Suffragettes of Tennessee

"Bullets and ballots are not companions, but ballots in the hands of people are supposed to be a substitute for bullets in the hands of hired agents...Thanks be to God that in giving women the crown of motherhood he made her the giver not the taker of life. Woman has no greater claim to the rights of the ballot than she is a producer not a destroyer of life." - Lizzie Crozier French

                                                       Suffrage Poster

       
                                             

Everyone knows of the tireless efforts of women like Susan B. Anthony, Alice Paul, Lucretia Mott, Carrie Chapman Catt and Elizabeth Cady Stanton in their fight for the right for women to vote. Their names have become synonymous with Women's Suffrage. Few people have heard of these remarkable Tennessee women that helped convince the Tennessee Legislature to ratify the Susan B. Anthony bill; known today as the 19th Amendment to the Constitution. 

 In order for an Amendment to pass and become law it has to pass through both houses of Congress and then be ratified by a majority of 36 states. In 1919, the 19th Amendment passed through both houses of Congress. Six states ratified the bill immediately. Twenty nine states soon followed suit while six Southern states rejected it. Florida, North Carolina, Vermont, Connecticut, and Louisiana opposed the Amendment. The last two states to decide were Delaware and Tennessee. When the bill was defeated in Delaware every breath was held and every eye turned to Tennessee. 

                                                  Anti-Suffrage Poster


Tennessee had it's own "War of the Roses" as anti-suffragists campaigned using a red rose to symbolize their stance and suffragists choosing a yellow rose. Nashville was flooded with campaigners and lobbyist. On August 9, 1919 a special session of the Tennessee General Assembly was called; requested by Sue Shelton White. The bill finally passed the Senate on Friday, Aug. 13 by a margin of 25-4 with one senator abstaining. The bill was then handed off the the House where it was debated for three more days. A test vote to table the resolution lost on a 48-48 tie and, knowing another tie vote would defeat the bill  an anti-Suffragist immediately called for another vote to kill the amendment in Tennessee. Rep. Harry Burn, after having just received a letter from his mother urging him to ratify, voted "Aye" to the resolution The bill now had a 49-47 majority in the Tennessee House of Representatives.  On August 18, 1919, Tennessee certified the ratification, becoming the 36th state to do so and making the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution the law. Women everywhere celebrated their win. They now had the right to vote! 


Tennessee was an important factor in deciding the fate of American Women and so were these ladies that you, dear readers need to know about. There were many women in the state that came together to make their voices known. History has not left us with the names of every Tennessee suffragist but we remember their collective effort to support the cause. Now I would like to introduce you to the following remarkable Tennessee Suffragettes.

                     The Tennesee Woman's Suffrage Memorial depicts Lizzie Crozier French, Anne Dallas Dudley, and Elizabeth Avery Meriwether. The three women represent the three different regions of Tennessee. It is located in Market Square Mall, downtown Knoxville, TN


Anne Dallas Dudley 
"Every reform is started by a minority."
Anne was from a wealthy family in Nashville. Anne Dallas Dudley, daughter of Trevanion Dallas, a wealthy cotton mill owner, and great niece of George Dallas, who was James K. Polk's vice president.  She was a strong believer in the Woman's Suffrage Movement. Anne shocked all of the Nashville elite by organizing the first suffrage parade not only in Nashville, but in the South. Sixty automobiles, decorated with yellow banners, paraded from the Capitol to Centennial Park. To counter the criticism that suffragists ignored their families, Anne Dallas Dudley was joined in the lead car by her husband, Guilford Dudley, co-founder of Life & Casualty Insurance Co., and their children. She helped found the Nashville Equal Suffrage League in 1911 and convinced Susan B. Anthony to hold the national conference for her American Woman Suffrage Association at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. In the 1930s Dudley served as president of the Maternal Welfare Organization of Tennessee. This group brought birth control pioneer Margaret Sanger to Nashville in 1938 to increase public awareness of birth control. She is buried at Mt. Olivet Cemetery in Nashville.


