14 Facts About Victoria Woodhull, The First Woman To Ever Run For President

Hillary Clinton may have been the first woman to run for president on the ticket of a major party, but Woodhull was the first woman to ever run for the position, period. Woodhull declared her candidacy back in 1870 for the 1872 election. She ran under the banner of a small, independent party: the Equal Rights Party, previously known as the People's Party. Her opponents were Ulysses S. Grant, the Republican incumbent, and Horace Greeley, the Democratic candidate. Woodhull's running mate was Frederick Douglas, even though he never agreed to the position. In fact, Douglas gave public speeches in favor of Grant.

On election day, Woodhull couldn't even vote. Women didn't have the right at the time, but Woodhull also spent that day in prison for sending obscene material in the mail (her newspaper had revealed Henry Ward Beecher's infidelity). Woodhall didn't receive any electoral votes, but it's unclear whether she received any popular votes.

Woodhull and her sister, Tennessee Claflin, started a newspaper in 1870. Called Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly, it was published from 1870 until 1876. The paper focused on a number of controversial topics, such as women's suffrage, free love, and Spiritualism, all things that Woodhull supported. The newspaper was the first U.S. publication to run Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto, and also exposed the extramarital affairs of Henry Ward Beecher.

Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly was the first newspaper in the United States to be financed, run, and published by women. Although The Revolution - a women's rights newspaper run by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony - began publication in 1868, it was financed by men.

In 1870, with the financial backing of Cornelius Vanderbilt (who was rumored to be Tennessee Claflin's lover), Woodhull and her sister opened the first Wall Street brokerage run by women. Called Woodhull, Claflin and Co., the brokerage employed other women as well.

Woodhull and Claflin quickly became known as the "bewitching brokers" and were very successful. Following stock tips from Vanderbilt, as well as coming up with some of their own, the two made millions.

On January 11, 1871, Woodhull became the first woman to speak before a Congressional committee. She gave a speech to the House Judiciary Committee, in which she claimed that the newly ratified 14th and 15th Amendments gave women the right to vote. Woodhull had gotten the invitation from Benjamin Butler, a Republican from Massachusetts whom she had befriended.

Woodhull's assertion that women could vote under the new amendments didn't pan out; women finally received the right to vote in 1920, thanks to the 19th Amendment. But for a short period of time, she had the ears of lawmakers.

Woodhull's parents put her to work as a clairvoyant at a young age. She reportedly starting having visions when she was ten, and her sister, Tennessee Claflin, had premonitions. Woodhull's mother was a follower of the burgeoning Spiritualist movement, and she and her husband pushed the girls to go on a traveling circuit so that they could earn money for the family. On the road, they told fortunes and held seances.

Woodhull worked as a magnetic healer as well, helping the sick and injured with a series of "healing" magnetic devices. She and her sister were so successful that they were able to set up their magnetic healing practice in New York City as adults.

Woodhull was married three times. She married her first husband, Dr. Canning Woodhull, when she was 15; they had two children, Byron and Zula. The family moved to San Francisco, where Woodhull reportedly worked as a topless waitress. They eventually wound up in New York City, where Woodhull's husband deserted the family after 11 years of marriage.

Woodhull divorced her first husband, and then took up with Colonel James Harvey Blood, a Spiritualist who supported her free love beliefs. They divorced in 1876. Her third marriage, to John Biddulph Martin, ended with his death in 1901.

Although divorce was greatly frowned upon during the 1800s, Woodhull didn't seem to care about her reputation. She felt that women should have the right to leave marriages that were unbearable, not stay simply because that was the expected thing to do. The doctrine of free love espoused at the time supported this ability to choose one's relationships.