Victoria Woodhull

All the talk of Hillary being the first woman nominated to run for President reminded me of a lady by the name of Victoria Woodhull.  I first heard about her in a class titled Sex and Politics taught by Professor Dave Porter at St. Mary's College.  (Of course I then got to wondering about Dr. Porter and spent way too much time trying to track him down.  Did learn though, that there are a bunch of Dave Porter college professors out there in academia.  If any of you have any info on Dr. Dave please let me know.)  Back to Victoria.

As noted, she was the first woman to run for President in 1872.  Note that all the Hillary stories state that she is the first woman "nominated by a major party."  In fact, there have been several women (including Gracie Allen?!) before Hillary to have run for President (click here) but Victoria was the first to do so.

Victoria was quite the lady and her story is worth checking out (click here.)  Daughter of a snake oil salesman, married when she was only 15, divorced twice, Victoria started a brokerage firm, a newspaper and became active in women's rights including something called the free love movement.  Just to pique your interest about her here is an excerpt from Wiki: 

(See why the class was titled Sex and Politics?)  Victoria eventually moved to England where she died in 1927. 

And only because it has the word suffragette in it: