Category Archives: Victoria C. Woodhull

19th Century America, Madame Presidentess, Victoria C. Woodhull

Women in Politics and American Society: A Tale of Two Firsts

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You may have seen this article in The Huffington Post, but in case not and because I’m so proud of it, I had to republish it here.

Victoria and Hillary

When we think of women in politics, their inclusion in places of power seems to be a recent occurrence, but women have been raising their voices since the 1840s in support of women’s suffrage. For some, this led to running for office even before their fellow women could vote for them. In 1870, less than a decade after the Civil War ended and 50 years before women would be granted the right to vote, Victoria Woodhull announced she was running for president in the 1872 election, a move never before attempted by a female in the United States. In 2016, we have our first female running for president on a major party ticket in Hillary Clinton. Let’s take a look at what’s changed and what hasn’t in those 146 years.

1872: Women didn’t mettle in business or political affairs. It was unthinkable for a woman to vote, much less run for office. As anti-suffragist Catharine Beecher once wrote, “the Holy Scripture indicates for women a sphere higher than and apart from that of public life because as women they find a full measure of duties, care and responsibilities and are unwilling to bear additional burdens unsuited to their physical organization.”

Victoria Woodhull set out to prove this mindset was flawed. She and her sister Tennie opened the first stock brokerage on Wall Street owned and operated by women and were successful at it. Women weren’t allowed at the New York Stock Exchange, but Victoria found a way around that, relaying her business transactions through men, and making millions of dollars.

2016: Women are regularly leaders in companies and are elected to office, but not on par with men. We have a long way to go before we see equal representation. While 46.8% of the total labor force in the United States is female and women hold 51.5% of management and professional positions, women currently hold only 4% of CEO positions at S&P 500 companies and only 19.2% of all board seats at those companies. (See Catalyst.org for more.)

According to Rutgers University, “in 2015, 104 women held seats in the United States Congress, comprising 19.4% of the 535 members; 20 women (20%) served in the United States Senate, and 84 women (19.3%) served in the United States House of Representatives. Four women delegates (3D, 1R) also represent American Samoa, the District of Columbia, Guam, and the Virgin Islands in the United States House of Representatives.” The Nation estimates that “at the current rate of progress, it will take nearly 500 years for women to reach fair representation in government.” More optimistic researchers have estimated “it will be 2121 before women reach gender parity in Congress…and [the estimate for when we’ll reach] pay equity is like 2058.”

***

1872: Women weren’t supposed to run for office. In the nineteenth century it was not even considered proper for a woman to speak in public because it was believed by doing so, she drew shame upon her father/husband, much less run for elected office.

That didn’t stop suffragists like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Victoria Woodhull joined them in speaking out for that right, but she also vehemently supported workers’ rights, the humane treatment of prostitutes, and the rights of women to not be sexually subservient to their husbands within marriage. From 1871 on, Victoria was a regular fixture on the lecture circuit along with famous women like Anna Dickinson, traveling around the country to speak her controversial ideas. Victoria took the idea one step further by running for the highest one in the land in 1872. That same year, her sister Tennie ran for Congress as part of a small district in New York. Neither woman won, but they set a precedent thousands later followed.

2016: Women can run for office, but are still discriminated against. In the 21st century, the “woman card” shouldn’t even exist – all candidates for office should be evaluated by voters (and other candidates) based on their experience, platform and positions. Yet, as Mr. Trump’s now-famous quote shows, women are treated differently when they run, though not in the way he seems to have implied with his statement. The media are more likely to talk about a female candidates’ appearance, specifically her hair and clothing, than a man’s (the exception may be Mr. Trump’s hair.) While some argue that bias is all in our heads, nearly three in four of the women interviewed as part of a report recently released by Political Parity said they had felt discriminated against in politics. (See also Men Rule: The Continued Under-Representation of Women in US Politics for additional reasons why women may feel discriminated against.)

According the Political Parity report, women often lack funding and support from their political parties. “Two-thirds of women say it is difficult to raise the money needed to run effectively and nine in ten women saying fundraising influences their decision to try for a national or statewide seat.” They have the confidence and ability to ask for it, but having the network to ask is a roadblock. Could this be the remnants of the “old boys club” in politics? While the report doesn’t say, it stands to reason.

***

1872: Women did not have the right to vote. Even though women had been campaigning for suffrage since the Seneca Falls convention in 1848 and the Nineteenth Amendment was introduced in Congress in 1878, it wasn’t ratified until August 18, 1920. Even then, it took 12 states (not counting Alaska and Hawaii) anywhere from another month to 64 years to ratify it. (Mississippi was last, finally ratifying the Nineteenth Amendment on March 22, 1984). In some Southern states, African American women were harassed, attacked and in other ways prevented from voting into the 1960s. On August 6, 1965, The Voting Rights Act was signed into law, finally allowing all women, regardless of race, to vote as full citizens.

2016: Women have the right to vote. Victory! According to VoteRunLead, 53% of voters in the 2012 election were women.

***

1872: The media attacks female candidates by calling them names and digging into their personal lives. Newspapers analyzed every move political candidates made, including, in the case of Victoria and Tennie, their clothing, bearing, family lineage and suitability as public figures. Just as today, the candidates attacked one another in the papers and were in turn attacked by them. When Victoria’s mother, Anne, sued Victoria’s husband in 1871, the newspapers lapped up every dirty secret that came out in court, often blowing them out of proportion. In 1872, Harper’s Weekly published a cartoon dubbing Victoria as “Mrs. Satan” because she urged women to fight back against sexual slavery and mistreatment within marriage.