Sue Shelton White
"We should be ashamed to stand on ground won by women in the past without making any effort to honor them by winning a higher and wider field for the future."
"Miss Sue" as she was called, was born in 1887 and grew up and lived in Henderson, a suburb of Nashville. Unlike most suffragettes, her parents were both teachers and they lived very modestly. Left an orphan at the age of 14, Sue vowed to pursue an education so she would not become anyone's financial responsability. She moved in with her aunt and enrolled in George Robertson Christian College and then went on to study at West Tennessee Business College. In 1907, Sue became one of 
the first female court reporter in Tennessee. In 1912, while living in Jackson, TN, Sue became a founding member of the Jackson League of the Tennessee Equal Suffrage Association (TESA) and was elected recording secretary the following year. She wavered back and forth between the two different Suffrage organizations; the NAWSA (The National American Woman's Association) and the NWP(National Woman's Party). She was elected chairwoman of the Tennessee chapter of the NWP after breaking ties with the NAWSA for good. In 1919, she was elected as editor of the NWP;s newspaper Suffragist. After the radification of the 19th Amendment which finally gave women the right to vote, Sue moved to Washington. D.C. to pursue a law degree. In 1923 she recieved her degree and was admitted to the Bar. She continued to fight for women's equality and helped draft the Equal Rights Amendment. In 1926, Sue moved to Jackson TN and became the city's first female lawyer. Sue is the only known female Tennessean who was jailed for her participation in the suffrage cause. She was a member of the NWP protest party that burned an effigy of President Wilson in front of the White House. She died in 1943 from cancer.

Lizzie Crozier French 

Lizzie Crozier was born in Knoxville on May 7, 1851 to Congressman and local attorney John H. Crozier. While little information is known about her mother, Lizzie was one of three girls born into the family. Lizzie was educated at the Convent of Visitation at Georgetown in Washington, D.C. and at a private Episcopal School in Columbia, TN. Lizzie married William French at age 21 and together they had a son. William died after only two years of marriage and Lizzie took a teaching position at the Knoxville Female Academy. In 1885, Lizzie French, along with her sisters Lucy and Mary founded a school for "young ladies and children" at the Knoxville Female Academy, where the sisters developed an educational curriculum that taught children more than just the basics of reading and writing. They did so well that the school became known throughout the city and was one of the most popular among parents and students for its approach to education. 
On Nov. 20 of that same year, French invited 12 women to the Knoxville Academy to organize a literary group like the one she had visited while traveling in New York. The 12 women who chartered the organization that night chose the name the Ossoli Circle. In 1896, French founded the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union and used her position in the organization to become the first 
woman to address the Knoxville City Council appealing for the appointment of a Police Matron– a female police officer for women offenders who would assist in the care and treatment of the females arrested by police. She convinced the City Council of the need for one and filled the position herself for several months until the city could hire someone permanetely. She then became the first woman to address the Tennessee General Assembly, lobbying on behalf of efforts to establish a separate prison for women and children in the state of Tennessee, which led to the establishment of both institutions. In 1912, Lizzie was elected president of the Tennessee Suffrage Association. She also became the first woman to address the Tennessee Bar Association. French continued her work in Knoxville founding and serving as president of the Knoxville Equal Suffrage Society and becoming a leading member of the National Women’s Party(NWP). On Aug. 9, 1919, the special session of the Tennessee General Assembly was called to order. Lizzie, then 68 years old, was there using her voice. Lizzie remained an active member of the Knoxville community and made a bid for City Council in 1923, but was defeated. Three years later, at the age of  75, she traveled to Washington, D.C. to help the National Women’s Party furnish a room in honor of the Tennessee suffragists and also secure introduction of a bill in Congress to benefit working women in America. On May 14, 1926, while still in D.C., the Tennessean quietly passed away. Her body was returned to her hometown in Knoxville where she was laid to rest in the city’s Old Gray Cemetery.



Elizabeth Avery Meriwether
 “But when will women have the right to vote?  I have been taught to believe that taxation without representation is tyranny.”

