Victoria Woodhull addresses the House Judiciary Committee

This newspaper illustration depicts the first time that a woman appeared before Congress to lobby for women's suffrage. On January 11, 1871, Victoria Woodhull appeared before the House Judiciary Committee to argue that the 14th and 15th Amendments protected a woman's right to vote. A newspaper editor and suffragist from Tennessee, Woodhull (1838-1927) eventually ran for president in 1872—the first woman to do so.