FEARLESS FRIDAY
I'm excited to introduce you to Nicole Evelina on Fearless Friday. Please read on and enjoy!
Victoria Woodhull’s name may not be familiar to you, and if
that’s the case, don’t worry; most people don’t know who she is. Despite the
fact that she was the first woman to run for President in the United States
(1872), the first woman to own and operate a stock brokerage on Wall Street,
the first woman to speak before a committee of Congress and one of the first to
run a weekly newspaper, her name is not in most history books.
There are likely many reasons for that, but to me, it’s more
important that the situation change. Victoria had her faults, but she also had
many admirable qualities that women of all ages could learn from, one of the
biggest of which is that she was fearless. Here are six examples of times when she
exemplified that trait:
1. She overcame poverty and abuse. Victoria
was one of 10 children born to a down-on-his-luck, impoverished con man and a
religious zealot, both of whom were physically, emotionally (and possibly
sexually) abusive. Her parents put her and her sister Tennessee (Tennie) to
work before they were teenagers as clairvoyants and magnetic healers. To escape
that life, Victoria married at 14, but her husband turned out to be addicted to
alcohol and morphine, was abusive, and frequented brothels. Despite only having
three years of formal education, Victoria endured, supporting her growing
family by working as a seamstress, actress, medium/healer, and later, after
divorcing her first husband, as a stock broker in her own right. By the time
she was 31, she was a self-made millionaire.
2. She moved around at the direction of the
spirits. Victoria was a Spiritualist. Call her brave, faithful or stupid, she
believed that the spirits she spoke with knew what was best for her. From a
young age, she claimed the ancient Greek orator Demosthenes was her spirit
guide. He and her other spirits directed her around the Midwest during the
Civil War. Then in 1868, Demosthenes told her to go to New York where she would
find a house prepared for her at 17 Great Jones Street. He told that from
there, she would fulfill the destiny written in the stars from the moment of her
birth and become queen of America, just like the queen she was named after. By
this time, Victoria had two children and a second husband, but that didn’t stop
her. She packed up her things and moved to New York, where a life of fame and
fortune awaited her at the exact address Demosthenes prophesized.
3. She challenged authority and shattered the
glass ceilings of her day. Victoria would have loved the song “Anything You
Can Do, I Can Do Better” and she wasn’t afraid to show it. Women didn’t mettle
in business affairs? She opened the first stock on Wall Street brokerage owned
and operated by a woman (along with Tennie) and was successful at it. Women
weren’t allowed at the New York Stock Exchange? No problem, she relayed her
business transactions through men. Women weren’t supposed to run for office?
She ran for the highest one in the land. Women weren’t supposed to draw
attention to themselves? Victoria not only ran a weekly newspaper (along with
Tennie), gave speeches around the country, and even challenged Congress on
whether or not women already had the right to vote through the wording of the
Constitution. Women weren’t allowed to
vote? No matter, in 1871, she and a group of women attempted to vote anyway.
4. She spoke out in an age when women were
expected to be silent. In Victoria’s time, it was not considered proper for
a woman to speak in public because it was believed by doing so, she drew shame
upon her father/husband. That didn’t stop suffragists like Susan B. Anthony and
Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Victoria joined them in speaking out for that right,
but also vehemently supported workers’ rights, the humane treatment of
prostitutes, and the rights of women to not be sexually subservient to their
husbands within marriage. From 1871 on, Victoria was a regular fixture on the
lecture circuit along with famous women like Anna Dickinson, traveling around
the country to speak her controversial ideas.
5. She didn’t hide her private beliefs. If
Victoria believed in something, she was going to tell you about it even if it
wasn’t in keeping with the mores of the day. She was a member of the so-called
“sex radical” movement that rallied for equality of the sexes. As such, she
adopted their mode of dress, cutting her hair short and trading in her corset
and bustle for more masculine jackets and skirts. Victoria was also a strong
proponent of Free Love, the idea that a marriage should begin when two people
fall in love and end when they were no longer in love without the interference
of government or religion. In a particularly controversial speech, she openly
declared, “Yes, I am a free lover! I have an inalienable constitutional and
natural right to love whom I may, to love as long or as short a period as I
can, to change that love every day as I please.” Imagine how well that went
over in Victorian America. Plus, she was open about her affair Theodore Tilton
while both were married and may have has several other trysts outside of
marriage.
