Victoria Claflin Woodhull

The controversial, wealthy banker Victoria Woodhull announced her candidacy for President of the United States in 1870. Subsequently, she presented a memorandum to Congress requesting the right to “vote without regard to sex,” shocking many Americans. In response to Woodhull’s testimony, nineteen antisuffragists— all women—published their opposition in the Godey’s Lady’s Book, a magazine promoting traditional ideals of womanhood. A number of suffragists disapproved of Woodhull, too, and her fiery rhetoric did nothing to boost her popularity. For example, in 1871 she declared, “We mean treason; we mean secession . . . . We are plotting revolution.”