The woman who ran for president: the many lives of Victoria Woodhull

Abstract

This biography of Victoria Woodhull is the story of how a major feminist pioneer, scarcely known today, moved from poverty and spiritualism to become the first woman Wall Street broker, the first woman to testify before Congress on suffrage and, in 1872, the first woman to run for president. Author Lois Underhill tells how Woodhull challenged the manly status quo not only in politics and business, but on the social scene as well. She fought for sexual freedom for women. She published a weekly newspaper that was the first to expose the Henry Ward Beecher scandal, as a protest against the double standard and the famous minister's hypocrisy, not his immorality. She herself led an unconventional private life, the stuff of a Bronte novel.