Elizabeth was born in Bolivar, TN in 1824. Her father was a Quaker physician and her mother was the daughter of a Virginia planter who had moved to Tennessee. Elizabeth's parents died when she was 22. She and her siblings lived in poverty until her brother Tom finally received his law degree. In January 1850, Elizabeth married Minor Meriwether, a civil engineer. He later joined the Confederate Army to fight for the South in the War Between the States. Elizabeth found her name on a list of outspoken Confederate officer's wives who were to be removed from their homes near Memphis or face arrest and incarceration. Elizabeth had two small children and was pregnant with her third. She attempted to follow her husband's unit, and delivered her third child in a stranger's house on Christmas night in 1862. She resorted to stealing corn for food for her children, selling clothing and even sneaking back into Memphis on a dangerous mission to pay taxes so her property would not be sold at auction. She eventually ended up in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. During this time she began writing stories and selling them to newspapers. After the war Minor Meriwether purchased a modest Memphis home for his family on the current site of the Peabody Hotel. Elizabeth petitioned occupation forces under Union General Stephen A. Hurlburt, in an effort to regain title to her girlhood home which had been confiscated by the Union during the war, and was finally successful. Thus recognized as a property owner and tax payer, she obtained a voter registration in 1872. In 1876 she went to the polls and attempted to vote in the presidential election of that year. (At this time I have not verified whether she was actually allowed to vote. It was rumored that they dropped the ballot in the box to keep her happy and then destroyed her ballot later. ) She was one of the first women in the state to publicly push for women's suffrage in the early 1870s. She wrote letters to newspapers and published a pamphlet about women's rights. For a year, she published a small newspaper, The Tablet, which showcased her views on women's issues, divorce law and equal pay for women teachers. In 1876 she made one of the first public suffragist speeches in Memphis. She was active in the Women's Christian Temperance Union and belonged to the National Woman Suffrage Association, and presented unsuccessful women's suffrage petitions at both the Democratic and Republican national conventions in 1880. In 1881, Meriwether joined Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony on a speaking tour. She also continued to write, publishing several books. In the late 1800s, the Meriwethers moved to Saint Louis, Missouri where they built Meriwether Mansion. Just before her death on November 4, 1916, Elizabeth wrote her memoirs entitled Recollections of 92 years. She did not live to see the 19th Amendment become law. She is buried in  Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis.

                                                                 Suffrage Parade

Mary Cordelia Beasley Hudson
Mary was the first woman to legally vote in Tennessee. Mary was born in Benton, Co. TN on August 1, 1851. She was the daughter of Reuben Beasley and Elizabeth Brown.  On January 9, 1872, she married O. B. C. Hudson in Benton County.  She and her husband had six children and operated a grocery store near their home in Camden, TN. On April 5, 1919, the Tennessee General Assembly passed a limited suffrage act. Governor Albert H. Roberts signed the suffrage bill into law on April 17, 1919.  A few days following this, on Tuesday, April 22, a municipal election was held in Camden.  Mrs. Hudson, who had joined the suffrage movement in 1918, cast her vote and was quick to point out that she voted for the winner of the election, A. V. Bowls. I have not been able to find out much more than this but I will continue to research.


Further Reading:
The Woman Suffrage Movement in Tennessee - Antoinette E. Taylor
More than Petticoats: Remarkable Tennessee Women - Susan Sawyer
The Perfect 36: Tennessee Delivers Woman Suffrage - Carol Lynn Yellin and Janann Sherman
Recollections of 92 Years - Elizabeth Avery Meriwether
One Woman, One Vote; Rediscovering the Woman Suffrage Movement - ed. Marjorie Spruill Wheeler. Troutdale, OR: NewSage Press 1995
Votes for Women!:The Woman Suffrage Movement in Tennessee, the South, and the Nation - Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press 1995
http://tennessee.gov/tsla/exhibits/suffrage/beginning.htm
National Women's History Museum

Laura Ingalls Wilder

Laura Elizabeth Ingalls was born February 7th, 1867 in Pepin, Wisconsin to Charles Ingalls and Caroline Quiner. Most of her life was recounted in her famous "Little House" books which were adapted into a T.V. show in the 1970's.  She was the second of four children. In 1874, the Ingalls family left Wisconsin for Walnut Grove, Minnesota, where most of the T.V. series takes place. Two years later, the family moved to Burr Oak, Iowa, where her father became part-owner of a hotel. But the hotel business must not have been too lucrative because the family moved back to Walnut Grove a year later. In 1879, Laura's family moved again to the Dakota Territory.

