11, she had only three years of formal education, but her teachers found her to be extremely intelligent. She was forced to leave school and Homer with her family after her father burned the family's rotting gristmill
. When he tried to get compensated by insurance, his arson and fraud were discovered; and he was run off by a group of town vigilantes. The town paid for the rest of the family to follow him to Pennsylvania.
When she was 14, Victoria met 28-year-old Canning Woodhull (listed as "Channing" in some records), a doctor from a town outside Rochester, New York
. Her family had consulted him to treat the girl for a chronic illness. Woodhull practiced medicine in Ohio at a time when the state did not require formal medical education and licensing. By some accounts, Woodhull claimed to be the nephew of Caleb Smith Woodhull
, mayor of New York City from 1849 to 1851; but, he was a distant cousin.
Their marriage certificate was recorded in Cleveland
on November 23, 1853, when Victoria was two months past her 15th birthday. She soon learned that her new husband was an alcoholic and a womanizer. She often had to work outside the home to support the family. She and Canning had two children, Byron and Zulu (later Zula) Maude. According to one account , Byron was born with an intellectual disability
in 1854, a condition Victoria believed was caused by her husband's alcoholism. Another version said his disability resulted from a fall from a window. Woodhull divorced her husband.
About 1865 she married Colonel James Harvey Blood
, who also was marrying for a second time. He had served in the Union Army
in Missouri
during the American Civil War
, and had been elected as mayor of Lawrence, Kansas
. They divorced in October 1876.
In 1872 Victoria Woodhull had started a relationship with the anarchist Benjamin Tucker
, which lasted for three years.
After moving to England in 1877, Woodhull met John Biddulph Martin, a banker, at one of her first public lectures in 1877 in London. They married in 1883. He died in 1901.
Free love
Woodhull's support of free love
probably originated as she discovered the failings of her first husband. Women who married in the United States
during the 19th century were bound into the unions, whether loveless or not, with few options to escape. Divorce, where possible, was scandalous, and women who divorce
d were stigmatized and often ostracized by society. Victoria Woodhull concluded women should have the choice to leave unbearable marriages. She railed against the hypocrisy of society's tolerating married men who had mistress
es and engaged in other sexual dalliances. Woodhull believed in monogamous relationships, although she did state she had the right also to love someone else "exclusively" if she desired. She said:
The Woodhull Freedom Foundation & Federation, which works through research, advocacy, and public education to affirm sexual freedom as a fundamental human right, is a global sexual freedom advocacy organization named in honor of Victoria Woodhull.
Female stockbroker
Woodhull and her sister Tennessee (Tennie) Claflin became the first women broker
s and in 1870 opened a brokerage firm on Wall Street
. She made a fortune on the New York Stock Exchange
. Woodhull, Claflin & Company opened in 1870 with the assistance of the wealthy Cornelius Vanderbilt
, an admirer of Woodhull's skills as a medium and rumored to have been her sister Tennie's lover. Newspapers such as the New York Herald
hailed Woodhull and Claflin as "the Queens of Finance" and "the Bewitching Brokers." Many contemporary men's journals (e.g., The Days' Doings) published sexualized images of the pair running their firm (although they did not participate in the day-to-day business of the firm), linking the concept of publicly minded, un-chaperoned women with ideas of "sexual immorality
" and prostitution
.
Newspaper editor
On May 14, 1870, Woodhull and Claflin used the money they had made from their brokerage to found a paper, Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly, which published for the next six years. It became notorious for publishing controversial opinions on taboo topics, advocating among other things sex education
, free love
, women's suffrage, short skirts, spiritualism
, vegetarianism
, and licensed prostitution. Histories often state the paper advocated birth control
, but some historians disagree. The paper is now known primarily for printing the first English version of Karl Marx
's Communist Manifesto in its December 30, 1871 edition.
In 1872 the Weekly published a story that set off a national scandal and preoccupied the public for months. Henry Ward Beecher
, a renowned preacher of Brooklyn's Plymouth Church, had condemned Woodhull's free love philosophy in his sermons. But a member of his church, Theodore Tilton
, disclosed to Elizabeth Cady Stanton
, a colleague of Woodhull, that his wife had confessed Beecher was committing adultery with her. Provoked by such hypocrisy, Woodhull decided to expose Beecher. He ended up standing trial in 1875 for adultery in a proceeding that proved to be one of the most sensational legal episodes of the era, holding the attention of hundreds of thousands of Americans. The trial ended with a hung jury
.
George Francis Train
once defended her. Other feminists of her time, including Susan B. Anthony
, disagreed with her tactics in pushing for women's equality. Some characterized her as opportunistic and unpredictable; in one notable incident, she had a run-in with Anthony during a meeting of the National Women's Suffrage Association (NWSA). (The radical NWSA later merged with the conservative American Women's Suffrage Association (AWSA) to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association
).
Women's rights advocate
Woodhull learned how to penetrate the all-male domain of national politics. A year into earning substantial income on Wall Street, she arranged to testify on women's suffrage before the House Judiciary Committee. Woodhull argued that women already had the right to vote — all they had to do was use it — since the 14th
and 15th Amendments
granted that right to all citizens. The simple but powerful logic of her argument impressed some committee members. Learning of Woodhull's planned address, suffrage leaders postponed the opening of the 1871 National Woman Suffrage Association's third annual convention in Washington in order to attend the committee hearing. Susan B. Anthony
, Elizabeth Cady Stanton
, and Isabella Beecher Hooker
, saw Woodhull as the newest champion of their cause. They applauded her statement: "[W]omen are the equals of men before the law, and are equal in all their rights."
With the power of her first public appearance as a woman's rights advocate, Woodhull moved to the leadership circle of the suffrage movement. Although her Constitutional argument was not original, she focused unprecedented public attention on suffrage. Following Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Woodhull was the second woman ever to petition Congress in person. Numerous newspapers reported her appearance before Congress. Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper printed a full-page engraving of Woodhull, surrounded by prominent suffragists, delivering her argument.
First International
Woodhull joined the International Workingmen's Association, also known as the First International. She supported its goals by articles in her newspaper. In the United States, many Yankee radicals: former abolitionists and other progressive activists, became involved in the organization, which had been founded in England. German-American and ethnic Irish nearly lost control of the organization, and feared its goals were going to be lost in the broad-based, democratic egalitarianism promoted by the Americans. In 1871 the Germans expelled most of the English-speaking members of the First International's U.S. sections, leading to the quick decline of the organization, as it failed to attract the ethnic working class in America. Karl Marx commented disparagingly on Woodhull in 1872, and expressed approval of the expulsions.
