To Hear Theme from "Ragtime" as soundtrack, please click on screen. Don't know why I always get misty at the sound of this song. Had to make it part of the dream that Victoria Woodhull and others, eventually made into a reality.
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Frederick Douglass, circa 1872, orator, writer, social reformer, statesman, NY electoral college delegate & Vice-Presidential candidate/running mate of Victoria Woodhull, Equal Rights Party. |
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Victoria California Claflin Woodhull, circa 1872, Nominee for President of the United States, Equal Rights Party. |
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Anthony Comstock, U.S. Postal Inspector, who took it upon himself to derail Victoria Woodhull's Presidential bid in 1872, and was responsible, due to his tactics, for the suicides of numerous Women, whose only crimes were writing sex manuals for couples, selling pills which induced abortion/miscarriage, etc. They chose to take their lives rather than face the prospect of going to prison. |
Much has been made of a certain political candidate being the "1st Woman candidate for President of the United States of America", and the push by many to vote for her just because she would be "the first woman to run for POTUS" and disregard some extremely serious character flaws. But then again, no one is without character flaws. I guess it all ads up to what one is willing to overlook. I must admit that having lived in Arkansas from 1987-1991, and from personal experiences in New Mexico since 1992, I am extremely uncomfortable with people that use Adolf Hitler's "Big Lie" to not only advance themselves, and their agenda, but to harm others.
Victoria California Claflin (birth name) was born in Homer, Ohio, on September 23, 1838. She was by all accounts much more of a force in feminism than Isadora Duncan, who has probably been canonized due to just how tragically that Woman died. The little girl Victoria California Claflin, would later become Victoria Woodhull Martin. She was an activist for Women's rights and labor reforms; she was one of the first American advocates for what she termed "free love" (probably partly owing to a husband being a miserable scoundrel and cheating on her). That should not be misconstrued as playing musical beds with as many people as you could, but referred to a woman's freedom to marry the partner of her choosing, the freedom to divorce, and the freedom to bear and raise children free from government interference. And that is probably one of the reasons why she is being wrongly overlooked as the true First Woman Presidential Candidate in the United States of America. There is just no way certain modern forces would go along with the government being deprived of meddling in how a Woman or a family raise(s) (a) child(ren).
Victoria Woodhull accomplished some very impressive things, and not by riding some man's coat-tails but all on her own. She raised herself up twice to make fortunes after a period of economic hardship. She made her first fortune as a traveling and extremely effective "magnetic healer". She also became an author and had many articles dealing with spirituality published, and became a central leader in the American Spiritualist Movement of the 1870s. She opened up a brokerage house on Wall Street, Claflin & Woodhull, with her sister, Tennessee, as partner, and had as clients many wealthy individuals, such as Cornelius Vanderbilt, a scion of New York society. She also was one of the first Women, along with her sister, Tennessee, to found a newspaper, Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly, which also began to publish in the 1870s.
In the early 1870s, she launched her lobbying efforts to obtain Voting Rights for Women, and began her bid to become the First Woman President of the United States of America, representing the Equal Rights Party, whose platform was not just obtaining voting rights for women, but equal rights for women as well. She was truly ahead of her time. The other remarkable fact equally ignored, even when people mention Ms. Woodhull's candidacy is that her running mate was Frederick Douglass, noted African-American writer, orator, social reformer, and statesman. I do not believe even President Barack Obama or First Lady Michelle Obama have ever made reference to this. Ms. Victoria Woodhull also has the distinction of being the first Woman to be invited to address the United States Congress.
On November 2, 1872, just days before the election, she was arrested on an obscenity charge, a bogus, politically-motivated claim to derail her candidacy. The charge was the result of an article she had written detailing an alleged adulterous affair between well-loved minister Henry Ward Beecher, Pastor of Brooklyn's Plymouth Church, and Elizabeth Tilton, a member of his congregation, and wife of Theodore Tilton, writer, social reformer and of one of Reverend Beecher's greatest admirers. Susan B. Anthony was also arrested for trying to vote (for Victoria Woodhull) in the same election.
The district attorney had refused to indict Victoria Woodhull, pointing to the fact that no laws had been broken by her merely writing the article. But then, one of Ms. Woodhull's enemies, and a United States Postal Inspector, Anthony Comstock, used a phony name to order a copy of the article by mail, and upon receipt of the article, demanded that federal charges be pressed against Ms. Woodhull for sending "indecent and obscene materials through the mails". At the time, even information on birth control was considered indecent and obscene. Victoria Woodhull and her sister, Tennessee Celeste Claflin, were both arrested, and though later acquitted, the arrest successfully torpedoed Victoria Woodhull's Presidential Campaign. She received no electoral votes, though she did succeed in obtaining a respectable number of votes. The following year, 1873, Anthony Comstock founded his "New York Society for the Suppression of Vice".
Postal Inspector Anthony Comstock, a vindictive and highly judgmental man, used his powers and position as a member of the US Postal Service to wreck many lives. In one case, he drove the Women, Ida Craddock, and Madame Restell, to suicide rather than be disgraced by reporting to prison after their convictions. Craddock for selling sexually explicit marriage manuals for couples by mail, and abortion doctor Madame Restell, for selling pills to induce abortion/miscarriage. Anthony Comstock made numerous enemies, and was eventually attacked and seriously injured by a blow to the head, which affected his conduct and personality. Curiously enough, Anthony Comstock made a fan of a young J. Edgar Hoover, on whom he made quite an impression. J. Edgar Hoover would later become head of the FBI.
After divorcing her husband, James H. Blood, in 1876, she and her sister, Tennessee, moved to England in 1877. There she met, dated, and eventually married wealthy English banker, John Biddulph Martin, in 1883. In England she wrote many works, including: "Human Body: The Temple of God", and numerous articles in the magazine that she and her sister published together, The Humanitarian from 1892 to 1901. Victoria California Claflin Woodhull Martin died on June 9, 1927, at Bredon's Norton, Worcestershire, England. A remarkable Woman who spoke her mind, and always the truth. Truly a person ahead of her time and one of integrity, candor and honesty, unlike some "Janies Come Lately".
On closing, I would dearly love to see a movie made about Victoria Woodhull, with actress Gabrielle Anwar, playing Ms. Woodhull and perhaps Morgan Freeman playing the part of Frederick Douglass, Ms. Woodhull's Vice-Presidential Running Mate in 1872.
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Actress Gabrielle Anwar Actor Morgan Freeman |
