The Audacity of Victoria Woodhull
One Woman's Historic Run for Presidency 50 Years Before Women Could Vote
Imagine a woman running for president in the 1870s, a time when women couldn't even vote. That woman was Victoria Woodhull, and her story is nothing short of extraordinary.
I don’t know about you, but this date came as a bit of a surprise to me. I don’t recall learning about a woman running for President when I was in school. So, I decided to double check the facts. [Check this List ] I have become obsessed with Victoria Woodhull ever since, perhaps it has to do with her amazing, sometimes heartbreaking life story and her example of sheer audacity in what we would consider now to be unbearable living conditions for women.
“Victoria Woodhull was the first woman to run for president in 1872, open the first female-run stock brokerage firm in the US, publish a newspaper, and vigorously challenge the circumscribed roles and obstacles faced by 19th century women in the United States.” (Zaccarini, 2016)
Early Life and Hardships
Victoria grew up in abject poverty. Her mother was a religious zealot who did energy healings on her and her nine siblings, and her father was a drunkard and a con-man who was suspected of burning down their mill to collect insurance money. She grew up working the small town carnivals telling fortunes around the same time of the famous Fox sisters were giving seances during the rise of Revivalism and Spiritualism in America. She was abused, neglected, and often hungry as a child, calling on the help of neighbors for food. Woodhull married young and then had a terrible marriage to an alcoholic and deadbeat husband, giving birth to a son with mental handicaps. She suffered extensively in the marriage, unable to get a divorce for many years due to the economic conditions of women of the time.
Financial Success and Activism
Despite her challenging upbringing, Woodhull's ambition and resourcefulness led her to unexpected financial success. Her psychic mediumship brought her into contact with her guide, Demosthenes and it was his guidance that urged her to go to New York City and convince the aging Cornelius Vanderbilt to set her and her sister up as stockbrokers on the New York Stock Exchange. There Victoria and Tennie, her sister, became very financially successful, earning $700,000 from their investments, which in today’s terms would be equivalent to millions.
Presidential Campaign and Controversy
This was parlayed into publishing a newspaper called Woodhull and Claflin’s Weekly and advocated economic and sexual reforms. Using her growing public platform, Woodhull then turned her attention to political reform, seizing an opportunity to testify before a congressional committee on voting rights.
Victoria Woodhull gave an epic speech in front of Congress in 1871, the first time a woman ever testified in front of a Judiciary Committee for Congress. It was called the Steinway Hall Speech.
She was reviled by men and women alike for what was deemed to be such and outrageous speech, journalists in Harpers magazine called her “Satan.” One reason may have been her advocacy of “free love.” Woodhull attempted to gain nominations for the presidency again in 1884 and 1892. There is a well-written 2-part blog post outlining Woodhull’s major life events at Museum of the City of New York Blog for more detail on her fascinating biography.
“Yes, I am a Free Lover. I have an inalienable, constitutional and natural right to love whom I may, to love as long or as short a period as I can; to change that love every day if I please, and with that right neither you nor any law you can frame have any right to interfere.”
- Victoria Woodhull before Congress
Later, she was involved in a big sex scandal that went public involving Reverend Henry Ward Beecher. She was thrown in jail on election night for obscenity charges. The scandal continued in Tilton vs. Beecher, the trial of the century.
Cornelius Vanderbilt who was also involved, paid Woodhull to leave the country because he was worried they would testify against his interests in hearings on the Vanderbilt estate, and she accepted it and moved to the UK in 1877. She continued her journalistic and political endeavors there.
Legacy
Woodhull’s life story was turned into a Broadway musical in the 1980’s with a stellar actress cast in the lead role, but interestingly enough, it closed on opening day. I imagine that in the 1980’s people were still not ready to appreciate Victoria’s story once again, sadly, but I think that is changing.
But I contend that young women today may now be ready for her story. I was able to get a copy of the original Broadway cast recording on CD. Can someone get Lin-Manuel Miranda on this?
“To woman, by nature, belongs the right of sexual determination. When the instinct is aroused in her, then and then only should commerce follow. When woman rises from sexual slavery to sexual freedom, into the ownership and control of her sexual organs, and man is obliged to respect this freedom, then will this instinct become pure and holy; then will woman be raised from the iniquity and morbidness in which she now wallows for existence, and the intensity and glory of her creative functions be increased a hundred-fold” … .[35]
The Astrology of Victoria Woodhull
Birthtime was near sunrise according to one source I consulted. Mercury Retrograde as Ruler of the Chart, when using the sidereal zodiac this comes to 29 Leo, also known as a highly psychic degree. Uranus opposing Venus and Sun is conjunct Jupiter conferring good fortune. Victoria has four quintiles and a septile highlighting her creativity.
On the day that she announces her candidacy, April 2, 1870, there is an Aries pileup with transiting Mercury at 1 Aries opposing the natal Sun.
The transit chart below was taken for the night she was thrown in jail on election night on obscenity charges.
On the night she was jailed, Uranus transited her natal Mars. Transiting Mercury and the Moon were conjunct at her natal Moon/Saturn at 22 Scorpio and Neptune went retrograde into her 7th house of open enemies.
There is much more I am still researching on her biography and astrology, as I work my way my way through Barbara Goldsmith’s excellent biography of Victoria Woodhull titled, Other Powers. Suffice to say, Victoria Woodhull gives us a fascinating example from the previous Neptune in Aries time period, which other astrologers may find valuable since Neptune enters Aries again this year for the first time sine 1861.
Sources
Brandman, M. (2022). Biography: Victoria Woodhull. National Women’s History Museum. https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/victoria-woodhull
Goldsmith, B. (2011). Other Powers. Knopf.
Zaccarini, C. (2016). COMMUNICATION THROUGH THE VEIL AND THE EVOLVING CONSCIOUSNESS OF VICTORIA WOODHULL: PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE AND FEMINIST. Interparadgmas, Ano 4, N. 4, 2016., Ano 4, N. 4, 2016.(4). https://www.interparadigmas.org.br/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Interparadigmas_Zaccarini_eng_N4.pdf