Presidential candidate
Woodhull was nominated for President of the United States
by the newly formed Equal Rights Party
on May 10, 1872, at Apollo Hall, New York City. A year earlier, she had announced her intention to run. Also in 1871, she spoke publicly against the government being composed only of men; she proposed developing a new constitution and a new government a year thence. Her nomination was ratified at the convention on June 6, 1872. They nominated the former slave and abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass
for Vice President. He did not attend the convention and never acknowledged the nomination. He served as a presidential elector in the United States Electoral College
for the State of New York.
While many historians and authors agree that Woodhull was the first woman to run for President of the United States, some have questioned that priority given issues with the legality of her run. They disagree with classifying it as a true candidacy for the following reasons:
At the time, political parties rather than the federal government were responsible for printing ballots. This practice changed in the United States between the years 1888-1892 with the adoption of the Australian ballot. About 50 years after the election, The Washington Post
claimed that the Equal Rights Party published ballots bearing Woodhull's name and that they were handed out at the polls. Because no Equal Rights Party ballot for 1872 has been preserved, this claim cannot be confirmed. The first woman to appear on a presidential ballot printed by the federal government was Charlene Mitchell
in 1968.
In the 20th and 21st centuries, this is the most cited criticism by political analysts, but election coverage by newspapers does not suggest it was a significant issue in the 19th century. The presidential inauguration was in March 1873. Woodhull's 35th birthday was in September 1873. Some contend attorney Belva Lockwood was the first woman to run for President, because she was the legal age at the time of candidacy, but other critiques were similarly posed against the legality of her candidacy. No primary documentation supports Woodhull's birth in 1838. Ohio did not require the registration of births until 1867. The probate court in Licking County, Ohio, burned down in 1875 and destroyed all previously recorded records except land records.
There is evidence that Woodhull received popular votes that were not counted. Official election returns also show about 2,000 "scattering votes." It is unknown whether any of those scattering votes were cast for her. Supporters contend that her popular votes were not counted because of gender discrimination and prejudice; critics contend the votes were not counted because they had other legal defects besides gender. The first woman to receive an electoral vote was Libertarian
Tonie Nathan, who received a vote for Vice President in 1972.
Some women legally voted in state, territorial or local elections, and held public office prior to 1920. The Wyoming Territory
granted women the vote in 1869. Susanna M. Salter
was elected Mayor of Argonia, Kansas
, in 1887, and Jeannette Rankin
of Montana
was elected to Congress in 1916. In New York
, Woodhull's state of residence, propertied women had the right to vote until 1777, when it was withdrawn. In 1871, Woodhull went to the polls for a local election in New York and was allowed to register, but when she returned to vote, her ballot was refused by election officials.
Some scholars say that it was not until passage of the 19th amendment, giving women the right to vote, that women implicitly had the right to run for President. For that reason, they contend Senator Margaret Chase Smith
was the first woman presidential candidate; she was nominated at the 1964 Republican National Convention
. Smith is often identified as the first woman to be nominated for President by a major party. But, Laura Clay
and Cora Wilson Stewart of Kentucky were nominated as candidates for the presidency at the 1920 Democratic National Convention
and received "the first vote cast for a woman in the convention of either of the two great parties."
In the 19th century, this was the most cited legal restriction to her candidacy. Some of Woodhull's contemporaries believed that as a woman, she was not a full citizen, as she was not entitled to vote. Since the Constitution required that the President be a citizen, she was excluded from holding the office. Others believed women were citizens, but that the states had the right to limit the franchise
to males only. Some Woodhull supporters believed that although Woodhull could not vote legally, other could vote for her. United States law has its roots in English common law, and it had an established precedent of women holding public office.
Woodhull's campaign was also notable for the nomination of Frederick Douglass, although he did not take part in it. His nomination stirred up controversy about the mixing of whites and blacks
in public life and fears of miscegenation
(especially as he had married a much younger white woman after his first wife died.) The Equal Rights Party hoped to use the nominations to reunite suffragists with African-American civil rights
activists, as the exclusion of female suffrage from the Fifteenth Amendment
two years earlier had caused a substantial rift between the groups.
The circumstances leading up to Woodhull's nomination had created a rift between Woodhull and her former supporter Susan B. Anthony
, and almost ended the collaboration of Anthony with Elizabeth Cady Stanton
. Stanton, who had unsuccessfully run for Congress in New York in 1868, was more sympathetic to Woodhull. Anthony voted for the Republican candidate, Ulysses S. Grant
in the presidential election. Like many of Woodhull's protests, her nomination for the presidency was first and foremost a media performance, designed to shake up the prejudices of the day.
Having been vilified in the media for her support of free love
, Woodhull devoted an issue of Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly (November 2, 1872) to an alleged adulterous affair between Elizabeth Tilton and Reverend Henry Ward Beecher
, a prominent Protestant minister in New York (he supported female suffrage but had lectured against free love in his sermons). Woodhull published the article to highlight what she saw as a sexual double-standard between men and women.
That same day, a few days before the presidential election, U.S. Federal Marshals
arrested Woodhull, her second husband Colonel James Blood
, and her sister Tennie C. Claflin on charges of "publishing an obscene newspaper" because of the content of this issue. The sisters were held in the Ludlow Street Jail
for the next month, a place normally reserved for civil offenses, but which contained more hardened criminals as well. The arrest was arranged by Anthony Comstock
, the self-appointed moral defender of the nation at the time. Opponents raised questions about censorship and government persecution. The three were acquitted on a technicality six months later, but the arrest prevented Woodhull from attempting to vote during the 1872 presidential election. With the publication of the scandal, Theodore Tilton
, the husband of Elizabeth, sued Beecher for "alienation of affection." The trial in 1875 was sensationalized across the nation, and eventually resulted in a hung jury.
Woodhull tried to gain nominations for the presidency again in 1884
and 1892
. The newspapers in 1892 reported that she was nominated by the "National Woman Suffragists' Nominating Convention" on September 21 at Willard's Hotel in Boonville, New York
, presided over by Anna M. Parker, President of the convention. Mary L. Stowe
of California was nominated as the vice presidential candidate, but some woman's suffrage organizations repudiated the nominations, saying that the nominating committee was not authorized. In 1892 Woodhull was quoted as saying she was "destined" by "prophecy" to be elected President of the United States in 1892.
