Victoria Claflin Woodhull

In 2016, Hilary Rodham Clinton became the first woman to ever become a candidate for a major party in the United States. Now notice that wording. She was the first for a “major party.” That makes you wonder. Who was the first woman to ever run for president for any U.S. party?

Allow me to introduce to you Victoria Claflin Woodhull. In 1872, Woodhull became the first woman in United States history to run for president.

Now I know what you’re thinking. Wasn’t the 19^th amendment, the amendment that gave the right for all women in the United States to vote, passed in 1920? Why yes it was, which means exactly what you think it means. Victoria Woodhull ran for president and was not able to vote for herself.

Awkward, right? Well, that’s only part of her story, but before we get to those details, let’s get into some background into Woodhull as a candidate.

Victoria Woodhull was a candidate for the Equal Rights Party, whose name should make it obvious enough that she campaigned for equal rights for women and women’s suffrage. This garnered attention for many across the United States since women had very little rights during the 19^th century. Women had to act and dress a certain way. Women could not vote, which in turn meant they had very little voice in politics.

A platform for women’s rights would receive support from many fellow suffragists, such as Susan B. Anthony. They all supported each other during rallies and especially during another historic moment for Woodhull.

She was the first woman to ever address a Congressional committee. Her case was that women already had the right to vote due to the 14^th and 15^th amendments. The 14^th amendment helped former slaves and all people born in the U.S. to the same rights as all other citizens under the Bill of Rights. The 15^th amendment claimed that states could not deny a citizen of their right to vote on the grounds of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude” (United States Senate). Her petition was rejected, but she would gain more of a leadership position amongst suffragists and would bring in large audiences of the thousands.

However, Woodhull’s fellow suffragists were quick to turn on her due to her “radical” ideas.

You see, Victoria’s major part of her campaign was “free love”. This isn’t the 70s. This was a controversial part of her campaign that created many opponents for her. We might not think too much about it now, but divorce was something that was not possible in the 19^th century. Well, unless you were man.

Victoria sought to expose this double standard where men could divorce without any recourse but women could not. She even claimed that marriage was a form of “sexual slavery.” She was very outspoken about female sexuality and claimed that women had the right to do what they wanted with their bodies, even wanting to legalize prostitution. Sure rings a bell, right?

These radical ideas differed from the moderate point of view Susan B. Anthony took. Anthony believed that women needed to band together and work within the system to achieve small bits of liberation at a time. Woodhull believed the system was too broken to be salvaged and fought to gain equality for all women in all different fronts whether it be socially, financially, or politically.

She was also bashed in the media as well. Luckily for her, the Internet was not around, but newspapers were just as brutal to her. Her most popular nickname given to her by opponents was “Mrs. Satan!”

Remember before when I mentioned awkward moments? Well, Election Day would be the beneficiary of more of those awkward moments for Victoria.

For starters, if Victoria was able to win the presidency, she couldn’t actually become president due to the Constitution’s rule of a U.S. president needing to be at least 35 years old. Victoria would have become only been 34 by inauguration day. Also, if she were to win the presidency on Election Day, she would have made the acceptance speech in jail. Let me explain.

Another first[1] for Woodhull was starting a newspaper with her sisters that was called Woodhull & Claflin’s Weekly. A few days before the election, Woodhull published a piece in her newspaper calling out a famous, minister, Reverend Henry Ward Beecher for his many affairs and speaking on the hypocrisy of his actions since his social status and his gender allowed this behavior to be acceptable. Woodhull and her sisters were arrested on the charges of indecency[2] for publishing this piece and were put in jail for a month.

Despite her run for presidency ending on a down note, her radical ideas for the time and the ambition she had to break free from societal norms and actively try to change things for women should be commemorated.

We may look down on ideas that break the barriers of society, whether it comes to paying everyone of all genders the same wage, abortion rights, and even wanting more strong, female protagonists in films, but it is those exact ideas that institute real change and bring people of all genders and races together.

So whenever the United States elects its first female president, they should thank Victoria Claflin Woodhull for cementing the foundation for a historic moment.

References

Felsenthal, Carol. "The Strange Tale of the First Woman to Run for President." POLITICO Magazine. N.p., 09 Apr. 2015. Web. 07 Feb. 2017.

Gal, Renegade. "The Great Rivalry of Anthony and Woodhull." Rebellious Times. N.p., 08 Feb. 2016. Web. 10 Feb. 2017.

Greenspan, Jesse. "9 Things You Should Know About Victoria Woodhull." History.com. A&E Television Networks, 23 Sept. 2013. Web. 06 Feb. 2017.

Hampson, Rick. "First Woman to Run for President." USA Today. Gannett Satellite Information Network, 07 Nov. 2016. Web. 5 Feb. 2017.

Lewis, Danny. "Victoria Woodhull Ran for President Before Women Had the Right to Vote." Smithsonian.com. Smithsonian Institution, n.d. Web. 06 Feb. 2017.

Woodhull, Victoria C., and Cari M. Carpenter. Selected Writings of Victoria Woodhull: Suffrage, Free Love, and Eugenics. Lincoln: U of Nebraska, 2010. Print.

"Victoria C. Woodhull." Encyclopedia of World Biography, Gale, 1998. U.S. History in Context, libraries.state.ma.us/login?gwurl=http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/K1631007058/UHIC?u=mlin_n_umass&xid=c62853be. Accessed 7 Feb. 2017.