2016: The attacks have moved to TV and the internet. Since the 1990s, we’ve watched the media dig into Hillary Clinton’s personal life, even going so far as to attack the then-teenaged Chelsea Clinton, which prompted Hillary to ask the press not to cover her daughter. Of course, throughout her husband’s sex scandals, Mrs. Clinton’s every move and word was chronicled and her motivations and thoughts speculated on in both mainstream media and tabloids. In this most recent campaign, Donald Trump has dubbed Hillary as “Heartless Hillary” and “Crooked Hillary,” because she came out in favor of gun control and because she was attacking him in ads.

This is a long way of showing that while women made some great strides in some areas of politics and society, in others, the more things have changed, the more they have stayed the same. Perhaps that will change over time naturally as more women run for office and attain power. Perhaps if Hillary Clinton wins the November election and becomes our nation’s first female presidential candidate, it will happen more rapidly. But as a female, I find it sad that our advances haven’t been greater in a century and a half. But then again, that gives my generation something else to fight for. Maybe someday our daughters and nieces will be asking us why such issues ever existed.

What are your thoughts? How do you see things having changed or not changed? What change do think is most pressing? 

Madame Presidentess, Victoria C. Woodhull

10 Stranger Than Fiction Things About Victoria Woodhull’s Life

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victoria-woodhullAs Madame Presidentess makes its way into the world through ARCs and giveaways (you can pre-order now, enter a giveaway to win a copy, or wait for it to come out July 25), it’s suddenly occurred to me that there are quite a few elements in it that might be taken as implausible fictions on my part, but are actually true, at least according to Victoria’s biographers (and I stand by my sources). The truth of Victoria’s life is hard to pin down, at least in part because later in life she often contradicted herself or outright denied what she’d previously said or done in order to change her reputation. I spell out what is real and what is not in the Author’s Notes at the end of the book, but I thought I’d list 10 things here so I could talk about them a bit.

WARNING: SOME OF THESE MAY BE CONSIDERED SPOILERS.

  1. The grist mill fire and its consequences – The Claflin’s grist mill did burn to the ground when Victoria was young. The cause is up for debate. Some people speculate that it was insurance fraud on Buck’s (Victoria’s father) part, as he was known to be a swindler, but her mother, Annie, maintained it was a terrible accident. Regardless of the cause, the Claflin family was run out of town, with the church taking up a collection to help speed them on their way. (Barbara Goldsmith even goes so far as to suggest the townspeople were considering tarring and feathering Buck.)
  2. Canning Woodhull’s philandering – Victoria’s first husband was well-known for his love of brothels. She told a story that she found him in one a mere three days after their wedding. Her biographers also say he received a letter from a former mistress who he shipped off to another town so he could marry Victoria asking if he married Victoria because she, too, was pregnant.
  3. Victoria’s daughter Zula almost died at birth – This is a crazy one. Canning claimed to be a doctor, but he really didn’t have much training. The story goes that he was so drunk/stoned when Zula was born that he either cut the umbilical cord too short or didn’t tie it off properly, and then left to go to the local tavern. When Victoria awoke with the baby in her arms, she was covered in blood. She was alone and didn’t know what to do, so she had to beat on the wall with a piece of broken furniture (not sure why that’s what she picked) to get the neighbors’ attention. They came running, but the doors were locked and Victoria was too weak to get up and unlock them. Finally, one of the neighbors climbed in through a grate in the basement.
  4. Annie’s antics – Victoria’s mother did some pretty outrageous things. She took her own son-in-law (Victoria’s second husband, James) to court on the grounds he stole Victoria and Tennie’s affection from him. Annie and Victoria’s sister Utica were known to raid Victoria and Tennie’s clothes and jewelry and pawn them even though Victoria paid all of their expenses. Annie also was a known serial blackmailer.
  5. Victoria’s clairvoyant and healing powers – Victoria maintained all her life that she had been in contact with the spirits since she was a child. Her mother also convinced her that she was a healer. Her father put her and her sister, Tennie (also a healer), to work at a young age using those skills to make money. This may well have been an extension of his other illegitimate activities. But accounts of the sisters’ healing and psychic sessions exist and at least some of their clients believed in their abilities. Obviously, we have no way of proving whether or not they were real, but Victoria seemed to believe they were.
  6. The strange men at Victoria and Tennie’s opening day on Wall Street – This was another detail too crazy not to include. According to a contemporary account reported in The Sun and reprinted in Gary Gabriel’s biography Notorious Victoria, Mr. Edward Van Schalck and several friends made multiple visits to the firm on its opening day for apparently no good reason. Each time they would come it would be in a different sized group from 1-4 people and the would change their clothing, and sometimes their appearance (one time Mr. Van Schalck was freshly shaved and how he wore his hair varied). They would ask a question or chat with those in the office, leave, and come back again 20 minutes to a few hours later. This went on throughout the day until they made a visit after office hours and were told the office was closed. No reason is given for this odd behavior. (I have a reason in my book, but that’s where fiction comes in.)
  7. Victoria’s meeting with President Grant – There is no written record of her meeting with the President, but biographers are pretty sure it did occur at some point when she was in Washington D.C. Victoria never told anyone what happened during the meeting, but somehow it is tradition that the President said “you will one day occupy this seat,” referring to the Presidential chair. Also, in the book when the President talks about his views on suffrage, I took that from things he is known to have said.
  8. Victoria’s conversations with Reverend Henry Beecher – Perhaps the most dramatic dialogue in the novel comes from Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. Where possible, it is taken from actual accounts of Victoria’s conversations with him as written in various biographies, especially “Other Powers” by Barbara Goldsmith. If these accounts are to be believed, he was rather melodramatic in his pleading with her to be excused from the responsibility of introducing her at a speech she was planning to give on Free Love.
  9. Victoria’s love affair with Theodore Tilton – Depending on which biography you read, Victoria is rumored to have had up to four affairs while she was married to Col. James Blood. Whether or not they were actually affairs is up for debate, because Victoria and James practiced Free Love – not open promiscuity, but rather the belief that one should be able to take and leave one’s partners as the heart dictates without interference from the state. If this was like having an open marriage, then there is no guilt, no affair. Anyway, the one affair most biographers agree upon is with Theodore Tilton, who worked for Victoria’s paper and wrote her biography. The two are an unlikely couple, especially what she knew about his wife’s claims of verbal abuse, but I guess love really is blind.
  10. Victoria’s running mate – Strange as it may seem, Victoria’s running mate was Frederick Douglass. He was nominated by her Equal Rights Party (I never did find a definitive answer on whether or not she picked him or the party picked him for her.) Either way, having a ticket with a woman and a black man in 1872 was unheard of. For his part, Mr. Douglass never asked to be taken off the ballot, but he never agreed to it, either. As the 1872 election drew near, he publicly came out in favor of President Grant.