Life in England
In October 1876, Woodhull divorced her second husband, Colonel Blood. Less than a year later, exhausted and possibly depressed, she left for England to start a new life. She made her first public appearance as a lecturer at St. James's Hall in London on December 4, 1877. Her lecture was called "The Human Body, the Temple of God," a lecture which she had previously presented in the United States. Present at one of her lectures was the banker John Biddulph Martin. They began to see each other and married on October 31, 1883. (His family disapproved of his marriage.)
From then on, she was known as Victoria Woodhull Martin. Under that name, she published the magazine, The Humanitarian, from 1892 to 1901, with help from her daughter Zula Woodhull. After her husband died in 1901, Woodhull Martin gave up publishing and retired to the country, establishing residence at Bredon's Norton
.
Death
Legacy and honors
Further reading
Documentary
Publications
External links
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
leader of the woman's suffrage
Suffragette
"Suffragette" is a term coined by the Daily Mail newspaper as a derogatory label for members of the late 19th and early 20th century movement for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom, in particular members of the Women's Social and Political Union...
movement, an advocate of free love; together with her sister, the first women to operate a brokerage in Wall Street; the first women to start a weekly newspaper; an activist for women's rights and labor reforms and, in 1872, the first woman candidate for President of the United States
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
.
Woodhull went from rags to riches twice, her first fortune being made on the road as a highly successful magnetic healer
Animal magnetism
Animal magnetism , in modern usage, refers to a person's sexual attractiveness or raw charisma. As postulated by Franz Mesmer in the 18th century, the term referred to a supposed magnetic fluid or ethereal medium believed to reside in the bodies of animate beings...
before she joined the spiritualist movement in the 1870s. While authorship of many of her articles is disputed (many of her speeches on these topics were collaborations between Woodhull, her backers and her second husband Colonel James Blood
Colonel James Blood
For the jazz/blues guitarist see James Blood UlmerJames Harvey Blood was a former Commander of the 6th Missouri Infantry in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He was called Colonel, and he was elected as the mayor of Lawrence, Kansas afterward...
), her role as a representative of these movements was powerful. Together with her sister, she was the first woman to operate a brokerage firm in Wall Street
Wall Street
Wall Street refers to the financial district of New York City, named after and centered on the eight-block-long street running from Broadway to South Street on the East River in Lower Manhattan. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, or...
, and they were the first women to found a newspaper, Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly.
At her peak of political activity in the early 1870s, Woodhull is best known as the first woman candidate for the United States presidency, which she ran for in 1872 from the Equal Rights Party
Equal Rights Party
Equal Rights Party may refer to:*Equal Rights Party *Equal Rights Party , four different 19th century American political parties*Liberia Equal Rights Party*Equal Rights...
, supporting women's suffrage and equal rights. Her arrest on obscenity
Obscenity
An obscenity is any statement or act which strongly offends the prevalent morality of the time, is a profanity, or is otherwise taboo, indecent, abhorrent, or disgusting, or is especially inauspicious...
charges a few days before the election, for publishing an account of the alleged adulterous affair between the prominent minister, Henry Ward Beecher
Henry Ward Beecher
Henry Ward Beecher was a prominent Congregationalist clergyman, social reformer, abolitionist, and speaker in the mid to late 19th century...
, and Elizabeth Tilton, added to the sensational coverage of her candidacy. She did not receive any electoral votes, and there is conflicting evidence about popular votes.
Many of the reforms and ideals which Woodhull espoused for the working class, against what she saw as the corrupt capitalist elite, were extremely controversial in her time. Generations later many of these reforms have been implemented and are now taken for granted. Other of her ideas and suggested reforms are still debated today.
Early life and education
Woodhull was born Victoria California Claflin, the seventh of ten children, in the rural frontier town of HomerHomer, Ohio
Homer is an unincorporated community in northern Burlington Township, Licking County, Ohio, United States. Although it is unincorporated, it has a post office, with the ZIP code of 43027. It lies along State Route 661 between Granville and Mount Vernon....
, Licking County, Ohio
Licking County, Ohio
Licking County is a county located in the state of Ohio, United States. As of the 2010 census, the population was 166,492. Its county seat is Newark and is named for the salt licks that were in the area....
. Her mother Roxanna Hummel Claflin was illiterate and had been born illegitimate. She had become a follower of the Austrian mystic Franz Mesmer
Franz Mesmer
Franz Anton Mesmer , sometimes, albeit incorrectly, referred to as Friedrich Anton Mesmer, was a German physician with an interest in astronomy, who theorised that there was a natural energetic transference that occurred between all animated and inanimate objects that he called magnétisme animal ...
and the new spiritualist
Spiritualism
Spiritualism is a belief system or religion, postulating the belief that spirits of the dead residing in the spirit world have both the ability and the inclination to communicate with the living...
movement. Her father Reuben Buckman Claflin was a con man and snake oil
Snake oil
Snake oil is a topical preparation made from the Chinese Water Snake , which is used to treat joint pain. However, the most common usage of the phrase is as a derogatory term for quack medicine...
salesman. He came from an impoverished branch of the Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
-based Scots-American Claflin family
Claflin family
The Claflin family are a Scottish American family of 17th century New England origins. The descendants of Robert Mackclothlan of Wenham, Massachusetts, a Scottish soldier and prisoner of war who probably belonged to the Clan Maclachlan, and his wife Joanna Warner, members have distinguished...
, semi-distant cousins to Governor William Claflin
William Claflin
William Claflin was an industrialist and philanthropist who served as the 27th Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts from 1869–1872 and as a member of the United States Congress from 1877–1881....
. Victoria became close to her sister Tennessee Celeste Claflin
Tennessee Celeste Claflin
Tennessee Celeste Claflin , also known as Tennie C. and later Lady Cook, was an American suffragist best known as one of the first women to open a Wall Street brokerage firm...
(called Tennie), seven years her junior and the last child born to the family. They worked together as adults.
Victoria wrote later that she was "a child without a childhood," as her parents hired her out as a menial. Her own connection to spiritualism began at an early age; Woodhull recounted that when the work was overwhelming, heavy objects seemed to be lifted by unseen hands and "...when walking it seemed my feet did not touch the ground." By age 11, she had only three years of formal education, but her teachers found her to be extremely intelligent. She was forced to leave school and Homer with her family after her father burned the family's rotting gristmill
Gristmill
The terms gristmill or grist mill can refer either to a building in which grain is ground into flour, or to the grinding mechanism itself.- Early history :...
