Volume 18 , Issue 29

Victoria California Claflin Woodhull (1838-1927)

This is what we found while researching information concerning Victoria California Claflin Woodhull was born 7th of ten children, September 23, 1838, Homer, Licking County, Ohio - June 9, 1927, died Bradon, Worcestershire, UK). She was later known as Victoria Woodhull Martin, an American leader of the woman's suffrage movement.

As the Claflin sisters grew older, Victoria became close to her sister, Tennessee "Tennie" Celeste Claflin (called Tennie), seven years her junior and the last child born to the family. As adults they collaborated in founding a stock brokerage and newspaper in New York City.

Victoria, at age 14 years, met 28 year old Canning (Cahnning) Woodhull, a doctor from a town outside Rochester, New York. Victoria's family had consulted him to treat the girl for a chronic illness. Channing Woodhull practiced medicine in Ohio at a time when the state did not require formal medical education and licensing. Channing Woodhull and Victoria Claflin were married on November 20, 1853, when Victoria was two months past her 15th birthday. Victoria soon learned that her new husband was an alcoholic and a womanizer. She often had to work outside the home to support the family. She and Canning had two children, Byron and Zulu (later called Zula) Maude Woodhull. After their children were born, Victoria divorced her husband and kept his surname.

Victoria Woodhull's support of free love likely started after she discovered the infidelity of her first husband Canning. Women who married in the United States during the 19th century were bound into the unions, even if loveless, with few options to escape. Divorce was limited by law and considered socially scandalous. Women who divorced were stigmatized and often ostracized by society. Victoria Woodhull concluded that women should have the choice to leave unbearable marriages.

It was in 1872, Woodhull (34 years of age) ran for President of the United States. There was election coverage by contemporary newspapers that did not suggest her age was a significant issue. The presidential inauguration was in March 1873. Woodhull's 35th birthday was in September 1873. Victoria Woodhull announced her candidacy for President by writing a letter to the editor of the New York Herald on April 2, 1870. Victoria Woodhull was nominated for President of the United States by the newly formed Equal Rights Party on May 10, 1872, at Apollo Hall, New York City. In 1871, she spoke publicly against the government being composed only of men; she proposed developing a new constitution and a new government a year thence. Her nomination was ratified at the convention on June 6, 1872. They nominated the former slave and abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass for Vice President. He did not attend the convention and never acknowledged the nomination. He served as a presidential elector in the United States Electoral College for the State of New York. This made her the first woman candidate. Woodhull's campaign was also notable for the nomination of Frederick Douglass, although he did not take part in it. His nomination stirred up controversy about the mixing of whites and blacks in public life and fears of miscegenation (especially as he had married a much younger white woman after his first wife died). The Equal Rights Party hoped to use the nominations to reunite suffragists with African-American civil rights activists, as the exclusion of female suffrage from the Fifteenth Amendment two years earlier had caused a substantial rift between the groups.

Woodhull was an activist for women's rights and labor reforms. She was also an advocate of free love, by which she meant the freedom to marry, divorce, and bear children without government interference. She was a suffragist, politician, feminist and writer. She was known for politics, women's rights, women's suffrage, feminism, civil rights, anti-slavery, stockbroker, journalism. She was also a Spiritualist.

Woodhull's spouse(s) were: Canning "Channing" Woodhull (m.1853–?); Colonel James Blood (m. c. 1865–1876); John Biddulph Martin (m. 1883–1901). Her children were: Byron and Zula Maude Woodhull. Woodhull's parents were: Reuben Buckman Claflin, Roxanna Hummel Claflin.

Woodhull went from rags to riches, her first fortune being made on the road as a highly successful magnetic healer before she joined the spiritualist movement in the 1870s. Many of her articles and speeches she authored were disputed. Her speeches on these topics were collaborations between Woodhull, her backers, and her second husband, Colonel James Blood. Woodhull's role as a representative of these movements was powerful. Together with her sister, Tennessee Claflin, the was the first woman to operate a brokerage firm on Wall Street; they were among the first women to found a newspaper, Woodhull & Claflin's weekly, which began publication in 1870. Woodhull was politically active in the early 1870s, when she was nominated as the first woman candidate for the united States presidency, for which she is best known. Wood hull was the candidate in 1872 form the "Equal Rights Party," supporting women's suffrage and equal rights.

A few days before the presidential election, U.S. Federal Marshals arrested Woodhull, her second husband Colonel James Blood, and her sister Tennie California Claflin on charges of "publishing an obscene newspaper" because of the content of the issue. It was her arrest on obscenity charges a few days before the election, for publishing an account of the alleged adulterous affair between the prominent minister Henry Ward Beecher and Elizabeth Tilton, that added to the sensational coverage of her candidacy. She did not receive any electoral votes, and there was conflicting evidence about popular votes.

The three ( Victoria, her 2nd husband and sister) were acquitted on a technicality six months later, but the arrest prevented Woodhull from attempting to vote during the 1872 presidential election. With the publication of the scandal, Theodore Tilton, the husband of Elizabeth, sued Beecher for "alienation of affection." The trial in 1875 was sensationalized across the nation, and eventually resulted in a hung jury.

Woodhull again tried to gain nominations for the presidency in 1884 and 1892. Newspapers reported that her 1892 attempt culminated in her nomination by the "National Woman Suffragists' Nominating Convention" on 21 September. Mary L. Stowe of California was nominated as the candidate for vice president. The convention was held at Willard's Hotel in Boonville, New York, and Anna M. Parker was its president. Some woman's suffrage organizations repudiated the nominations, however, claiming that the nominating committee was unauthorized. Woodhull was quoted as saying that she was "destined" by "prophecy" to be elected president of the United States in the upcoming election.
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