Bonus – There is a really odd story in the biography Victoria directed Theodore Tilton to write where she paints herself like a modern-day Jesus. The short version is that while Victoria had been away, her mentally retarded son, Byron became ill and died. When Victoria came home, she was determined that he was not dead. She held him to her breast and cried that he would live. After some time holding him and praying, he began to stir and recovered. I realize that he might not actually have been dead, perhaps in a coma and they didn’t know the difference, or maybe this story was made up, but either way, it was too odd for me to use, even in fiction.

What do you think is the most outrageous element of Victoria’s story? Which part are you most looking forward to reading in Madame Presidentess?

Sources:

Brody, Miriam. Victoria Woodhull, Free Spirit for Women’s Rights.
Frisken, Amanda. Victoria Woodhull’s Sexual Revolution.
Gabriel, Mary. Notorious Victoria.
Goldsmith, Barbara. Other Powers: The Age of Suffrage, Spiritualism and the Scandalous Victoria Woodhull.
Havelin, Kate. Victoria Woodhull.
Krull, Kathleen. A Woman for President – The Story of Victoria Woodhull.
MacPherson, Myra. The Scarlet Sisters.
Tilton, Theodore. The Golden Age Tract No. 3 “Victoria C. Woodhull, a Biographical Sketch.”
Underhill, Lois Beachey. The Woman Who Ran for President.

Madame Presidentess, Victoria C. Woodhull

July 4, 1871 – The Victoria League Goes Public

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VictoriaWoodhullIn June 1871, Victoria Woodhull was anxious to re-launch her campaign for presidency, which had stalled since her shocking announcement of candidacy more than a year before. She began hosting parties in her home, which she called “at homes,” intimate affairs where the rich and powerful could get to know her as person in her private space, rather than just as a political figure. She invited bankers, lawyers, editors, clergymen, Congressmen, and even members of President Grant’s family (including his brother and father, Jesse Grant).

It is said that at one of these meetings “Congress was in session,” a congress of the people, that is, as it was a meeting of trade union workers, suffragists and other reformers, in addition to usual politicians and businessmen. Someone remarked that this was really the forming of a new political party, as they were people of like mind, supporting their candidate, Victoria. Together, they decided that instead of using the original name of Victoria’s party – The Cosmopolitical Party, which had too much of Stephen Pearl Andrew’s philosophy in it for the public’s taste – they would instead nominate her under the banner of the Equal Rights Party, a name with a storied past that would immediately call to mind unity and suffrage.

On July 4, 1871, the following letter was sent to Victoria, and later appeared in Woodhull & Claflin’s Weekly:

Madame – A number of your fellow citizens, both men and women, have formed themselves into a working committee, borrowing its title from your name, calling itself THE VICTORIA LEAGUE.

Our object is to form a new national political organization, composed of the progressive elements in the existing Republican and Democratic parties, together with the Women of the Republic, who have been hitherto disenfranchised, but whom the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution, properly interpreted, guarantee, equally with men, the right of suffrage.

This new political organization will be called THE EQUAL RIGHTS PARTY, and its platform will consist solely and only of a declaration of the equal civil and political rights of all American citizens, without distinction of sex.

We shall ask Congress at its next session to pass an act, founded on this interpretation of the Constitution, protecting women in the immediate exercise of the elective franchise in all parts of the United States, subject only to the same restrictions and regulations which are imposed by local laws on other classes of citizens.

We shall urge all women who possess the political qualifications of other citizens, in the respective states in which they reside, to assume and exercise the right of suffrage without hesitation or delay.

We ask you to become the standard-bearer of this idea before the people, and for this purpose nominate you as our candidate for President of the United States to be voted for in 1872 by the combined suffrages of both sexes.

If our plans merit your approval, and our nomination meet your acceptance, we trust that you will take occasion, in your reply to this letter, to express your views in full concerning the political rights of women under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.

Offering to you, Madam, the assurance of our great esteem, and harboring in our minds the cheerful presence of victory which your name inspires, we remain,

Cordially yours,

The Victoria League

The letter did not bear any member names. In her biography of Victoria, Lois Beachy Underhill argues that Victoria penned that letter herself, and it’s entirely possible. Victoria was a master of public relations, thanks in part to the skills her learned at her father’s knee and the influence of Stephen Pearl Andrews. Victoria and Theodore Tilton both strongly hinted that the Victoria League was supported and possibly even led by Cornelius Vanderbilt, a charge the railroad tycoon neither confirmed nor denied.