. When he tried to get compensated by insurance, his arson and fraud were discovered; and he was run off by a group of town vigilantes. The town paid for the rest of the family to follow him to Pennsylvania.
When she was 14, Victoria met 28-year-old Canning Woodhull (listed as "Channing" in some records), a doctor from a town outside Rochester, New York
Rochester, New York
Rochester is a city in Monroe County, New York, south of Lake Ontario in the United States. Known as The World's Image Centre, it was also once known as The Flour City, and more recently as The Flower City...
. Her family had consulted him to treat the girl for a chronic illness. Woodhull practiced medicine in Ohio at a time when the state did not require formal medical education and licensing. By some accounts, Woodhull claimed to be the nephew of Caleb Smith Woodhull
Caleb Smith Woodhull
Caleb Smith Woodhull was the Mayor of New York from 1849 to 1851....
, mayor of New York City from 1849 to 1851; but, he was a distant cousin.
Marriage and family
Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The city is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately west of the Pennsylvania border...
on November 23, 1853, when Victoria was two months past her 15th birthday. She soon learned that her new husband was an alcoholic and a womanizer. She often had to work outside the home to support the family. She and Canning had two children, Byron and Zulu (later Zula) Maude. According to one account , Byron was born with an intellectual disability
Intellectual disability
Intellectual disability is a broad concept encompassing various intellectual deficits, including mental retardation , deficits too mild to properly qualify as MR, various specific conditions , and problems acquired later in life through acquired brain injuries or neurodegenerative diseases like...
in 1854, a condition Victoria believed was caused by her husband's alcoholism. Another version said his disability resulted from a fall from a window. Woodhull divorced her husband.
About 1865 she married Colonel James Harvey Blood
Colonel James Blood
For the jazz/blues guitarist see James Blood UlmerJames Harvey Blood was a former Commander of the 6th Missouri Infantry in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He was called Colonel, and he was elected as the mayor of Lawrence, Kansas afterward...
, who also was marrying for a second time. He had served in the Union Army
Union Army
The Union Army was the land force that fought for the Union during the American Civil War. It was also known as the Federal Army, the U.S. Army, the Northern Army and the National Army...
in Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...
during the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
, and had been elected as mayor of Lawrence, Kansas
Lawrence, Kansas
Lawrence is the sixth largest city in the U.S. State of Kansas and the county seat of Douglas County. Located in northeastern Kansas, Lawrence is the anchor city of the Lawrence, Kansas, Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Douglas County...
. They divorced in October 1876.
In 1872 Victoria Woodhull had started a relationship with the anarchist Benjamin Tucker
Benjamin Tucker
Benjamin Ricketson Tucker was a proponent of American individualist anarchism in the 19th century, and editor and publisher of the individualist anarchist periodical Liberty.-Summary:Tucker says that he became an anarchist at the age of 18...
, which lasted for three years.
After moving to England in 1877, Woodhull met John Biddulph Martin, a banker, at one of her first public lectures in 1877 in London. They married in 1883. He died in 1901.
Free love
Woodhull's support of free love
Free love
The term free love has been used to describe a social movement that rejects marriage, which is seen as a form of social bondage. The Free Love movement’s initial goal was to separate the state from sexual matters such as marriage, birth control, and adultery...
probably originated as she discovered the failings of her first husband. Women who married in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
during the 19th century were bound into the unions, whether loveless or not, with few options to escape. Divorce, where possible, was scandalous, and women who divorce
Divorce
Divorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...
d were stigmatized and often ostracized by society. Victoria Woodhull concluded women should have the choice to leave unbearable marriages. She railed against the hypocrisy of society's tolerating married men who had mistress
Mistress (lover)
A mistress is a long-term female lover and companion who is not married to her partner; the term is used especially when her partner is married. The relationship generally is stable and at least semi-permanent; however, the couple does not live together openly. Also the relationship is usually,...
es and engaged in other sexual dalliances. Woodhull believed in monogamous relationships, although she did state she had the right also to love someone else "exclusively" if she desired. She said:
The Woodhull Freedom Foundation & Federation, which works through research, advocacy, and public education to affirm sexual freedom as a fundamental human right, is a global sexual freedom advocacy organization named in honor of Victoria Woodhull.
Female stockbroker
Woodhull and her sister Tennessee (Tennie) Claflin became the first women broker
Stock broker
A stock broker or stockbroker is a regulated professional broker who buys and sells shares and other securities through market makers or Agency Only Firms on behalf of investors...
s and in 1870 opened a brokerage firm on Wall Street
Wall Street
Wall Street refers to the financial district of New York City, named after and centered on the eight-block-long street running from Broadway to South Street on the East River in Lower Manhattan. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, or...
. She made a fortune on the New York Stock Exchange
New York Stock Exchange
The New York Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located at 11 Wall Street in Lower Manhattan, New York City, USA. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed companies at 13.39 trillion as of Dec 2010...
. Woodhull, Claflin & Company opened in 1870 with the assistance of the wealthy Cornelius Vanderbilt
Cornelius Vanderbilt
Cornelius Vanderbilt , also known by the sobriquet Commodore, was an American entrepreneur who built his wealth in shipping and railroads. He was also the patriarch of the Vanderbilt family and one of the richest Americans in history...
, an admirer of Woodhull's skills as a medium and rumored to have been her sister Tennie's lover. Newspapers such as the New York Herald
New York Herald
The New York Herald was a large distribution newspaper based in New York City that existed between May 6, 1835, and 1924.-History:The first issue of the paper was published by James Gordon Bennett, Sr., on May 6, 1835. By 1845 it was the most popular and profitable daily newspaper in the UnitedStates...
hailed Woodhull and Claflin as "the Queens of Finance" and "the Bewitching Brokers." Many contemporary men's journals (e.g., The Days' Doings) published sexualized images of the pair running their firm (although they did not participate in the day-to-day business of the firm), linking the concept of publicly minded, un-chaperoned women with ideas of "sexual immorality
Religion and sexuality
Most world religions have sought to address the moral issues that arise from people's sexuality in society and in human interactions. Each major religion has developed moral codes covering issues of sexuality, morality, ethics etc...
" and prostitution
Prostitution
Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...
.
Newspaper editor
On May 14, 1870, Woodhull and Claflin used the money they had made from their brokerage to found a paper, Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly, which published for the next six years. It became notorious for publishing controversial opinions on taboo topics, advocating among other things sex education
Sex education
Sex education refers to formal programs of instruction on a wide range of issues relating to human sexuality, including human sexual anatomy, sexual reproduction, sexual intercourse, reproductive health, emotional relations, reproductive rights and responsibilities, abstinence, contraception, and...
