Victoria Woodhull

Victoria Claflin Woodhull Martin ( born September 23, 1838 in Homer, Ohio, † June 9, 1927 in Tewkesbury, England) was an American journalist, financial broker, spiritualist and one of the most famous feminists of the 19th century. She was also the first woman who ran for the U.S. presidency.

Life

Victoria Claflin was one of ten children of destitute parents and worked in childhood as a spiritualist and clairvoyant. She married in 1853 as a 15 -year-old doctor Canning Woodhull. Since her husband was an alcoholic, she cared for the continued support her family as an actress. In 1864, she divorced Woodhull and went with James H. Blood on trips, they probably married in 1866.

In 1868 she moved with her sister, Tennessee Claflin Celeste, to New York. There got to the two sisters Cornelius Vanderbilt know who helped them to open the first women-run brokerage firm on Wall Street. They were very successful and generated considerable profits. In parallel they founded the magazine " Woodhull and Claflin 's Weekly ," in which questions about the equality of women, abortion, prostitution and free love - were published - a novelty at that time. In addition to her work as a journalist Woodhull even held public lectures on these topics.

In 1872 she was nominated by the Equal Rights Party as a candidate for the presidency, although women do not even back then had the right to vote. From their opponents it was considering this " scandalous " project, "Mrs. Called Satan. " Your running mate for vice-president was the African-American abolitionist Frederick Douglass.

1876 ​​her husband died, James H. Blood, and a year later her mentor Cornelius Vanderbilt. 1877 she moved to England. From 1892 on she was there with her daughter Zulu Maud Woodhull published the magazine " Humanitarian ". 1883 she married his third wife the banker Martin. After Martin's death, she lived on his estate, where she opened a kind of women's center.