On July 20, 1871, Victoria wrote a lengthy response (too long to reproduce here, but carried in full in The Victoria Woodhull Reader) to the Victoria League letter in which she accepted their nomination and expounded upon her views. It contains one of my favorite lines of hers, “Little as the public think it, a woman who is now nominated may be elected next year” and this gem of pure grandeur and hubris so typical of Victoria’s attitude:

“Perhaps I ought not to pass unnoticed your courteous and graceful allusion to what you deem the favoring omen of my name. It is true that a Victoria rules the great rival nation opposite to us on the other shore of the Atlantic, and it grace the amity just sealed between our two nations, and be a new security of peace, if a twin sisterhood of Victoras were to preside over the two nations. It is true also that its mere etymology the name signifies Victory! and the victory for the right is what we are bent on securing…I have sometimes thought myself that there is perhaps something providential and prophetic in the fact that my parents were prompted to confer on me a name which forbids the very thought of failure.”

Have you heard of the Victoria League? Nowadays it’s better known as the name of a charitable organization for people of the Commonwealth countries. But it started as a reference to dear ol’ Vickie.

Sources:
Gabriel, Mary. Notorious Victoria.
Stern, Madeleine B. The Victoria Woodhull Reader.
Underhill, Lois Beachey. The Woman Who Ran for President.

19th Century America, Madame Presidentess, Victoria C. Woodhull

Woodhull & Claflin’s Weekly, the blog of Victoria Woodhull’s Day

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W&C2If Victoria Woodhull lived now, she would totally have a blog. I say that because she ran her own newspaper (along with her sister Tennie) and newspapers were the blogs of the mid-to-late nineteenth century in America. People had flame wars in the papers just like they do on social media and in the comments today. (Oh, how little things change!)

Woodhull & Claflin’s Weekly was Victoria and Tennie’s paper. They started it in 1870 as a way to get Victoria’s message out to the public as a presidential candidate. (Much the same way I use this blog to get my message as an author out to you.) Victoria was able to gain far more media and public attention by producing her own paper than she would have if she relied on the mainstream media of the day, which was fickle at best, especially toward women. She is rumored to have said something like “I have a mouthpiece [in Woodhull & Claflin’s Weekly] and I intend to use it.”

There is no doubt that Victoria’s friend former journalist Stephen Pearl Andrews and her second husband, Col. James Blood were instrumental in making the paper run. Stephen had a regular column and James acted as Victoria’s silent secretary, in addition to contributing articles of his own. Tennie was also a regular contributor.

Ad page, August 5, 1871

Ad page, August 5, 1871

As it started as a women’s rights and suffrage publication, Victoria often ran copies of her speeches in the paper, and even published the memorial (petition) she read before Congress so that everyone could read it. She frequently asked readers to petition Congress and their local leaders. But she also wrote about other topics that were important to her, such as marriage reform (aka Free Love), fraud by the government and police (such as police involvement in prostitution bribes so the women could avoid arrest) and corruption in business (she called out all the big names of her day including Astor and her friend Vanderbilt). Notably, Woodhull & Claflin’s Weekly was the first paper to print an English translation of Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto. (Victoria and her group were leaders in Section 12 of the International Workingmen’s Association, which Marx led for a time.)

Victoria wanted Woodhull & Claflin’s Weekly to be about everything that touches women’s lives. This included women’s education; female doctors being recognized by The Medical Gazette and attending the Pinter’s convention in Cincinnati; and alcoholism treated at a nursing home in Brooklyn as a disease rather than a moral failing. Victoria also reported on the careers of famous female lecturers such as Anna Dickinson, Kate Field and Laura C. Holloway, as well as on her friends’ political and business activities.

Unsold copies were mailed to daily newspapers and influential people for free. Positive feedback was printed as part of Victoria’s PR campaign. With two years, women were writing Victoria and Tennie in droves with comments, topic suggestions and even submitting articles. At one point Victoria had so many suggestions, she had to close the women’s section.

All was well for the paper until Victoria’s life fell into turmoil during the summer of 1872. Due to her increasing radicalism and an unfortunate series of events, Victoria lost her fortune and her home and was forced to stop printing her beloved paper on June 15.

But the presses were silent for only a short time. On October 28 of that year, Victoria burst back on the scene with her most explosive issue ever, one that would become known as “The Scandal Issue” and land her in jail for her own election day. In it, she printed an article exposing the extramarital affair of beloved preacher Rev. Henry Ward Beecher and Elizabeth Tilton. In the same issue, Tennie wrote a scathing account of broker Luther Challis seducing two young virgins at a public ball years before.

W&CThe paper normally sold for 10 cents but by evening of the first day that issue was available, people were paying $2.50. The first run of 10,000 copies sold quickly. Some people rented theirs to read for $1.00 a day. One copy even sold for $40.

Three days later, Tennie and Victoria were charged with sending obscene material through the mail. Anthony Comstock set them up by requesting that a copy of the issue be mailed to him. Comstock then tipped off authorities, seeing himself as a guardian of public morals. (As the sponsor of the anti-obscenity law that bore his name, he also got half the fines paid by people arrested on obscenity charges. Some sources say that members of Rev. Beecher’s church may have put Comstock up to his actions.)

While they were in jail, police searched the offices, seizing and destroying the presses. But once Victoria and Tennie were finally released from jail months later (found innocent of all charges), the Weekly started up again and ran until June 10, 1876, when Victoria decided she was finally tired of it.

