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Victoria Claflin Woodhull (1838-1927) was a feminist reformer, some say clairvoyant, stock broker, sex symbol and free love advocate of the 19th century. She went from "rags to riches" twice with her first fortune being made on the road as a highly successful spiritualist. As other feminists declared that women in general were under-paid, she made another fortune on the New York stock exchange as the first female Wall Street broker. As the better known Susan B. Anthony cast her vote in the 1872 presidential election, Woodhull was standing as a presidential candidate (the first woman to do so), but couldn't vote for herself since she was imprisoned on charges of indecency. She was also the first person to publish Karl Marx' communist manifesto in America (in her own newspaper).
George Francis Train once defended her. Other feminists of her time, including Susan B. Anthony, disagreed with her agressive tactics in pushing for women's equality.
She was an especially committed opponent of abortion, and stated in an 1870 issue of her weekly publication that "[t]he rights of children as individuals begin while yet they remain the foetus." In an 1875 edition of the Wheeling, West Virginia Evening Standard she excoriated the institution of abortion:
- "Every woman knows that if she were free, she would never bear an unwished-for child, nor think of murdering one before its birth."
She was born into a poor family in Homer, Ohio. The only person in her family she really felt close to was her sister Tennesse who was seven years younger than Victoria.
On May 10, 1872 Woodhull became the first woman nominated for President of the United States.
Further reading
- Das Aufsehen erregende Leben der Victoria Woodhull by Antje Schrupp;
Helmer (2002), EUR 18,00
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