Laura's father built a homestead in De Smet, South Dakota. Both Laura's parents lived there until they died and the house that "Pa" built is still standing and open for tours.  In 1882, at the age of fifteen, Laura received her teaching certificate. This is when she met/courted Almanzo "Manly" Wilder, the man she would spend the rest of her life with.  For the next three years, Laura taught at a small country school several miles from her home in De Smet and boarded with a family who lived nearby. Almanzo began coming to pick Laura up from school every Friday to take her home to her family, and every Sunday he would bring her back to the family she was boarding with while teaching. Thus began Laura and Almanzo's courtship.

Laura and Almanzo were married on August 25, 1885 in a very simple ceremony at the local Reverend's house in De Smet. Laura quit her teaching job to help Almanzo work their farm. The following year, on December 5th, 1886, their daughter Rose was born. In August of 1889, Laura gave birth to a boy that would not survive infancy. 

The Wilders moved to Mansfield, Missouri in 1894, where they built a farm they called Rocky Ridge. Here, Laura would write her famous "Little House" books recounting her life growing up. Here, Laura and Almanzo would both die. Laura wrote her first book, an autobiography titled "Pioneer Girl", some time in the late 1920's but no one would publish the work.  This work has recently been published by the South Dakota State Historical Society. She decided to change the autobiography from a first person point of view to third person and broadened the story to include more of her family and neighbors. She also geared it towards children. In 1932, the first of the "Little House" books was published. Laura was sixty five years old. Seven more "Little House" books would be written and published. Laura passed away at her Rocky Ridge home on February 10, 1957. She was ninety years old. You can also tour this home.

Laura Ingalls Wilder left a great legacy for all of us to share. How many of us read her books as children? How many of us grew up watching the television adaptation of her books? She made the struggles and harsh realities of living in the western frontier of the United States in the late 1800's real to many people, but she also let us share in the love that her family had for each other.

Did you know?
Did you know that Rose Wilder Lane was the last direct descendant of Charles and Caroline. Laura's sisters never had children of their own. Mary never married, Carrie married when she was in her forties and Grace never had children with her husband. Rose married when she was in her twenties but the marriage didn't last long and there were no children produced.

Further reading:
West from Home: Letters of Laura Ingalls Wilder to Almanzo - Laura Ingalls Wilder
Pioneer Girl - Laura Ingalls Wilder
Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Biography - William Anderson

http://www.notablebiographies.com/We-Z/Wilder-Laura-Ingalls.html

http://www.discoverlaura.org/index.html

http://www.lauraingallswilderhome.com/

Lydia Bean

Lydia (Russell) Bean was born in 1726 in Rappahanock County, Virginia. She was the daughter of Lt. Col. William James Russell and Martha Graydon. In 1741, Lydia married William Bean, a friend and traveling companion of Daniel Boone. Lydia and William had 10 children. They moved from Virginia in 1769 to what would later become the state of Tennessee. Their first born son Russell was born the same year and is reported to be the first white person born in Tennessee.

Lydia was captured in July 1776 by hostile Cherokee Indians prior to an attack on the Wataugu settlement. The Watauga settlement was located south of the Holston River, on the Watauga and Nolichucky Rivers in the colony of North Carolina, now Tennessee.  She was intercepted as she made her way from her home on Boone’s Creek to Sycamore Shoals. She was sent to the Overhill Towns, a Cherokee village, and was sentenced to execution. She was actually being tied to a stake when Nancy Ward, Beloved Mother of the Cherokee, exercised her right as a woman of the tribe (the women usually decided the fate of captives) to spare Lydia from death. She took the injured Mrs. Bean into her own home to nurse her back to health. In return Lydia taught Nancy and the other women of their tribe many new and useful ways of the white man, and it is said that Lydia was the one who introduced cows into Cherokee society by giving some of her own cattle to Nancy Ward.

Several members of the Bean family were killed by hostile Indians, including a brother and one of her daughters. Lydia herself lived to be 62 years of age and she died on June 18, 1788 in Grainger County, Tennessee.


The introduction of European ways into Nancy Ward's tribe by Lydia Bean helped to effectively change the gender dynamics of Cherokee society. The men began to take the place of women as farmers while the women were expected to do common white women's chores such as making clothes and making butter and cheese.