, free love
Free love
The term free love has been used to describe a social movement that rejects marriage, which is seen as a form of social bondage. The Free Love movement’s initial goal was to separate the state from sexual matters such as marriage, birth control, and adultery...
, women's suffrage, short skirts, spiritualism
Spiritualism
Spiritualism is a belief system or religion, postulating the belief that spirits of the dead residing in the spirit world have both the ability and the inclination to communicate with the living...
, vegetarianism
Vegetarianism
Vegetarianism encompasses the practice of following plant-based diets , with or without the inclusion of dairy products or eggs, and with the exclusion of meat...
, and licensed prostitution. Histories often state the paper advocated birth control
Birth control
Birth control is an umbrella term for several techniques and methods used to prevent fertilization or to interrupt pregnancy at various stages. Birth control techniques and methods include contraception , contragestion and abortion...
, but some historians disagree. The paper is now known primarily for printing the first English version of Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
's Communist Manifesto in its December 30, 1871 edition.
In 1872 the Weekly published a story that set off a national scandal and preoccupied the public for months. Henry Ward Beecher
Henry Ward Beecher
Henry Ward Beecher was a prominent Congregationalist clergyman, social reformer, abolitionist, and speaker in the mid to late 19th century...
, a renowned preacher of Brooklyn's Plymouth Church, had condemned Woodhull's free love philosophy in his sermons. But a member of his church, Theodore Tilton
Theodore Tilton
Theodore Tilton was an American newspaper editor, poet and abolitionist. He was born in New York City to Silas Tilton and Eusebia Tilton . On his twentieth birthday of October 2, 1855, he married Elizabeth Richards, known as "Libby Tilton"...
, disclosed to Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Elizabeth Cady Stanton was an American social activist, abolitionist, and leading figure of the early woman's movement...
, a colleague of Woodhull, that his wife had confessed Beecher was committing adultery with her. Provoked by such hypocrisy, Woodhull decided to expose Beecher. He ended up standing trial in 1875 for adultery in a proceeding that proved to be one of the most sensational legal episodes of the era, holding the attention of hundreds of thousands of Americans. The trial ended with a hung jury
Hung jury
A hung jury or deadlocked jury is a jury that cannot, by the required voting threshold, agree upon a verdict after an extended period of deliberation and is unable to change its votes due to severe differences of opinion.- England and Wales :...
.
George Francis Train
George Francis Train
George Francis Train was an entrepreneurial businessman who organized the clipper ship line that sailed around Cape Horn to San Francisco; he organized the Union Pacific Railroad and the Credit Mobilier in the United States, and a horse tramway company in England while there during the American...
once defended her. Other feminists of her time, including Susan B. Anthony
Susan B. Anthony
Susan Brownell Anthony was a prominent American civil rights leader who played a pivotal role in the 19th century women's rights movement to introduce women's suffrage into the United States. She was co-founder of the first Women's Temperance Movement with Elizabeth Cady Stanton as President...
, disagreed with her tactics in pushing for women's equality. Some characterized her as opportunistic and unpredictable; in one notable incident, she had a run-in with Anthony during a meeting of the National Women's Suffrage Association (NWSA). (The radical NWSA later merged with the conservative American Women's Suffrage Association (AWSA) to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association
National American Woman Suffrage Association
The National American Woman Suffrage Association was an American women's rights organization formed in May 1890 as a unification of the National Woman Suffrage Association and the American Woman Suffrage Association...
).
Women's rights advocate
Woodhull learned how to penetrate the all-male domain of national politics. A year into earning substantial income on Wall Street, she arranged to testify on women's suffrage before the House Judiciary Committee. Woodhull argued that women already had the right to vote — all they had to do was use it — since the 14th
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments.Its Citizenship Clause provides a broad definition of citizenship that overruled the Dred Scott v...
and 15th Amendments
Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits each government in the United States from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen's "race, color, or previous condition of servitude"...
granted that right to all citizens. The simple but powerful logic of her argument impressed some committee members. Learning of Woodhull's planned address, suffrage leaders postponed the opening of the 1871 National Woman Suffrage Association's third annual convention in Washington in order to attend the committee hearing. Susan B. Anthony
Susan B. Anthony
Susan Brownell Anthony was a prominent American civil rights leader who played a pivotal role in the 19th century women's rights movement to introduce women's suffrage into the United States. She was co-founder of the first Women's Temperance Movement with Elizabeth Cady Stanton as President...
, Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Elizabeth Cady Stanton was an American social activist, abolitionist, and leading figure of the early woman's movement...
, and Isabella Beecher Hooker
Isabella Beecher Hooker
Isabella Beecher Hooker was a leader in the women's suffrage movement and an author.-Biography:Born in Litchfield, Connecticut, she was a daughter of Reverend Lyman Beecher, a noted abolitionist. Among her half brothers and sisters were Henry Ward Beecher, Charles Beecher, Catharine Beecher, and...
, saw Woodhull as the newest champion of their cause. They applauded her statement: "[W]omen are the equals of men before the law, and are equal in all their rights."
With the power of her first public appearance as a woman's rights advocate, Woodhull moved to the leadership circle of the suffrage movement. Although her Constitutional argument was not original, she focused unprecedented public attention on suffrage. Following Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Woodhull was the second woman ever to petition Congress in person. Numerous newspapers reported her appearance before Congress. Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper printed a full-page engraving of Woodhull, surrounded by prominent suffragists, delivering her argument.
First International
Woodhull joined the International Workingmen's Association, also known as the First International. She supported its goals by articles in her newspaper. In the United States, many Yankee radicals: former abolitionists and other progressive activists, became involved in the organization, which had been founded in England. German-American and ethnic Irish nearly lost control of the organization, and feared its goals were going to be lost in the broad-based, democratic egalitarianism promoted by the Americans. In 1871 the Germans expelled most of the English-speaking members of the First International's U.S. sections, leading to the quick decline of the organization, as it failed to attract the ethnic working class in America. Karl Marx commented disparagingly on Woodhull in 1872, and expressed approval of the expulsions.
