Victoria Woodhull Struggles
Victoria Woodhull
While America’s women were just beginning to stir, Victoria Woodhull was already wide awake. At 34, she would be the first woman to ever run for president of the United States of America. She proudly stated, “While others prayed for the good time coming, I worked for it.”
Born to a con-man and religious fanatic in 1838, Woodhull faced poverty, abuse, and exploitation. At a young age, Woodhull demonstrated demonstrated the exceptional ability to see the past and predict the future, as well as communicate with the dead. Taking advantage of her abilities, her father made her a traveling clairvoyant and magnetic healer for much of her childhood. In an attempt to escape her father’s brutality, she married at 15, only to discover …show more content…
With his backing, Woodhull and her sister became the first women stockbrokers on Wall Street. They were so successful that they were able to to publish their own journal, the Woodhull & Claflin’s Weekly, which addressed the most controversial topics of their time-women’s suffrage, labor reforms, and social and personal freedoms. By the time she announced her decision to run for presidency, the core of her platform was a society with a government that allowed individuals regardless of race or gender to “pursue happiness as they may choose.” As the first woman to address Congress, she argued that “women are equals of men before the law, and are equal in all their rights. Newspapers wrote of her as “the ablest advocate on Women’s Suffrage, a woman of remarkable originality and power.” She also advocated for divorce law changes, birth control, the eight-hour workday, and tax reform. But her ideas continued to grow more and more controversial. She began campaigning for free love, legalized prostitution, and advocated giving women the right to “marry, divorce, and bear children without government interference.” While her unconventional ideas and beliefs, especially of free love elicited much opposition and personal attacks to the extent of being tried and jailed for obscenity,“Women,” she insisted, “have every right. They just need to exercise
While America’s women were just beginning to stir, Victoria Woodhull was already wide awake. At 34, she would be the first woman to ever run for president of the United States of America. She proudly stated, “While others prayed for the good time coming, I worked for it.”
Born to a con-man and religious fanatic in 1838, Woodhull faced poverty, abuse, and exploitation. At a young age, Woodhull demonstrated demonstrated the exceptional ability to see the past and predict the future, as well as communicate with the dead. Taking advantage of her abilities, her father made her a traveling clairvoyant and magnetic healer for much of her childhood. In an attempt to escape her father’s brutality, she married at 15, only to discover …show more content…
With his backing, Woodhull and her sister became the first women stockbrokers on Wall Street. They were so successful that they were able to to publish their own journal, the Woodhull & Claflin’s Weekly, which addressed the most controversial topics of their time-women’s suffrage, labor reforms, and social and personal freedoms. By the time she announced her decision to run for presidency, the core of her platform was a society with a government that allowed individuals regardless of race or gender to “pursue happiness as they may choose.” As the first woman to address Congress, she argued that “women are equals of men before the law, and are equal in all their rights. Newspapers wrote of her as “the ablest advocate on Women’s Suffrage, a woman of remarkable originality and power.” She also advocated for divorce law changes, birth control, the eight-hour workday, and tax reform. But her ideas continued to grow more and more controversial. She began campaigning for free love, legalized prostitution, and advocated giving women the right to “marry, divorce, and bear children without government interference.” While her unconventional ideas and beliefs, especially of free love elicited much opposition and personal attacks to the extent of being tried and jailed for obscenity,“Women,” she insisted, “have every right. They just need to exercise