                       Historical Marker at the location of Bean's Station, a stopping point for travelers

                                          Historical Marker for the Bean family cabin





Further research:
Bean Family Genealogy

Bean Station

Annals of Tennessee - J.G.M Ramsey

Mary Lacy: Female Shipwright

Mary Lacy was born on January 12, 1740, at Wickham in Kent, England. She was the oldest of three children and was sent to a charity school to be educated. She went into domestic service around the age of twelve and worked as such for seven years. During this time, she fell in love, which went unrequited, and she decided to leave her home and place of service. In May of 1759, at age nineteen, she traveled to the dockyards of Chatham, disguised herself as a man and using the name William Chandler, enlisted in the British Royal Navy aboard the 90-gun ship Sandwich. Mary, now known as William, became servant to the ship's carpenter, Richard Baker.

During this time England was fighting France in what is known as the Seven Years War in Europe and the French and Indian War in America. During the 1759-1760 year of the war, the HMS Sandwich helped patrol the seas off Ushant and Biscay Bay as a blockade ship against the French.

Mary Lacy rolled with the waves and adjusted to life aboard ship. She suffered a few bouts of sickness due to rheumatoid arthritis. At one time she was confined to the sick bay for several weeks and one episode was so severe that she was sent to the naval hospital in Plymouth. By the time she recovered, the Sandwich had already sailed without her. She then joined the crew of the HMS Royal Sovereign, a 100-gun ship that was permanently stationed offshore at Spithead and used to guard the port.   

Mary decided she wanted to become a shipwright's apprentice. In March 1763, she was signed on as apprentice to Alexander McLean, the acting carpenter of the Royal William, which had been decommissioned and was based at Portsmouth Dockyard. Mary completed her apprenticeship in 1770 and was certified as a shipwright.

Mary wrote an autobiography but never really talked about the difficulties in keeping up her disguise as William Chandler. Her sex was almost discovered when she tripped while working on the deck of the Royal Sovereign and fell down an open hatch. Her head was badly cut and she had to be taken to the doctor. In her autobiography she recounts her close call.

When I came to myself I was very apprehensive lest the doctor in searching for bruises about my body should have discovered I was a woman, but it fortunately happened that he being a middle-aged gentleman, he was not very inquisitive, and my messmates being advanced in years, and not so active as young people, did not tumble me about or undress me.

The ladies were very fond of William Chandler, which is lucky for Mary because it probably saved her from being found out. Lacy had written to her parents all about her adventures. A family friend (who maybe wasn't such a good friend after all), was let in on her secret and began spreading rumors around the shipyard where Lacy now worked. Two of the shipwrights that she worked for as an apprentice took her aside and demanded the truth. She broke down and admitted she was in fact a woman. Out of respect for Mary, these men swore to keep her secret and convinced everyone else in the dockyard that Mary was indeed a man, siting her interest in so many ladies as evidence.

Some time after receiving her shipwright certificate, Mary hurt herself while helping dismantle a ship. She realized that she could no longer perform her job and had no other option but to apply for a disability pension from the Admiralty. Her case was approved by the Lords of the Admiralty on January 28, 1772.  Below follows the report as it was recorded in the Admiralty minutes:

A Petition was read from Mary Lacey setting forth that in the year 1759 she disguised herself in men's clothes and enter'd on board His Majesty's Fleet, where having served until the end of the war , she bound herself  apprentice to the carpenter of the Royal William and having served seven years, then enter'd as a shipwright in Portsmouth Yard where she has continued ever since; but that finding her health and constitution impaired by so laborious an employment, she is obliged to give it up for the future, and therefore, praying some allowance for her support during the remainder of her life;

                       Resolved, in consideration of the particular circumstances attending this woman's case, the truth of which has been attested by the Commissioner of the Yard at Portsmouth, that she be allowed a pension equal to that granted to Superannuated Shipwrights.

Nothing much is known about Mary Lacy's later life. Her autobiography suggests that she married a Mr. Slade, a man that she met in Deptford. David Cordingly, author of Women Sailors and Sailor's Women, theorizes that the happily ever after future depicted at the end of Mary's story was added by her publisher so that the story would have a more traditional end to balance out all the suggestions of lesbian flirtations. 