Presidential candidate
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
by the newly formed Equal Rights Party
Equal Rights Party (United States)
The Equal Rights Party was the name for several different nineteenth century political parties in the United States.The first party was the Locofocos, during the 1830s and 1840s....
on May 10, 1872, at Apollo Hall, New York City. A year earlier, she had announced her intention to run. Also in 1871, she spoke publicly against the government being composed only of men; she proposed developing a new constitution and a new government a year thence. Her nomination was ratified at the convention on June 6, 1872. They nominated the former slave and abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass was an American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman. After escaping from slavery, he became a leader of the abolitionist movement, gaining note for his dazzling oratory and incisive antislavery writing...
for Vice President. He did not attend the convention and never acknowledged the nomination. He served as a presidential elector in the United States Electoral College
United States Electoral College
The Electoral College consists of the electors appointed by each state who formally elect the President and Vice President of the United States. Since 1964, there have been 538 electors in each presidential election...
for the State of New York.
While many historians and authors agree that Woodhull was the first woman to run for President of the United States, some have questioned that priority given issues with the legality of her run. They disagree with classifying it as a true candidacy for the following reasons:
- The government declined to print her name on the ballot.
At the time, political parties rather than the federal government were responsible for printing ballots. This practice changed in the United States between the years 1888-1892 with the adoption of the Australian ballot. About 50 years after the election, The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
claimed that the Equal Rights Party published ballots bearing Woodhull's name and that they were handed out at the polls. Because no Equal Rights Party ballot for 1872 has been preserved, this claim cannot be confirmed. The first woman to appear on a presidential ballot printed by the federal government was Charlene Mitchell
Charlene Mitchell
Charlene Mitchell is an African-American international socialist, feminist, labor and civil rights activist...
in 1968.
- She was younger than the constitutionally mandated age of 35.
In the 20th and 21st centuries, this is the most cited criticism by political analysts, but election coverage by newspapers does not suggest it was a significant issue in the 19th century. The presidential inauguration was in March 1873. Woodhull's 35th birthday was in September 1873. Some contend attorney Belva Lockwood was the first woman to run for President, because she was the legal age at the time of candidacy, but other critiques were similarly posed against the legality of her candidacy. No primary documentation supports Woodhull's birth in 1838. Ohio did not require the registration of births until 1867. The probate court in Licking County, Ohio, burned down in 1875 and destroyed all previously recorded records except land records.
- She did not receive any electoral and/or popular votes.
There is evidence that Woodhull received popular votes that were not counted. Official election returns also show about 2,000 "scattering votes." It is unknown whether any of those scattering votes were cast for her. Supporters contend that her popular votes were not counted because of gender discrimination and prejudice; critics contend the votes were not counted because they had other legal defects besides gender. The first woman to receive an electoral vote was Libertarian
Libertarian Party (United States)
The Libertarian Party is the third largest and fastest growing political party in the United States. The political platform of the Libertarian Party reflects its brand of libertarianism, favoring minimally regulated, laissez-faire markets, strong civil liberties, minimally regulated migration...
Tonie Nathan, who received a vote for Vice President in 1972.
- Women could not legally vote until August 1920.
Some women legally voted in state, territorial or local elections, and held public office prior to 1920. The Wyoming Territory
Wyoming Territory
The Territory of Wyoming was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from July 25, 1868, until July 10, 1890, when it was admitted to the Union as the State of Wyoming. Cheyenne was the territorial capital...
granted women the vote in 1869. Susanna M. Salter
Susanna M. Salter
Susanna Madora "Dora" Salter was a U.S. politician and activist. She served as mayor of Argonia, Kansas, becoming the first woman elected as mayor and the first woman elected to any political office in the United States....
was elected Mayor of Argonia, Kansas
Argonia, Kansas
Argonia is a city in Sumner County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 501.-Geography:Argonia is located at . According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , all of it land.-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 534...
, in 1887, and Jeannette Rankin
Jeannette Rankin
Jeannette Pickering Rankin was the first woman in the US Congress. A Republican, she was elected statewide in Montana in 1916 and again in 1940. A lifelong pacifist, she voted against the entry of the United States into both World War I in 1917 and World War II in 1941, the only member of Congress...
of Montana
Montana
Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...
was elected to Congress in 1916. In New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, Woodhull's state of residence, propertied women had the right to vote until 1777, when it was withdrawn. In 1871, Woodhull went to the polls for a local election in New York and was allowed to register, but when she returned to vote, her ballot was refused by election officials.
Some scholars say that it was not until passage of the 19th amendment, giving women the right to vote, that women implicitly had the right to run for President. For that reason, they contend Senator Margaret Chase Smith
Margaret Chase Smith
Margaret Chase Smith was a Republican Senator from Maine, and one of the most successful politicians in Maine history. She was the first woman to be elected to both the U.S. House and the Senate, and the first woman from Maine to serve in either. She was also the first woman to have her name...
was the first woman presidential candidate; she was nominated at the 1964 Republican National Convention
1964 Republican National Convention
The 1964 National Convention of the Republican Party of the United States took place in the Cow Palace, San Francisco, California, on July 13 to July 16, 1964. Before 1964, there had only been one national Republican convention on the West Coast...
. Smith is often identified as the first woman to be nominated for President by a major party. But, Laura Clay
Laura Clay
Laura Clay , co-founder and first president of the Kentucky Equal Rights Association, was a leader of the American women’s suffrage movement...
and Cora Wilson Stewart of Kentucky were nominated as candidates for the presidency at the 1920 Democratic National Convention
1920 Democratic National Convention
- External links :*...
and received "the first vote cast for a woman in the convention of either of the two great parties."
- She was a woman.
In the 19th century, this was the most cited legal restriction to her candidacy. Some of Woodhull's contemporaries believed that as a woman, she was not a full citizen, as she was not entitled to vote. Since the Constitution required that the President be a citizen, she was excluded from holding the office. Others believed women were citizens, but that the states had the right to limit the franchise
Franchise
Franchise generally means a right or privilege. It may refer to:*Suffrage, the civil right to vote*Franchising, a business method that involves licensing of trademarks and methods of doing business, such as:...
to males only. Some Woodhull supporters believed that although Woodhull could not vote legally, other could vote for her. United States law has its roots in English common law, and it had an established precedent of women holding public office.
Woodhull's campaign was also notable for the nomination of Frederick Douglass, although he did not take part in it. His nomination stirred up controversy about the mixing of whites and blacks
Black people
The term black people is used in systems of racial classification for humans of a dark skinned phenotype, relative to other racial groups.Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and often social variables such as class, socio-economic status also plays a...
in public life and fears of miscegenation
Miscegenation
Miscegenation is the mixing of different racial groups through marriage, cohabitation, sexual relations, and procreation....
