International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest

Extract

Victoria Woodhull was a champion of women's suffrage and workers' rights in the mid-nineteenth century United States. She thought women's rights could be achieved through nothing less than a full-scale social revolution that eliminated oppressive marriage laws, legalized prostitution, and uplifted the poor and oppressed women of society. Her newspaper, Woodhull and Claflin's Weekly , was a beacon for the incipient labor movement, with reports on workers' strikes and capitalist corruption. Editorials discussed abortion and endorsed health education for women, criticized the Franco-Prussian War for the suffering it brought upon peasants, and challenged readers to see the injustice in a system that allowed the wealthy to amass ever greater fortunes while sending poor children to jail for stealing bread. Marx and Engels' Communist Manifesto appeared for the first time in the United States in its pages. Woodhull developed her remarkable oratory skills as a childhood preacher traveling around Ohio admonishing audiences to repent their sins. The daughter of a conman and itinerant peddler, she supported her family by mesmerizing crowds, first in the hellfire and brimstone spirit of religious revival and later as an accomplished spiritualist. At 15 she married an abusive alcoholic. She lived with him for five years and had two children, one of whom was mentally retarded. Her struggle ... log in or subscribe to read full text