Further readings:

Women Sailors and Sailor's Women - David Cordingly

The History of a Female Shipwright...Written by Herself - Mary Lacy

Fashion Friday! The Spencer Jacket

I am finally back with a new blog and it's Friday; which means it's Fashion Friday!

I am in the process of putting together an outfit inspired by Jane Austen and the Regency Period of Fashion. Included in my outfit will be what is known as a Spencer, or Spencer Jacket.

The Regency Period of Fashion refers to the time period in England when Prince George was acting as Regent after his father King George III went insane in 1811.

The Spencer is named for George Spencer, 2nd Earl of Spencer (1758-1834)  The Earl supposedly stood a bit too close to the fire one day and singed the tails of his coat. He then had the tails of his coats trimmed and thus a new fashion was born. It was first worn by men in the 1790's and was usually trimmed with a military style decoration with braids and frogging.

                                                                   The Honorable 2nd Earl of Spencer by John Singleton Copley



Women's dress at this time was starting to shift to what is known as the "Empire Style" of dress. Their dresses were made from thin, lightweight material, usually Muslin, and often had short sleeves; even in winter. The Spencer was found to be a very serviceable garment to ward off the chill. 

"My kerseymere Spencer is quite the comfort of our evening walks." - Jane Austen 1808

It was a short, close fitted jacket, coming to just above the waist line with a high collar, and was usually made from a wool material known as kerseymere, or from velvet. As the waist line began to move down again in the 1820's-30's, the Spencer also moved down to follow the waist. They could button closed or could be worn open like a cardigan would be worn today. Military decor was still used on the female version of the Spencer as a way to add interest to an otherwise mundane and boring (most often all white or a very light color) dress. 

Spencers were so versatile and useful (unlike most of the clothing of the time) that they remained in fashion until the second decade of the nineteenth century. As fashion began to change once again the Spencer fell out of high fashion and thus into history.

I especially LOVE this particular Spencer sewn by American Duchess

For further reading/research on the Spencer or fashion in general, I suggest:

Fashion in the time of Jane Austen - Sarah Jane Downing

An Introduction to Ladies' Fashions of the Regency Era - Lord Scot

http://www.fashion-era.com/index.htm

http://historicalsewing.com/

There are also TONS of Pinterest boards!

The First Woman to Run for President

                                                   Victoria Woodhull     

"While others of my sex devoted themselves to a crusade against the laws that shackle the women of the country, I asserted my individual independence; while others prayed for the good time coming, I worked for it; while others argued the equality of woman with man, I proved it by successfully engaging in business; while others sought to show that there was no valid reason why women should be treated, socially and politically, as being inferior to man, I boldly entered the arena of politics and business and exercised the rights I already possessed. I therefore claim the right to speak for the unenfranchised women of the country, and announce myself as a candidate for the Presidency" - April 2, 1870

Victoria Claflin was born on September 23, 1838. She was the fifth of seven surviving children born to poor parents living in the town of Homer, Ohio. Her mother named her after England's Queen Victoria. She had very little formal education but was known to have a photographic memory. Her mother Annie was very religious and Victoria, taking a cue from her mom, believed that she could hear spiritual voices; the first of these voices being her sisters that had died in infancy.                                                                               

In 1853, Victoria's father's grain mill caught fire and burned down. Rumors circulated around town that her father Buck had set the fire himself in order to collect insurance money. The rumors persisted and the family thought it was time to leave the town of Homer, Ohio. They moved to Mount Gilead where Victoria's eldest sister was living with her own family. Here Victoria and her sister Tennessee, pushed by their scheming father, became "spiritual mediums" and became the bread winners for their family. The family also began offering healing elixirs and cures for all kinds of illnesses and diseases. Tennessee was later indicted for manslaughter after a cancer patient in Illinois died.        

While living in Mount Gilead, Victoria was introduced to Doctor Canning Woodhull. Woodhull was impressed with Victoria and her parents were impressed with Woodhull. Victoria and Canning were married on November 23, 1853; Victoria was 15 years old. She soon learned that everything the good doctor had told her and her parents about how successful he was had in fact been a lie. He had very few patients and he did not have the great family connections that he claimed he had. Worse yet he was an alcoholic; drinking away what little money he brought in. December of 1854 Victoria gave birth to her first child; a boy they named Byron. As Byron grew it was discovered that he was mentally handicapped. Victoria was convinced her husband's alcoholism was the cause. In 1855, the family moved to San Francisco where Victoria began a short lived acting career. They returned to Ohio not long after moving to San Francisco when Victoria saw a vision of her sister telling her to come back home. Victoria resumed her work as a medium, sometimes traveling around different states for jobs. She had another child in 1861. This time she gave birth to a healthy baby girl.

