Victoria Woodhull Essay

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Victoria Woodhull Victoria Claflin Woodhull was born on September 23, 1838 in Homer, Ohio. She was born as Victoria Claflin and was said to have inherited a lot of her mother’s fiery personality and was imitating preachers when she was young. Victoria spent much of her childhood traveling with her family because when she was ten years old, Victoria and her sister, Tennessee, had visions and their father took this as an opportunity and took them on the road as psychic healers. When Victoria was fifteen years old she married Dr. Canning Woodhull who was a Cincinnati doctor and a patent medicine salesman. They had two children together. The family lived in San Francisco for a short period of time where Victoria worked as a cigar girl, actress and was a prostitute. During 1860 the Woodhull family moved to New York City, where Victoria and Tennessee set up a practice, but then during 1864 they moved to Cincinnati and then later to Chicago in search of new clients. After being married for eleven years, Victoria and Canning divorced. After two years after her divorce, Woodhull married Colonel James Harvey Blood who was an educated, polite and respectful man who believed in spiritualism and free love. Victoria and Tennessee published Woodhull and Claflin’s Weekly, a journal that addressed all controversial topics, in 1870. On April 2, 1870, Woodhull announced that she had plans to run for presidency, being the first woman to ever do so. Woodhull’s plan was to just run independently and use Woodhull and Claflin’s Weekly to publicize her campaign. Victoria Woodhull had gotten support for her campaign from suffragists, land and labor reformers, peace and temperance advocates, internationalists, and spiritualists. During Woodhull’s run for president, came along the Beecher-Tilton scandal. This was an issue involving Victoria’s journal for printing two explicit articles, one

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