(especially as he had married a much younger white woman after his first wife died.) The Equal Rights Party hoped to use the nominations to reunite suffragists with African-American civil rights
Civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
activists, as the exclusion of female suffrage from the Fifteenth Amendment
Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits each government in the United States from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen's "race, color, or previous condition of servitude"...
two years earlier had caused a substantial rift between the groups.
The circumstances leading up to Woodhull's nomination had created a rift between Woodhull and her former supporter Susan B. Anthony
Susan B. Anthony
Susan Brownell Anthony was a prominent American civil rights leader who played a pivotal role in the 19th century women's rights movement to introduce women's suffrage into the United States. She was co-founder of the first Women's Temperance Movement with Elizabeth Cady Stanton as President...
, and almost ended the collaboration of Anthony with Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Elizabeth Cady Stanton was an American social activist, abolitionist, and leading figure of the early woman's movement...
. Stanton, who had unsuccessfully run for Congress in New York in 1868, was more sympathetic to Woodhull. Anthony voted for the Republican candidate, Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant was the 18th President of the United States as well as military commander during the Civil War and post-war Reconstruction periods. Under Grant's command, the Union Army defeated the Confederate military and ended the Confederate States of America...
in the presidential election. Like many of Woodhull's protests, her nomination for the presidency was first and foremost a media performance, designed to shake up the prejudices of the day.
Having been vilified in the media for her support of free love
Free love
The term free love has been used to describe a social movement that rejects marriage, which is seen as a form of social bondage. The Free Love movement’s initial goal was to separate the state from sexual matters such as marriage, birth control, and adultery...
, Woodhull devoted an issue of Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly (November 2, 1872) to an alleged adulterous affair between Elizabeth Tilton and Reverend Henry Ward Beecher
Henry Ward Beecher
Henry Ward Beecher was a prominent Congregationalist clergyman, social reformer, abolitionist, and speaker in the mid to late 19th century...
, a prominent Protestant minister in New York (he supported female suffrage but had lectured against free love in his sermons). Woodhull published the article to highlight what she saw as a sexual double-standard between men and women.
That same day, a few days before the presidential election, U.S. Federal Marshals
United States Marshals Service
The United States Marshals Service is a United States federal law enforcement agency within the United States Department of Justice . The office of U.S. Marshal is the oldest federal law enforcement office in the United States; it was created by the Judiciary Act of 1789...
arrested Woodhull, her second husband Colonel James Blood
Colonel James Blood
For the jazz/blues guitarist see James Blood UlmerJames Harvey Blood was a former Commander of the 6th Missouri Infantry in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He was called Colonel, and he was elected as the mayor of Lawrence, Kansas afterward...
, and her sister Tennie C. Claflin on charges of "publishing an obscene newspaper" because of the content of this issue. The sisters were held in the Ludlow Street Jail
Ludlow Street Jail
The Ludlow Street Jail was New York City's federal prison, located on Ludlow Street and Broome Street in Manhattan. Some prisoners, such as soldiers, were held there temporarily awaiting extradition to other jurisdictions, but most of the inmates were debtors imprisoned by their creditors. The two...
for the next month, a place normally reserved for civil offenses, but which contained more hardened criminals as well. The arrest was arranged by Anthony Comstock
Anthony Comstock
Anthony Comstock was a United States Postal Inspector and politician dedicated to ideas of Victorian morality.-Biography:...
, the self-appointed moral defender of the nation at the time. Opponents raised questions about censorship and government persecution. The three were acquitted on a technicality six months later, but the arrest prevented Woodhull from attempting to vote during the 1872 presidential election. With the publication of the scandal, Theodore Tilton
Theodore Tilton
Theodore Tilton was an American newspaper editor, poet and abolitionist. He was born in New York City to Silas Tilton and Eusebia Tilton . On his twentieth birthday of October 2, 1855, he married Elizabeth Richards, known as "Libby Tilton"...
, the husband of Elizabeth, sued Beecher for "alienation of affection." The trial in 1875 was sensationalized across the nation, and eventually resulted in a hung jury.
Woodhull tried to gain nominations for the presidency again in 1884
United States presidential election, 1884
The United States presidential election of 1884 saw the first election of a Democrat as President of the United States since the election of 1856. New York Governor Grover Cleveland narrowly defeated Republican former United States Senator James G. Blaine of Maine to break the longest losing streak...
and 1892
United States presidential election, 1892
In the United States presidential election of 1892, former President Grover Cleveland ran for re-election against the incumbent President Benjamin Harrison, who was also running for re-election. Cleveland defeated Harrison, thus becoming the only person in American history to be elected to a...
. The newspapers in 1892 reported that she was nominated by the "National Woman Suffragists' Nominating Convention" on September 21 at Willard's Hotel in Boonville, New York
Boonville (town), New York
This page is about the town in New York. For other communities of the same name, see Boonville or for the village, see Boonville , New York...
, presided over by Anna M. Parker, President of the convention. Mary L. Stowe
Marietta Stow
Marietta L. B. Stow was an American suffragist. She ran for Governor of California as the candidate of the Women's Independent Political Party. She and Clara S...
of California was nominated as the vice presidential candidate, but some woman's suffrage organizations repudiated the nominations, saying that the nominating committee was not authorized. In 1892 Woodhull was quoted as saying she was "destined" by "prophecy" to be elected President of the United States in 1892.
Life in England
In October 1876, Woodhull divorced her second husband, Colonel Blood. Less than a year later, exhausted and possibly depressed, she left for England to start a new life. She made her first public appearance as a lecturer at St. James's Hall in London on December 4, 1877. Her lecture was called "The Human Body, the Temple of God," a lecture which she had previously presented in the United States. Present at one of her lectures was the banker John Biddulph Martin. They began to see each other and married on October 31, 1883. (His family disapproved of his marriage.)
From then on, she was known as Victoria Woodhull Martin. Under that name, she published the magazine, The Humanitarian, from 1892 to 1901, with help from her daughter Zula Woodhull. After her husband died in 1901, Woodhull Martin gave up publishing and retired to the country, establishing residence at Bredon's Norton
Bredon
Bredon is a large village and civil parish in Wychavon District at the southern edge of Worcestershire in England. It lies on the banks of the River Avon on the lower slopes of Bredon Hill, at “the beginning of the Cotswolds”...
.
Death
She died on June 9, 1927 at Norton Park in Bredon's Norton, Worcestershire, England near TewkesburyTewkesburyTewkesbury is a town in Gloucestershire, England. It stands at the confluence of the River Severn and the River Avon, and also minor tributaries the Swilgate and Carrant Brook...
, EnglandEnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, United KingdomUnited KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
.
Legacy and honors
- A cenotaph of Victoria Woodhull-Martin is located at Tewkesbury Abbey.
- She was honored by the Office of the Manhattan Borough President in March of 2008 and was included in a map of historical sitesWomen's Rights Historic SitesIn celebration of Women's History Month in March 2008, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer's Office created a map of important women's rights historic sites on Manhattan...
related or dedicated to important women.
Further reading
Women's Rights Historic Sites
In celebration of Women's History Month in March 2008, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer's Office created a map of important women's rights historic sites on Manhattan...
related or dedicated to important women.
- Brough, James. The Vixens. Simon & Schuster, 1980. ISBN 0-671-22688-6
- Carpenter, Cari M. Selected Writings of Victoria Woodhull: Suffrage, Free Love, and Eugenics, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2010
- Frisken, Amanda. Victoria Woodhull's Sexual Revolution, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004. ISBN 0-8122-3798-6
- Gabriel, Mary. Notorious Victoria: The Life of Victoria Woodhull Uncensored, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 1998, 372 pages. ISBN 1-56512-132-5
- Goldsmith, Barbara. Other Powers: The Age of Suffrage, Spiritualism, and the Scandalous Victoria Woodhull, New York: Harper Perennial, 1998, 531 pages. ISBN 0-06-095332-2
- Marberry, M.M. Vicky. Funk & Wagnills, New York. 1967
- Meade, MarionMarion MeadeMarion Meade is an American biographer and novelist, whose subjects stretch from 12th century French royalty to 20th century stand-up comedians. She is best known for her portraits of literary figures and iconic filmmakers....
. Free Woman, Alfred A. Knopf, Harper & Brothers, 1976 - Sachs, Emanie. The Terrible Siren, Harper & Brothers, 1928
- The Staff of the Historian's Office and National Portrait Gallery. If Elected...' Unsuccessful candidates for the presidency 1796-1968. Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Offices, 1972
- Stern, Madeleine B., ed., The Victoria Woodhull Reader, Weston, Mass.: M&S Press, 1974
- Underhill, Lois Beachy, The Woman Who Ran for President: The Many Lives of Victoria Woodhull (Bridgehampton, N.Y.: Bridge Works, 1st ed. 1995 (ISBN 1-882593-10-3))
Documentary
- Weston, Victoria. * America's Victoria, Remembering Victoria Woodhull features Gloria Steinem and actress Kate Capshaw. Zoie Films Productions (1998). PBS and Canadian Broadcasts.
Publications
- Antje Schrupp, Das Aufsehen erregende Leben der Victoria Woodhull (2002: Helmer).
- Woodhull, Victoria C., Free Lover: Sex, Marriage and Eugenics in the Early Speeches of Victoria Woodhull (Seattle, 2005). Four of her most important early and radical speeches on sexuality as facsimiles of the original published versions. Includes: "The Principle of Social Freedom" (1872), "The Scare-crows of Sexual Slavery" (1873), "The Elixir of Life" (1873), and "Tried as by Fire" (1873–74). ISBN 1-58742-050-3.
- Woodhull, Victoria C., Lady Eugenist: Feminist Eugenics in the Speeches and Writings of Victoria Woodhull (Seattle, 2005). Seven of her most important speeches and writings on eugenics. Five are facsimiles of the original, published versions. Includes: "Children--Their Rights and Privileges" (1871), "The Garden of Eden" (1875, publ. 1890), "Stirpiculture" (1888), "Humanitarian Government" (1890), "The Rapid Multiplication of the Unfit" (1891), and "The Scientific Propagation of the Human Race" (1893). ISBN 1-58742-040-6.
- Woodhull, Victoria C., Constitutional equality the logical result of the XIV and XV Amendments, which not only declare who are citizens, but also define their rights, one of which is the right to vote without regard to sex. New York: 1870.
- Woodhull, Victoria C., The Origin, Tendencies and Principles of Government, or, A Review of the Rise and Fall of Nations from Early Historic Time to the Present. New York: Woodhull, Claflin & Company, 1871.
- Woodhull, Victoria C., Speech of Victoria C. Woodhull on the great political issue of constitutional equality, delivered in Lincoln Hall, Washington, Cooper Institute, New York Academy of Music, Brooklyn, Academy of Music, Philadelphia, Opera House, Syracuse: together with her secession speech delivered at Apollo Hall. 1871.
- Woodhull, Victoria C. Martin, "The Rapid Multiplication of the Unfit". New York, 1891.
- Davis, Paulina W., ed. A history of the national woman's rights movement for twenty years. New York: Journeymen Printers' Cooperative Association, 1871.
- Riddle, A.G., The Right of women to exercise the elective franchise under the Fourteenth Article of the Constitution: speech of A.G. Riddle in the Suffrage Convention at Washington, January 11, 1871: the argument was made in support of the Woodhull memorial, before the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives, and reproduced in the Convention. Washington: 1871.
External links
- Woodhull on harvard.edu
- Biographical timeline
- Horowitz, "Victoria Woodhull, Anthony Comstock, and Conflict over Sex in the United States in the 1870s", The Journal of American History, February 1987
- STEPHANIE ATHEY, "Eugenic Feminisms in Late Nineteenth-Century America: Reading Race in Victoria Woodhull, Frances Willard, Anna Julia Cooper and Ida B. Wells", Genders Journal, 2000
- "Legal Contender... Victoria C. Woodhull: First Woman to Run for President", The Women's Quarterly (Fall 1988)
- "A lecture on constitutional equality," delivered at Lincoln hall, Washington, D.C., Thursday, February 16, 1871, by Victoria C. Woodhul, American Memory, Library of Congress
- http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?nawbib:1:./temp/~ammem_baJv::@@@mdb=mcc,nawbib,suffrg,mnwp,rbcmillerbib,awh,awhbibA history of the national woman's rights movement, for twenty years, with the proceedings of the decade meeting held at Apollo hall, October 20, 1870, from 1850 to 1870, with an appendix containing the history of the movement during the winter of 1871, in the national capitol, comp. by Paulina W. Davis.], American Memory, Library of Congress
- "And the truth shall make you free." A speech on the principles of social freedom, delivered in Steinway hall, Nov. 20, 1871, by Victoria C. Woodhull, American Memory, Library of Congress
- "Tried as by Fire" at the University of South Carolina Library's Digital Collections Page
- Movie review: "America's Victoria, Remembering Victoria Woodhull", The American Journal of History