—

I have yet to be able to see Woodhull & Claflin’s Weekly in person, though high-quality images to do exist online and Arlene Kisner’s book reproduces some of its articles. According to at least one web site, Washington University here in St. Louis has copies of it, but I haven’t been able to get anyone to respond to my requests about it.

Had you ever heard of this revolutionary paper? What more do you want to know about it?

Sources:
Brody, Miriam. Victoria Woodhull, Free Spirit for Women’s Rights.
Gabriel, Mary. Notorious Victoria.
Goldsmith, Barbara. Other Powers: The Age of Suffrage, Spiritualism and the Scandalous Victoria Woodhull.
Havelin, Kate. Victoria Woodhull.
Kisner, Arlene. The Lives and Writings of Notorious Victoria Woodhull and Her Sister Tennessee Claflin.
MacPherson, Myra. The Scarlet Sisters.
Underhill, Lois Beachey. The Woman Who Ran for President.

 

History, Madame Presidentess, Victoria C. Woodhull

Victoria Woodhull – Spiritualist

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My favorite picture of Victoria (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

My favorite picture of Victoria (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

I promised I’d get back to the historical posts and today I’m making good on that. Spiritualism is something I hadn’t paid much attention to before I started researching Victoria’s life. I actually had no idea it dated back to before the Civil War; I associated it more with the seances and Ouija boards of the WWI time period. But, not for the first time, I was wrong.

Before I get into the nitty-gritty, here’s a brief definition of Spiritualism from Encyclopedia Britannica. It’s “a movement based on the belief that departed souls can interact with the living. Spiritualists sought to make contact with the dead, usually through the assistance of a medium, a person believed to have the ability to contact spirits directly. Some mediums worked while in a trance-like state, and some claimed to be the catalyst for various paranormal physical phenomena (including the materializing or moving of objects) through which the spirits announced their presence.”

A Brief History of Spiritualism
Spiritualism was popular from about the 1840s – 1920s, peaking during times of crisis like the Civil War and WWI when widows and families left behind attempted to contact their departed relatives.

The Fox sisters

The Fox sisters (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Although it has connections to the teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg and Franz Mesmer, most Spiritualists date the founding of their movement (at least in America) to March 1848 when two of the Fox sisters from Upstate New York claimed they made contact with a spirit through a series of raps or knocks. They became famous almost immediately and many people sought to emulate their fame, including Buck Claflin. (The Fox sisters later admitted to the whole thing being a hoax affected by cracking their toes.)

Mediums used a variety of techniques to contact the spirits including going into trances, conducting seances, channeling automatic writing, using planchettes (but not Ouija boards until 1890), table turning/vibrating/levitating, and more.

It is interesting to note that during the 19th century, women were discouraged from speaking in public forums. Doing so was thought to bring shame upon their father/husband and family. However, women were taken seriously when they acted as mediums, for it was not them speaking, but the spirits through them. It’s possible that many female Spiritualists, Victoria included, used their “gifts” as a way of being able to subvert the gender expectations of their time.

Spiritualism is still practiced today, largely through Spiritualist Churches and as part of the New Age movement.

350px-Spirit_rappings_coverpage_to_sheet_music_1853

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Victoria Woodhull, Spiritualist from Childhood
Victoria’s mother, Annie Claflin, was a Spiritualist who passed her beliefs on to her daughters, especially Victoria and Tennie. From a young age, they both showed signs of clairvoyance. (For the sake of argument, let’s pretend the gifts were real; I think she believed they were and no one knows if they were real or were just imagination or a coping method for two abused girls.) Victoria mentions in her biography (dictated to Theodore Tilton) that from the time she was five, she could commune with two of her sisters who died as babies (Odessa and Delia) and her childhood caretaker, Rachel Scribner. (There are stranger tales of the spirits in her biography, but we’ll let those go for now.)

Victoria believed her personal spirit guide was the Greek orator Demosthenes, whom she saw and conversed with from an early age. But she was 30 before he revealed his name to her. According to Victoria, he prophesied that she would rise to greatness in a city filled with ships, speak before large crowds, and become ruler of her people.

Victoria’s father, Buck, took advantage of his daughters’ gifts and put them to work as clairvoyants and magnetic healers (another gift passed down from Annie) when they were young teenagers. He worked them for 13 hours a day, charging $1 per person.

It is said Victoria followed the advice of the spirits as she moved around the country with her first husband and children, letting them direct where they went. Later on, Demosthenes directed her to St. Louis, where she met her second husband Col. James Blood (who happened to be President of the St. Louis Society of Spiritualists) and they were”betrothed by the powers of the air.” Demosthenes later directed her to New York, where she, Tennie and their family would find success in the stock market and in politics.

I haven’t been able to find a solid account of how exactly Victoria contacted the spirits (I chose the most common methods, seance and trance, for my novel). But we know she continued practicing throughout her career and likely throughout her life. She said that the spirits directed her speeches (they were the ones who inspired her to reveal what she knew about Henry Ward Beecher and his affair with Lib Tilton). Cornelius Vanderbilt employed Victoria as a medium. When asked how he became so rich in the stock market,  reportedly said, “do as I do, consult the spirits.” (It’s much more likely Victoria got her stock tips through human connections than from the spirit world.) According to Tilton, “every night, around 11 p.m. or midnight, two or three times a week, [Victoria and James] held court with the spirits. When she entered into a trance, her husband dictated what she said and saw. When she woke, she often had no memory of what transpired.” Victoria was so prominent in the Spiritualist community that she served as President of the American Association of Spiritualists.