"Victoria C. Woodhull." Gale Biography in Context, Gale, 2010. Biography in Context, libraries.state.ma.us/login?gwurl=http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/PC4295812349/BIC1?u=mlin_n_umass&xid=5d9ecafe. Accessed 7 Feb. 2017.

Image References

Photo of women voting taken Oct. 1, 1931

Illustration of Victoria Woodhull campaigning from the Hulton Archive

Photo of women being arrested in Chicago for bathing suits taken in 1922.

2 Quotes taken from A-Z Quote

Video References

“Hundreds of thousands turn out for Women's March on Washington”. The National. Jan 27, 2017.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-9UEq3T_5A&t=2s

“Mini BIO - Susan B. Anthony”. BIO. Oct 17, 2012.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-suAlXQhMI

“Veep Season 5: Trailer (HBO)”. HBO. May 12, 2016.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYt6r4dY5Ms

“Women are protesting for abortion rights in Poland”. Al Jazeera English. Oct 5, 2016

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqkslEpgRFs

“[HD] Kylo Ren vs Finn and Rey scene - Star Wars 7”. Dark Ren. Mar 28, 2016.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TV6sjwqCQ2M&t=15s

“scene from Commander in Chief”. unkabnin. Mar 27, 2008.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lugmNWK3PUg

“Kisses for my President Part 1”. Mei Kwai. Nov 10, 2016

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfTsMLxHb8g

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[1] Woodhull also founded the first women’s owned stock brokerage.

[2] This meant that Woodhull and her sister were charged for spreading lies onto a person without any sort of factual evidence

Ida B. Wells

Google celebrates Ida B. Wells on her 153rd Birthday

Micdotcom on Tumblr

July 16th 2015

         While history shows us that Ida B. Wells as a famous anti-lynch activist, journalist, suffragist, sociologist and feminist, a lot of people don’t know or learn about her early life and the struggles she had to go through as a youth to accomplish what she did in her later years. Childhood is what shapes and teaches us what is wrong and what is right and few people do anything about it. Ida B. Wells had a pretty wild upbringing and it helped push her along through her life to become the well known journalist and cultural icon that she is today.

        On July 16th, 1862, Ida was born into a family of slaves in Mississippi in the midst of the Civil War. Her father was a carpenter and her mother was a cook. They were two slaves that fell in love and wanted to be together despite their bonding slavery and everything else going on in the world. But this war did not last much longer and after it was over, Ida’s father was invited to keep working for the white family, which he accepted. But they were no longer slaves. Education became the parents main focus, wanting to send Ida and her seven siblings to school. It was also when the truth of education came out, the slaves realized why they never got to learn anything like the white people they served. “Former slaves realized that education had been forbidden because it was a key to freedom and a source of white power.”^[1]

         Ida could barely remember when she first started her education, that’s how young she was. The earliest memory of her education was being able to read the newspaper for her family and friends during breakfast and her mother going to school with all the little kids and herself^[2]. She could even remember learning to read the Bible. During the Reconstruction period, there were many small schools completely filled with children and not enough books to go around. 

        Her parents were very big influences in Ida’s life and the lives of her other siblings. Her father was a “race man”^[3] He cared so much for the lives of the other African American people in Mississippi and across the world. He was also deeply interested in politics, although he never tried to run for office because he cared too much about trying to take care of his family and bringing home the bacon for them. Her mother was a deeply religious disciplinarian who cared nothing more than her children’s well beings. That included their education. She often went to Ida’s school to check up on their learning and would give them tasks while at home to further their learning process. She was very involved in their education, especially outside of the children’s school. 

        As soon as Ida reached her teen years, she was enrolled in Shaw University. It was a deeply Christian school. Students were required to go to daily mass, weekly prayer meetings and Church every Sunday. It was all very different than what Ida knew from her childhood and growing up in her home. Like most African-American schools, most of the teachers and faculty at Shaw university were white. The white female teachers greatly influenced Ida’s views on womanhood. Ida B. Wells described her time at Shaw University as the “my dark days”^[4] in her life. She fell in love with a boy named James B. Combs. He was five years older and for reasons unknown broke up with her. But because of this, she wasn’t able to commit to just one man again for a very long time. Although, she did get married to fellow journalist Ferdinand Lee Barnett in 1895. Thanks to her fiery temper she also had a confrontation with President Hooper, who expelled her from the University because of it. But she was able to enroll in a new college to further her education.

        Yellow Fever hit her homeland, and because of it, she lost both her parents and younger brother. Her siblings were young and on their own. So, she did the only thing she thought she could. She dropped out of school and made herself to look older than she was. So she could take care of her siblings herself. She managed to fake her age and take the teaching exam, which she passed, and made a living as a teacher to support her siblings at a school right down the street from where she lived.^[5] She used got to use all that love and determination she learned from her parents to not only take care of herself, but to be there for her family and others in need. Can you imagine being sixteen years old, dropping out of school and taking care of five children? 

Ida has had all these struggles in her life, but she persevered and was able to survive and thrive throughout her life because of these experiences and the things she’s learned. But she still kept that fiery temper of her. And she controlled and used it to become an anti-lynching activist that we know today. 

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[1] McMurry, Linda O.. To Keep the Waters Troubled : The Life of Ida B. Wells. Oxford UP, 2000. See page 8.

[2] Ibid. See page 9.

[3] Ibid. See page 11 

[4] Ibid. See page 14

[5] Ritchie, Joy, and Ronald, Kate, eds. Pitt Comp Literacy Culture : Available Means : An Anthology Of Women'S Rhetoric(s). University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001. See page 188.