Victoria Woodhull, 2024

Summary

The History Chicks: Victoria Woodhull Episode Summary

Release Date: October 9, 2024

---

Introduction

In this compelling episode of The History Chicks, hosts Susan and Diana delve into the extraordinary life of Victoria Woodhull, the first woman to run for the American presidency in 1872. Through meticulous research and engaging storytelling, the episode explores Woodhull's tumultuous journey from a challenging childhood to her groundbreaking political endeavors.

Early Life and Background

Victoria Woodhull was born Victoria California Claflin on September 23, 1838, in Homer, Ohio, the seventh of ten children. Her upbringing was fraught with hardship; her father, Reuben Buckman Claflin, was a notorious con man who frequently abandoned the family, leading to a life of instability.

Diana [06:09]: "Victoria Woodhull went from rags to riches to rags to riches to rags to riches. Hooray."

Victoria's mother, Roxanna, struggled with emotional instability, further complicating Victoria's early years. Despite these challenges, a neighbor provided Victoria with kindness and education, planting the seeds for her future endeavors.

Entry into Spiritualism

At a young age, Victoria became involved in spiritualism, conducting séances alongside her sister Tennessee. This venture was orchestrated by her father as a means to exploit the booming spiritualist movement of the time.

Susan [12:44]: "Listening sympathetically to problems that the patients couldn't tell anyone else, giving practical advice and a vegetable compound made by mama that had vitamins and minerals in it."

Victoria's involvement in spiritualism not only provided financial support for her family but also honed her public speaking and interpersonal skills, which would later prove invaluable in her political career.

Move to New York and Business Ventures

Seeking greater opportunities, Victoria moved to San Francisco and later to New York City, where she established Woodhull, Claflin & Co., the first Wall Street brokerage firm owned by women. Partnering with Colonel James Blood, the firm aimed to challenge the male-dominated financial sector.

Susan [52:10]: "They were able to convey their message in a very business-like manner compared to any other women that would have been doing business at the time."

Victoria's ventures were met with both admiration and skepticism. Her ability to navigate the complexities of Wall Street showcased her as a formidable force in finance and women's rights.

Political Activism and Presidential Run

Inspired by her interactions with suffragists like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Victoria decided to take her fight for women's rights to the national stage by running for president in 1872. Her campaign was revolutionary, advocating for an eight-hour workday, welfare for the poor, national public education, and repeal of the death penalty.

Susan [56:21]: "While others argued the equality of woman with man, I proved."

Victoria's candidacy was not only a statement of individual independence but also a bold declaration against the societal norms that restricted women's roles.

Controversies and Scandals

Victoria's ambitious endeavors were marred by numerous scandals, including allegations of sex scandals and fraudulent activities. Her outspoken nature and radical views often put her at odds with both the media and established institutions.

Susan [75:01]: "She was called a sex radical, but it was also filling the halls because it was kind of like morally sanctioned, soft core as far as they were."

The Beecher Scandal, involving accusations against Henry Ward Beecher, further tarnished Victoria's reputation, leading to legal battles and public scrutiny that ultimately hindered her political aspirations.

Later Life and Legacy

After facing significant backlash and financial ruin, Victoria relocated to England, where she sought to rebuild her life. Despite the tumultuous events of her early years, she later became a respected community figure, contributing to local education and war efforts.

Susan [104:52]: "She reminded me a lot when Beatrix Potter set up shop in the country. You know, just really getting involved in the life of the village."

Victoria's later years were spent focusing on philanthropy and community service, leaving behind a complex legacy as both a trailblazer for women's rights and a figure of controversy.

Notable Quotes

• Diana [06:09]: "Victoria Woodhull went from rags to riches to rags to riches to rags to riches. Hooray."

• Susan [52:10]: "They were able to convey their message in a very business-like manner compared to any other women that would have been doing business at the time."

• Susan [56:21]: "While others argued the equality of woman with man, I proved."

• Susan [75:01]: "She was called a sex radical, but it was also filling the halls because it was kind of like morally sanctioned, soft core as far as they were."

• Susan [104:52]: "She reminded me a lot when Beatrix Potter set up shop in the country. You know, just really getting involved in the life of the village."

Conclusion

Victoria Woodhull's life was a testament to resilience and audacity. As The History Chicks illuminate, her relentless pursuit of equality and reform laid foundational stones for future generations of women leaders. Despite the controversies, Woodhull's legacy as a pioneer in both finance and politics remains influential in the ongoing struggle for women's rights.

---

Note: Timestamps correspond to the provided transcript and are included to highlight key moments and quotes within the episode.

Transcript

[Susan]

Welcome to the History Tricks, where any resemblance to a boring old history lesson is purely coincidental.

[Becky]

Hello, and welcome to the show. A quick note. Susan and I are literally right now, as you hear this, in the City of Light. Yes, we are in Paris doing assorted amounts of eating of cheese and meeting of new friends. But we thought since it is approaching election season, we like to give you a little bit of a throwback to the journey women have made on the road to the presidency.

[Susan]

So we thought we'd take a re.

[Catherine]

Listen to our coverage of Victoria Woodhull. Victoria Woodhull was the very first woman to throw her hat in the ring for the presidency. Although women didn't have the vote yet.

[Becky]

It's an amazing story and we know that you will love it.

[Catherine]

So we are going to take this back to our coverage from 2016. So if you think it's, it sounds a little different. That's why as years go on, we change.

[Becky]

We will see you again in two weeks.

[Susan]

And now on with the show. And here's your 32nd summary.

