Victoria Claflin Woodhull (1838-1927) ran for President of the United States in 1872, nearly fifty years before women had the right to vote nationwide.

She ran with the Equal Rights Party, whose platform included equal rights and the vote for women.

Woodhull did not receive a single vote.

The presidential candidacy was not the only one. Victoria and her sister, Tennessee “Tennie” Claflin, were the first female agents on Wall Street, running the firm of Woodhull and Claflin. Their venture was funded by railroad and shipping magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt!

Woodhull and her sister Panda made a fortune on Wall Street, which they used to start a newspaper, Woodhull & Claflin’s Weekly. The paper advocated spiritualism, women’s emancipation, and “free love,” which to them meant that women should be able to divorce their husbands if they were in a loveless marriage.

Everything went wrong when Woodhull & Claflin’s Weekly published a story about a married clergyman and his secret love affairs with some of his parishioners!

Woodhull and her sister were arrested on indecent charges and imprisoned, although they were eventually released. In 1877, Victoria left New York for England and married a wealthy London banker, John Biddolph Martin. When he died in 1893, she lived the life of a wealthy English countrywoman on her 1,200-acre estate until she died at the age of 88.

She is always remembered as America’s first female presidential candidate.