Victoria kept working as a medium during the Civil War. It was during this time she met the man that would become her second husband. Victoria and her sister were living in St. Louis in 1864 when Colonel James Harvey Blood came into her practice. Victoria went into a trance and told Blood his future would be linked with hers in marriage. Both Victoria and James Blood were married to other people at the time. Divorce was rare for the time period and came with a bad social stigma. But despite societal views on divorce, both filed for divorce not long after meeting and were married in 1866. Victoria kept her first husband's surname; believing it to be rightfully her own. They settled in Pittsburgh, PA along with both her children.

Woodhull and Blood later moved to New York City and Blood began to open Victoria up to the new ideas of social reform and equal rights for women. In New York, Victoria and her sister continued their clairvoyance work and became friends with Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt offered financial advice to the sisters and soon they were wealthy. With her new-found wealth, Victoria thought it was finally time to begin her work on women's rights. She decided to be the first woman on Wall Street and with the backing of Vanderbilt, she succeeded. When the market crashed she bought up stocks from panicked traders and by the end of the day had $700,000 in her account. Victoria and her sister became the first women stockbrokers on Wall Street. She later bought a newspaper which she used as her own political forum. Not content with her paper, Victoria moved to Washington, D.C. and began to lobby for women's suffrage. She was the first female lobbyist and also the first woman to address a congressional committee.

Victoria's political platform for her newly formed "Cosmopolitical Party" included women's suffrage as well as a one-term presidency with a lifetime seat in the senate for former presidents. She also spoke for national public education and institutionalized welfare for the poor, a reform of marriage laws and a reform of the U.S. monetary system. Woodhull also opposed any laws that interfered with "the right of adult individuals to pursue happiness as they may choose." Of course, her platform and reform views garnered her as many enemies as friends, and even people who had been supporters in the beginning turned away from her. This was mainly due to the fact that she was misrepresented as being a proponent of the "Free Love" movement. In actual fact, what Victoria was trying to get people to understand was that she felt people should not be forced to stay in a marriage where there is no love or where there is abuse. When prominent women's rights leaders like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton pulled their support of Woodhull, her chances of becoming the first woman president went down the drain.

On May 10th, 1972, Victoria was still nominated for president by the Equal Rights Party and Fredrick Douglas, an African-American anti-slavery leader, was chosen as vice presidential candidate.

                              Yes! Victoria we've selected  For our chosen head:                                                   With Fred Douglas on the ticket                                                                               We will raise the dead.

Shortly after her presidential nomination, Victoria found herself broke and alienated from her financial backers. Her newspaper had to stop publication. The Equal Rights Party fell apart and people were calling for a new presidential nominee. Victoria was turned out of her house because her landlord said she was too scandalous for the neighborhood. On Election Day, Victoria and her sister were in jail. They were both arrested by Anthony Comstock (known for his crusade against "immoral" art and literature) and charged with the spreading of obscenity by their newspaper for a vengeful article about  Henry Ward Beecher, an American Congregationalist clergyman. The two sisters were released from jail in December when sympathetic supporters came up with the $16,000 bail money. Eventually, she had eight rounds of obscenity charges brought against her by Comstock. When their charges finally came to trial, the judge found them not guilty.

                            Cartoon by Thomas Nast that depicts public opinion about Victoria
                                                             
In 1873 the stock market crashed again and Victoria was heavily in debt. She began to travel giving political speeches which became more and more radical while she tried to win back all the support she had lost. In 1876, she caught her husband with another woman and filed for divorce on the grounds of adultery. Her political career was over and so was her marriage. When a son of Vanderbilt gave her and her sister $100,000 to leave the country during the Vanderbilt inheritance law suit, Victoria and Tennessee, along with her two children and her mother sailed to England. Victoria began to give a series of lectures much more mild than the speeches she gave in America. During a lecture in London she piqued the interest of John Biddulph Martin; the co-heir to one of Britain's oldest banks. They became engaged in 1880 and Victoria set about changing the way the world viewed her and to become a respectable married woman.