Recommended Sources
If you want to read a great book on Spiritualism during Victoria’s lifetime, check out Barbara Goldsmith’s Other Powers, The Age of Suffrage, Spiritualism, and the Scandalous Victoria Woodhull. It’s a long book, but the most in-depth on the subject I’ve found.

Most biographies of Victoria mention her Spiritualism. I also recommend the following articles:

Spiritualism in Encyclopedia Britannica http://www.britannica.com/topic/spiritualism-religion

Hix, Lisa. “Ghosts in the Machines: The Devices and Daring Mediums That Spoke for the Dead.” Collector’s Weekly. http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/ghosts-in-the-machines-the-devices-and-defiant-mediums-that-spoke-for-the-spirits/

“The annual convention of the American Association of Spiritualists in Boston, Massachusetts, 1872.”  The Banner of Light, The Boston Investigator, The New-York Times, The Brooklyn Eagle. http://spirithistory.iapsop.com/1872_american_association_of_spiritualists.html

What had you heard about Spiritualism before this post? Did you know Victoria practiced? What do more would you like to know about it?

Victoria C. Woodhull, Women's History Month

March 1 – Trailblazer: Victoria Woodhull

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Victoria WoodhullYou knew I had to start with her, right?

In case you don’t remember, Victoria, the poor daughter of a con-man and a religious zealot, was a suffragist in the mid-1800s. She was the:

  • First woman to run a stock brokerage on Wall Street
  • First woman to testify before Congress
  • One of the first women to run a weekly newspaper
  • First female presidential candidate (1872)

Why isn’t she in our history books? Three main reasons I can tell:

  1. She royally angered her former friends Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. They literally wrote the 900+ page book on the women’s suffrage movement, reducing Victoria’s role to an actual footnote. This, then, undermined her importance to future historians.
  2. Not long after her death, a woman named Emanie Sachs published a scathing biography of Victoria that painted her as a harlot and trickster – not the kind of woman anyone would want in the historical record.
  3. She was a woman. (Look at our history. That had to be part of it.)

Victoria Woodhull is the subject of my novel Madame Presidentess, which will be published July 25.

Book reviews, Books, Victoria C. Woodhull

Top 5 Biographies of Victoria Woodhull

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If you’re looking to learn more about the fascinating first female Presidential candidate in United States history (1872), there are a surprising number of biographies of Victoria Woodhull (1838-1927) – especially given that she’s not generally taught in school history textbooks.

The ones written near or within her lifetime – Victoria C. Woodhull, a Biographical Sketch by Theodore Tilton and The Terrible Siren by Emanie Sachs – are considered unreliable by modern historians for a number of reasons, so you’re better off consulting a modern biography. I’ve read most of them and here are my top 5 picks (images link to the Amazon page for the book):

Other Powers1) Other Powers: The Age of Suffrage, Spiritualism and the Scandalous Victoria Woodhull
By Barbara Goldsmith

This is my favorite biography because it is so rich in detail, especially in regards to Victoria as a spiritualist and medium, an area many other biographies skim over, dismiss as ludicrous, or choose to omit entirely. But to understand Victoria as a person, you have to understand her belief in the spirit world and how it drove/guided her decisions. Regardless of what you believe now, Victoria and many of her peers took Spiritualism very seriously and it was an important part of their world view.

This book is also rich in other history, especially in regard to the major players of 19th century American suffrage and politics. It covers Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Catharine, Isabella and Harriett (Stowe) Beecher, Anna Dickinson and many others in detail.  I had to skip over much of that to focus on the areas concerning Victoria, but this is a book I will definitely someday give a second read so I can absorb the rest of the history.

Be forewarned that this is a large, complex book, so unless you have some knowledge of the period, it may not be the best place to start. It was one of my later sources in my research for that reason. But it is certainly worth your time.

The Woman who Ran for President2) The Woman Who Ran for President
By Lois Beachy Underhill

This is the place I recommend people new to Victoria’s life start out. It’s a well-written, easy to read, and concise biography. Honestly, it’s my go-to for fact checking because I find it to be the most reliable and easy to navigate.

There are a few things I don’t agree with the author on, such as her assertion that Victoria had an affair with Rev. Henry Ward Beecher (I don’t think that likely), and her relatively rosy portrayal of Victoria’s childhood (which is at odds with many other sources, both modern and contemporary to Victoria). But to each their own. I’m a fiction writer and she’s a biographer, so I trust she has her sources and her reasons. Still, it’s a wonderfully detailed overview that no one interested in Victoria should pass up.

If you search for this title on Amazon, it appears under two authors, Lois Beachy Underhill and Gloria Steinem. Don’t be fooled into thinking they are separate books with the same title, as I was, even though they show two different covers. Steinem wrote the introduction for the book Underhill wrote. Because of this confusion, I have an extra copy that I’m willing to give away for free. If you’re interested, let me know in the comments, leave your email address, and I’ll contact you about mailing (US only, please). First come, first served.

Scarlet Sisters3) The Scarlet Sisters: Sex, Suffrage, and Scandal in the Gilded Age
By Myra MacPherson

This is the most fun (and by that I am in no way lessening the scholarship) biography that I read. One of the most recent contributions to the Victoria cannon, it’s written in a more novel-like format that sucks you into life as Victoria would have known it. It also provides detail that other biographies lack.

Also, as the title implies, this book gives more attention to Tennie than any other to date. This is important not only because Tennie has an important story in her own right that deserves to be told, but because knowing her better illuminates Victoria and the relationship between the sisters. Because they were close and often lived and worked together, this relationship is paramount to understanding why Victoria did the things she did.

I’ve been in touch with the author several times to ask questions and verify facts, and I have to say that she is very accessible and kind, which is always a plus. I’m actually hoping to have her as a guest on this blog in the future.

