Soothsayer, suffragette, stockbroker, “Mrs. Satan,” and candidate for President of the United States, Victoria Woodhull has been known by many names. The details of her life have been obscured by biographers, journalists, enemies, and her own testimony. Victoria Woodhull often shifted her story to suit the moment during her complicated and controversial life. She was accused of engaging in prostitution by many of her contemporaries, but the evidence that historians have found is circumstantial and non-conclusive. At Old Pros we believe that whether or not Victoria Woodhull ever exchanged erotic labor for money, she was besieged by the same whorephobia that continues to haunt public women today.
Victoria Claflin was born the seventh of ten children in a rural frontier town of Ohio. Her mother was illiterate, mentally ill, and a follower of the emerging spiritualist movement. Her father, Reuben "Buck" Buckman Claflin, Esq., was a lawyer, snake oil salesman, and a drunk. From a very young age Victoria and her sister Tennessee “Tennie” Claflin supported the family as child preachers and clairvoyants, and becoming the stars of their father’s roadshow.
Whether or not Victoria Woodhull ever exchanged erotic labor for money, she was besieged by the same whorephobia that continues to haunt public women today.
At fourteen, Victoria married Dr. Woodhull, who proved to be a barely functioning alcoholic. After having two children, trying to support her family working at a cigar shop in San Francisco and pursuing some acting gigs – both possible sex working euphemisms – she left her husband. She and her sister began working as spiritualists together in Ohio before relocating to New York City, where they met Cornlieus Vanderbilt. He quickly became the sister's best client.
Cornlieus, famed railroad magnate, paid the sisters well for their clairvoyant services and supported them as they established their own brokerage firm and newspaper– Woodhull & Clafin, Co. The sisters made headlines for defying the gendered expectations of the nineteenth century. Victoria became the first woman to address Congress on the issue of suffrage, arguing that the fifteenth amendment granted voting rights to women as ‘citizens.’
After some initial enthusiasm, her contemporaries in the suffrage movement would go on to shun Victoria and her sister for their enthusiastic support of ‘free love,’ and reputation as sex workers. ‘Free love’ during this period often meant the support for voluntary divorce, and the idea that men and women should enjoy intimate relationships with partners of their choosing, without coercion. Feminists and anti-feminists scrutinized Victoria’s gender and sexuality, slamming her scepticism of the sanctity of marriage. In 1870 Victoria Woodhull announced her campaign for presidency for the 1872 election, with Fredrick Douglas listed as her running mate, though Douglas did not agree or consent to being on the ticket.
Anthony Comstock, who would go on to criminalize birth control, made his career attacking Victoria Woodhull. She spent the 1872 election night in jail on charges of obscenity, for stories she published in her newspaper that enumerated the unethical sexual behavior of prominent men. After multiple high profile court cases, she and her sister eventually moved to London, where they both went on to marry wealthy men who supported their activism.
Her contemporaries in the suffrage movement would go on to shun Victoria and her sister for their enthusiastic support of ‘free love,’ and reputation as sex workers.
Victoria Woodhull was a pioneer of the women’s rights movement and suffrage, as well as a philanthropist. She has been both mythologized and erased from respectable historical narratives. She’s not often mentioned among the likes of Elizabeth Candy Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Lucretia Mott as a leader of the movement, although Victoria’s presence was a concrete force in the fight for women’s rights in America and abroad.
There’s much we don’t know about Victoria Woodhull’s life, simply because it’s shrouded in mythology, unsubstantiated by archival evidence, obscured by biographies written by those who may have been enemies, or elements of her life she altered herself that may have benefitted her in the moment. Several accounts of Victoria Woodhull’s life state she was a sex worker, but we’ve been unable to identify any evidence to substantiate these claims. It is plausible that she engaged in sex work early in her life; but it’s also plausible that she was not a sex worker and that rumor was the result of her open views on sexuality, her public relationships, and her working-class origins. What we do know is that Victoria Woodhull was a force to be reckoned with, a trailblazer for women’s political and social rights, and a staunch advocate for women’s sexuality and control of their own bodies. Challenger of the patriarchy. Sex positive advocate. Complete badass.
At Old Pros, we claim Victoria Woodhull as a part of our history.
