Abby Connolly
History was made in 2021 when we swore in the first female vice president of the United States. Although America has yet to elect a female president, several women have run presidential campaigns.
Do you know who the first woman to run for president was?
Her name was Victoria Woodhull, and she was also a leader in the women’s suffrage movement and the first female stockbroker to work on Wall Street.
Victoria was born in Ohio in 1838. She was the seventh of ten children and grew up in a brutal household where her father was abusive. Though she only received three years of formal education, she was still a very bright girl. Her family left her hometown when her father’s mill burnt down.
When she was only 15 years old, Victoria married 28-year-old doctor Canning Woodhull. Not long after they married, Victoria learned her husband was an alcoholic and often had to pick up jobs to support her family, which included their two children.
Victoria eventually divorced Canning in 1865 and began to support the ‘free love’ movement, which promoted women being able to get married, have children, and get divorced without any interference from the government.
It was the beginning of her long history of fighting for women’s rights. She married her second husband, Colonel James Harvey Blood, in 1866.
Victoria began working with her sister, Tennessee Claflin, and started a brokerage with her in 1870 on Wall Street, making them the first women ever to do so.
This was a very busy year for Victoria, as it was the same year she and her sister used some of their brokerage funds to start their own newspaper called Woodhull and Claflin’s Weekly. The newspaper published pieces relating to women’s suffrage, the free love movement, and political ideas.
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