6. She expected everyone to be open about
their lives. As Victoria was not ashamed of her personal choices and
abhorred hypocrisy, she thought everyone should be transparent about their
lives. When they were not, she exposed them. From businessmen conducting
fraudulent practices to the police taking bribes to keep prostitutes out of
jail, Victoria brought to light many underhanded practices through her
newspaper. The most famous, and also the most damaging, was her exposé on the affair between the
immensely popular Rev. Henry Ward Beecher and the married Elizabeth Tilton.
Victoria’s article spelling out all the tawdry details set off the trial of the
century and landed her and Tennie in jail for Election Day when she was
supposed to be attempting to vote for herself.
It
is a shame that such a brave woman has been excluded from her rightful place in
history for the last 145 years. It is my hope that with my novel, Madame Presidentess, I will play some
small role in putting her name into the history books and preserving her memory
for future generations.
Forty-eight years before women were granted the right to vote, one
woman dared to run for President of the United States, yet her name has been
virtually written out of the history books.
Rising from the shame of an abusive childhood, Victoria
Woodhull, the daughter of a con-man and a religious zealot, vows to follow her
destiny, one the spirits say will lead her out of poverty to “become ruler of
her people.”
But the road to glory is far from easy. A nightmarish
marriage teaches Victoria that women are stronger and deserve far more credit
than society gives. Eschewing the conventions of her day, she strikes out on
her own to improve herself and the lot of American women.
Over the next several years, she sets into motion plans that
shatter the old boys club of Wall Street and defile even the sanctity of the
halls of Congress. But it’s not just her ambition that threatens men of wealth
and privilege; when she announces her candidacy for President in the 1872
election, they realize she may well usurp the power they’ve so long fought to
protect.
Those who support her laud “Notorious Victoria” as a gifted
spiritualist medium and healer, a talented financial mind, a fresh voice in the
suffrage movement, and the radical idealist needed to move the nation forward.
But those who dislike her see a dangerous force who is too willing to speak out
when women are expected to be quiet. Ultimately, “Mrs. Satan’s” radical views
on women’s rights, equality of the sexes, free love and the role of politics in
private affairs collide with her tumultuous personal life to endanger all she
has built and change how she is viewed by future generations.
This is the story of one woman who was ahead of her time – a
woman who would make waves even in the 21st century – but who dared
to speak out and challenge the conventions of post-Civil War America, setting a
precedent that is still followed by female politicians today.
Nicole is a member of and book reviewer for The Historical Novel Society, and Sirens (a group supporting female fantasy authors), as well as a member of the Historical Writers of America, Women’s Fiction Writers Association, Romance Writers of America, the St. Louis Writer’s Guild, Women Writing the West, Broad Universe (promoting women in fantasy, science fiction and horror), Alliance of Independent Authors, the Independent Book Publishers Association and the Midwest Publisher’s Association.
Her website is http://nicoleevelina.com.
She can be reached online at:
- https://twitter.com/NicoleEvelina
- http://www.goodreads.com/nicoleevelina
- http://pinterest.com/nicoleevelina/
- https://www.facebook.com/nicoleevelinapage/
- http://instagram.com/nicoleevelina
- http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyi5-knSn0Abm5ujfpcHgbg/videos?view_as=public
Thank you for hosting me, Brenda!
ReplyDeleteMy pleasure, Nicole. Your book sounds fascinating.
DeleteSimply inspiring! Thanks for sharing, Nicole. I'm putting your book on my TBR list.
ReplyDeleteThanks for commenting, Joanne. It does sound intriguing!
Delete