Victoria became a recluse and she and her sister drifted apart. She did publish a newspaper which focused on social and moral reform. Her first husband had died in 1872; her second husband, Colonel Blood died of a fever while in Africa in 1885, and her third husband, John Martin died in 1897. Victoria became the inheritor of her husband's wealth and the wealth of her father-in-law who had just passed away three days before his son. She retired to her country home of Bredon's Norton and began to turn the house into a residential college for women. It was unsuccessful as was her attempt at a school for children. She became active in her village, supporting community efforts and youth organizations. She also put a great deal of effort and support into helping the community during WWI. She became known in the village as "Lady Bountiful".

On June 9, 1927, at the age of 88, Victoria died in her sleep. Victoria was described numerous times as a woman ahead of her time. She was definitely a woman of great courage and conviction. In a time when women couldn't even vote, she stood up and declared herself worthy of holding the highest office in America.


Further study:
Victoria Woodhull: First Woman Presidential Candidate - Jacqueline McLean
A Woman for President: The Story of Victoria Woodhull - Kathleen Krull
Notorious Victoria: The Life of Victoria Woodhull Uncensored - Mary Gabriel

National Women's History Museum

http://www.victoria-woodhull.com/whoisvw.htm

Dr. James Barry

I know what you're thinking....but that's a man's name! Why are you writing about a man on a woman's blog? Read on and you will find out why Dr. James Barry is no ordinary person.

James Barry's birth date, parentage and childhood are not known to us.  Barry was possibly born in Belfast, Ireland somewhere around 1795.

Barry enrolled as a medical student at Edinburgh University in 1810. After graduating, Barry entered the British army as a hospital assistant. In 1815 Barry was sent to Cape Town, South Africa to become physician to the governor of the colony. Dr. Barry became a very sought after physician in Cape Town; attending all the leading members of the colony. Barry was known to be a skilled doctor, a flirt with the ladies and hot tempered. The good doctor fought a duel against another officer and once stood trial for disobeying superiors. Barry proposed many reforms in Cape Town, including better sanitation and improved treatment of slaves.

Eventually Barry was sent to the British outpost of Mauritius, an island in the Indian Ocean. For the next thirty years Barry roamed the British empire attending to the sick and performing surgeries. Barry always traveled with a black male servant and a series of  poodles, all of whom where named Psyche.

In 1857, Barry was sent to Canada as Inspector General. The cold northern climate did not agree with the doctor and in 1859, Barry retired and moved to London. Barry died during the summer of 1865 from dysentery. An army doctor briefly inspected the aged body and signed the death certificate. It wasn't until a woman was cleaning Barry's body that the secret was revealed.

Dr. James Barry was a WOMAN!

How in the world could a woman reach the ranks of Inspector General in the British army?! Especially at a time when women weren't allowed to even attend medical school. How could a woman serve in this capacity in the army for forty-six years without having her gender revealed?!

Looking back after her death, many of her fellow officers recalled certain eccentricities about Barry. Whenever Barry had to change, she made anyone sharing her bunk leave until she was finished. Another officer stated that it was generally assumed Barry was a hermaphrodite. Her sleeping quarters were always dark when her attending physician came to call about her health. The servant that she kept with her even claimed to not know she was a woman. Later on, after her death, a doctor and nurse that treated her for yellow fever in 1845 admitted they knew her secret but had promised not to tell anyone.

The army was not very forthcoming with an official statement about Barry. Since her parents were not known to anyone, no one knows Barry's real name. Some sources now state that the woman who brought her to Edinburgh University was her mother, Mary Ann Bulkly. Bulkly supposedly had a son and two daughters, one of whom disappeared around the time Barry enrolled in medical school. Another source states that Mary Ann Bulkly IS James Barry.

                                                      Her tombstone simply reads:

                                  Dr. James Barry -  Inspector General of Army Hospitals.

                                                               Dr. Barry with his servant and dog Psyche




Women who Made a Difference - Malcolm Forbes

http://secrethistoriesproject.tumblr.com

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/