 

Nortorius Victoria4) Notorious Victoria: The Life of Victoria Woodhull, Uncensored
By Mary Gabriel

If you want to hear Victoria’s voice and read newspaper accounts about her, this is the source to use. Gabriel liberally quotes from Victoria’s speeches, writings and letters, as well as contemporary newspaper articles to provide color and depth unparalleled in other sources.

As someone attempting to bring Victoria to life, I found this book invaluable, both in terms of understanding her personality, but also in understanding how the political and social/cultural world around her reacted to her sometimes outrageous words and actions.

Sexual Revolution5) Victoria Woodhull’s Sexual Revolution: Political Theater and the Popular Press in Nineteenth-Century America
By Amanda Frisken

Less biography and more discourse on how the press treated women and the idea of sex in 19th century America, this is a valuable source for anyone wishing to get to know Victoria, especially in context of her often volatile relationship with the press.

One of the most interesting parts for me was to learn how she was treated in the so-called “sporting press” of gentleman’s papers. These papers, frequently read by young men, often satirized women in cartoons, depictions we would today find high offensive, but which were par for the course for the time. The images alone, many of which cannot be found online, are worth the cost of the book, but more important is the context in which Frisken places them, showing the sexist attitudes that prevailed at the time in a way most other books don’t.

There is also a section that is more biographical, so please don’t think she left that out. I just found the other parts more interesting.

Of course, these are just my personal opinions. You may have a different experience. There are a number of other good biographies and books referencing Victoria, so this is by no means a complete list. Check out my research page for more. I’m currently reading the latest, Crossing Swords: Mary Baker Eddy vs. Victoria Claflin Woodhull and the Battle for the Soul of Marriage by Cindy Peyser Safronoff. I’m not far enough into it yet to render an opinion, but will be one of my sources for my fictional account.

Victoria’s daughter, Zulu/Zula also attempted to write a biography of her mother, but was never successful. Bits of her writing can be found with Victoria’s letters in the Boston public library’s archives. I did not have a chance to see that information before writing the book, but I’m hoping to get to see it when I visit Boston next June.

 

And of course, the best way to get to know someone is through their own writings. There are many collections of Victoria’s books and speeches available online, as well as in book form. You can even find digitized versions of her newspaper, Woodhull & Claflin’s Weekly, online.

What are some of your favorite biographies of famous people? Have you ever read a book about Victoria or seen reference to her? If so, where? Do you have questions about any of these books?

19th Century America, Victoria C. Woodhull

The Bewitching Brokers Shatter Wall Street’s Male-Only Tradition

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Bewitching BrokersCombine a Kardashian store opening with a Justin Beiber concert and throw in a visiting foreign dignitary, and you may begin to get the idea of how much chaos the opening of Victoria Woodhull and Tennessee Claflin’s stock brokerage on February 5, 1870, created.

Contemporary accounts place the crowds at as many as 4,000, with people (mostly men) pushing and shoving to catch sight of the audacious women.  A hundred policemen were called out to keep the peace. That didn’t stop the yelling and jeers of protesters who were ready to physically carry the women back home where they belonged. Men peered in the windows all day long, lifting one another up and calling out if they caught sight of Victoria or Tennie.

030570mWhen it opened for business that morning, Woodhull, Claflin and Co., became the first female-owned American company that bought and sold stocks. The press quickly crowned its owners “The Queens of Finance,” the “Sensation of New York,” and “The Bewitching Brokers.”

The office, located on Broad Street (at Wall Street), was just down the street from the New York Stock Exchange and only four doors up from rival broker, Jim Fisk. The interior was described in the papers as more like an elegant parlor than a business office, with oil paintings on the wall, statues in the corners, a piano, and ample upholstered sofas and chairs. A small framed cross-stitch on one wall declared “simply to the cross I cling,” next to a photo of Mr. Vanderbilt. The sisters did business at solid wood desks inlaid with gold (left by the previous owners, who were criminals and had to flee in a hurry – seriously, you couldn’t make this stuff up) and had a ticker-tape machine at the ready.

A unique aspect of the building was that it had a back entrance for women who might not feel comfortable doing business with men. It was separated from the rest of the office by a walnut partition decorated with glass. In the women’s-only area, Victoria and Tennie served champagne and chocolate covered strawberries to their clients, who passed on business gossip as well as bought and sold stocks. Unsurprisingly, given the sisters’ previous healing and medium work at brothels, many of their early female clients were madams and their girls. But eventually independently wealthy women, suffragists, and the wives of businessmen became clients as well.

TennieTheir clients that first day were a combination of well known business figures such as Peter Cooper, Jay Cooke, and Daniel Drew – even poet Walt Whitman paid them a visit – and curiosity seekers. Among the questionably sane who dropped by were two men, Edward Van Schalck and Hugh Hastings, who returned several times throughout the day, dressed differently each time, though no one knows why. Sometimes it was one or both of them, other times they returned with a group of friends to heckle Victoria and Tennie. After one of their disruptions, a sign was affixed to the front door, stating, “Gentlemen will state their business and then retire at once.”

The firm did brisk business, with some sources citing an unverified claim supposedly made by Victoria that they made $700,000 in two years. It appears the business began to falter in 1871, a time when Victoria was focused on the paper and her political campaign, leaving her husband, James – the firm’s silent partner – and Tennie to deal with clients who were disgruntled over the sisters’ misguided speculation in gold. Over the next two years, as Victoria became more outspoken and brazen in airing her views on women and worker’s rights as part of her Presidential campaign, the firm slowly lost clients. By summer 1873, Victoria and Tennie were out of money and the firm existed in name only.

It would be another 94 years before there was another woman on Wall Street. (Muriel Siebert was the first woman to buy a seat on the New York Stock Exchange, on December 28, 1967)

How much did you know about Victoria and Tennie’s role on Wall Street? What do you think of them? What questions do you have?

Sources:

Brody, Miriam. Victoria Woodhull, Free Spirit for Women’s Rights

Gabriel, Mary. Notorious Victoria.

Goldsmith, Barbara. Other Powers: The Age of Suffrage, Spiritualism and the Scandalous Victoria Woodhull.

Havelin, Kate. Victoria Woodhull.

MacPherson, Myra. The Scarlet Sisters.

Underhill, Lois Beachey. The Woman Who Ran for President.

Victoria C. Woodhull

An Unlikely Partnership: Victoria Woodhull and Cornelius Vanderbilt

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Victoria and Tennie with a client, possibly Vanderbilt

Victoria and Tennie with a client, possibly Vanderbilt

In 1868 when Victoria Woodhull moved to New York at the urging of her spirit guide, she had no idea that within a short time, she’d end up being friends with the wealthiest man in the country. That man was Cornelius Vanderbilt, the railroad and shipping tycoon.

No one knows exactly how Victoria and Vanderbilt met. Some biographies skim over it, while others speculate it may have been through her father or even simply general social mingling. It was well known that 73 year old Vanderbilt had a penchant for psychics and mediums, so he may have sought them out or vice versa.

One way or another, Victoria and Tennie called on him as clairvoyants who could make stock market predictions. Or if he preferred, they were also healers who could restore his health and happiness.

Pretty much everyone agrees that Vanderbilt was immediately taken with beautiful, charming Tennie, whom he called his “little sparrow.” He asked her to marry him in 1868, not long after his wife died. Tennie’s reasons for declining are debated, as is if he was serious. Some say she couldn’t have married him either way because she never divorced her first husband, gambler John Bartels, with whom she had no contact. It’s widely believed Tennie and Vanderbilt had an affair that lasted at least five years, and continued when he married again.

Tennie’s affair may have influenced Vanderbilt’s admiration for the sisters, but he was equally impressed with Victoria. While in a trance, she would relay messages from his deceased mother and children and also tell him what stocks would go up.  While she may have had extraordinary powers (who can prove she didn’t?), her stock tips really came from her friend Josie Mansfield, a former actress turned prostitute whom she met while acting in San Francisco. Josie was mistress to Vanderbilt’s business rival, Jim Fisk.

This relationship set Victoria up to become a very rich woman, as Vanderbilt split the profits with her if her tips were right. Then on September 24, 1869, the stock market crashed, the very first Black Friday.  Women were not allowed on the trading floor, so Victoria sat outside in her carriage, sending men in with orders to buy. Both she and Vanderbilt came out on top, thanks to a warning from Josie, and avoided the calamity that drove many to poverty and suicide. When asked how he was so successful, Vanderbilt reportedly said, “Do as I do. Consult the spirits.”

This one historic day of trading enabled Victoria and Tennie to afford to open their own firm (more on this next week), becoming the first female stock brokers ever on Wall Street. How they were qualified to trade stocks is up to debate. Their father may have taught them a little about finance and law, or they may have learned from Vanderbilt. One thing is certain, they weren’t afraid to enter a man’s world.

Their firm, Woodhull, Claflin and Co., opened on February 5, 1870. Tennie told reporters that day that Vanderbilt “inspired the new undertaking.” He never publicly admitted to financially backing their business, but he likely did. At the very least it was his connections that enabled them to open the firm in the first place. Victoria and Tennie encouraged public association of their names with his by keeping his picture on their office wall. He was also likely the silent backer of their newspaper, Woodhull & Claflin’s Weekly.

It appears Vanderbilt, Victoria and Tennie maintained a strong relationship until 1872, when an increasingly bold and erratic Victoria began calling out the rich and powerful who depend on the labor of the poor, including Vanderbilt, in her paper and in her speeches.  In February 1872, she gave a speech entitled “The Impending Revolution,” in New York, in which she called Vanderbilt out by name, saying,

“A Vanderbilt may sit in his office and manipulate stocks or make dividends, by which in a few years, he amasses fifty million dollars from the industries of the country, and he is one of the remarkable men of the age. But if a poor, half-starved child were to take a loaf of bread from his cupboard to prevent starvation, she would be sent first to the Tombs, and thence to Blackwell’s Island.”

Needless to say, having his name used in such a negative way in public angered Vanderbilt. He withdrew his support from the brokerage and the paper. The official story was that his wife caught him canoodling with Tennie, but both sisters knew the real reason why he severed ties with them.

In 1877, Vanderbilt passed away. His son, William, feared Tennie would go after her lover’s money. He was also afraid she and Victoria would be called to testify to his father’s belief in spiritualism – and thus give credence to the idea his father was not of sound mind and the will should be invalidated. To avoid both disasters, William paid the sisters a large sum to relocate to England.

What questions do you have about Victoria and Vanderbilt? Did you know of their association before? If so, where did you hear about it?

Sources:

Brody, Miriam. Victoria Woodhull, Free Spirit for Women’s Rights

Gabriel, Mary. Notorious Victoria.

Goldsmith, Barbara. Other Powers: The Age of Suffrage, Spiritualism and the Scandalous Victoria Woodhull.

Havelin, Kate. Victoria Woodhull.

MacPherson, Myra. The Scarlet Sisters.

Underhill, Lois Beachey. The Woman Who Ran for President.