The First Woman to Run for President: Victoria Woodhull
Victoria Woodhull
September 23, 1838 – June 9th, 1927
Here is Victoria:
- The First woman to run for President of the United States.
- The First Woman to open a brokerage firm on Wall Street.
- A Leader of the Women’s Rights movement.
- Author.
- Publisher.
- Speaker.
I had not heard of Victoria Woodhull before I started researching women’s right to vote and the Suffragette movement. How could I have missed her? It is embarrassing.
When I started to dig into the history of this fascinating woman, I thought, if she were here today she would fit right in. Not much has changed since the 1800’s in finance for women.
If you thought Hillary Clinton was the first woman to run for president, not a surprise. It has been 150 years since Victoria announced her candidacy in 1870.
As an unwelcome addition to the stockbrokers of Wall Street, she managed to make a million dollars by the time she was 31. She invested and made money. A million dollars in the late 1800’s! She used the money to start a newspaper. The primary purpose of the newspaper was to support her candidacy for President.
Victoria did not come from a well-off family. Or an idyllic family . She had 3 years of a formal education. Her mother was illiterate, and her father was a con man who burned down their gristmill to collect insurance. She was the seventh of ten children.
She was married three times. She was arrested for publishing “obscenities” in her newspaper.
She infiltrated national politics and testified before the House Judiciary Committee on the right to vote.
Can you imagine? No Harvard MBA or PhD in rocket science to get to Wall Street and become a successful investor.
She had none of the attributes we require today for someone to become president, or a publisher or an author or an advocate for womens rights.
She endured and overcame the pushback that women continue to receive today in finance and politics.
Victoria is the example we need to motivate women to invest. She is proof that you do not need a degree in math, or a degree in anything to start investing.
I wonder what she would say today, if she saw that women are still fighting the same battles on so many fronts.
Now the difference is, no one can stop you from investing. You have the right to vote and the right to invest.
A few things have changed after all.
Read more about Victoria!
References :
“Ladies of the Ticker; Women and Wall Street from the Gilded Age to the Great Depression”
by George Robb. University of Illinois Press 2017.
Available in Kindle Format on Amazon
Victoria Woodhull – Wikipedia ( full of other interesting references )
Decades Before They Had The Vote, Women Launched Their Own Stock Exchange.
Victoria Woodhull: First Woman to Run For President
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