[Diana]

Victoria Woodhull went from rags to riches to rags to riches to rags to riches. Hooray. And smashed glass ceilings as she went from Wall street to the publishing world to the very steps of the White House. She was the first woman to run.

[Becky]

For the American presidency in 1872.

[Diana]

Let's talk about Victoria Woodhull.

[Susan]

But first, let's drop her into history. In 1872, it was a big year for patents on products that we still use today, including fire extinguishers, gasoline powered engines, dried milk, the donut cutter, and the calculator. The first black US governor took office for a whopping 36 days. But in Louisiana, trade unions were legalized. In Canada, Susan B. Anthony voted for Ulysses S. Grant in a presidential election and then was famously arrested for that vote. Ulysses S. Grant was elected president even without it. Paul Langevin, Zane Gray, Alexander Romanoff, Calvin Coolidge and Emily Post were born. And on election day, 1872, US voters could vote for the first female candidate for president, Victoria Woodhull.

[Diana]

And now it's time for a quick disclaimer. If you're planning to listen to this with young people of pretty much any age, I would give it a listen ahead of time. First, while we're certainly not explicit in any way, there are definitely, inevitably with this subject, unavoidable mentions of sex, unsavory behavior, and quite a bit of scandal. So just give it a listen first and you can decide for yourself. We're gonna leave that up to you. And now on with the show. Victoria California Claflin was born on September 23, 1838, the seventh of the ten children of Reuben Buckman Claflin and Roxanna Hummel Claflin in Homer, Ohio. Victoria, named after Queen Victoria of England who had been crowned that year. See episodes 11 and 12 of the History Chicks podcast for more on Queen Victoria. Well, Mama Roxanna, variously known in books as either Roxy or Annie. I think Mama never had a chance. No one really knew who her parents were, except for vicious rumor and guesswork. There are two schools of thought here, so I'm just going to say them both in order. So either. At 13, she was a maid at kind of a like a ne'er do. Well, frontier man's house, the governor's son, where there was no one to protect her, and all manner of rough characters to persecute her, if you know what I mean. Illiterate, which at first I thought, well, that's not a giant surprise. She's in a frontier town, she's a girl. But as I was doing some investigating, I guess America was the most literate nation in the world in that year. Isn't that crazy? So anyway, you know, still not quite surprised, given her upbringing, that she can't read. Now there's another story that she's the daughter of a wealthy tavern owner, which you can believe if you want to. I think that was a bit of whitewashing, so you can go either way on that. Papa, who everyone called Buck, was a one eyed con man.

[Susan]

Reuben Buckman Claflin. I mean, that almost sounds proper.

[Diana]

Yeah, but Buck does not sound proper.

[Susan]

No, and it actually suited him better because he would do anything for a buck.

[Diana]

Oh, but I thought, well, he had taught himself to read and write and do math and count cards and read people's body language and counterfeit money and take naive suckers for real money. He had once apprenticed to a lawyer, which later his daughter marketed as a full fledged legal career. But I'm here to tell you that no, no amount of legitimate business is gonna tie this man down. When there's horse races to fix and scams to be run, he. He's a pretty bad guy. He's smart, you know, don't get me wrong, he's smart and he's charming. Some have said he's handsome, although ugly on the inside. But he's sort of nefarious. Is that a good word for him?

[Susan]

That's a very good word. He lied on a census and said that he was A lawyer.

[Diana]

But it almost seems like in this time and in this place, you can kind of declare yourself to be a doctor or a lawyer. And who's going to gainsay you? Nobody's going to go on the Web and look you up.

[Catherine]

Yeah.

[Diana]

So for 11 or so years, the family traveled from place to place, mostly right ahead of the Hammer of retribution. Seems like adding a child almost every other year. And the year before Victoria was born, they settled, I think, much to the dismay of the neighbors, in Homer, Ohio, where they kind of moved into a sort of ramshackly house on a piece of land with an old mill on it and an apple orchard that had sort of been allowed to go wild. Now, this was later spun as a white cottage surrounded by flower gardens and an orchard. I honestly do not begrudge anyone a little whitewash.

[Susan]

No. Especially when your life gets a little bit better, you know? You don't want to say exactly where you came from when it looked like what she did, you know?

[Diana]

Yes. Well, two children had died on their travels, so Victoria was the fifth living child of the seven that ended up living in chaos and madness and, I guess. What do I mean? Squalor. Okay. Then they had this guy, Uncle Robert, and his wife and nine children moved in, too.

[Susan]

Yeah.

[Diana]

And I'd say they were from the wrong side of the tracks, possibly literally, because the B and O railroad, that hilariously named Monopoly Card, was operating in Ohio at the time.

[Susan]

I would definitely say they defined the wrong side of the tracks, and the town knew it. The kids didn't really want to play around there, and the family was kind of ostracized a bit. Annie was a religious zealot, you know, in that field that you talked about, that orchard. She'd go there and drop on her knees in the middle of the night and pray loudly.

[Diana]

These dirty kids roam the town begging for food at mealtime. Mostly they remind me of those junkyard kids in that Kevin Costner movie, the War. If you haven't seen it, it's the Lip Nickies, whose father was a drunk junkyard owner whose mother was dead. And they just roamed around, kind of raising themselves and punching each other in the head and being thin and starving and mean. You know, these raggedy kids whose father kept a whip in water so it would hurt more when he beat them. This mother, she was just not stable at all.

[Susan]

No, she definitely ran hot and cold. She would compliment them and sound like a very loving mother and then switch it and call them out on every sin that she could imagine. Daddy did the physical abusing and Mama did a whole lot of emotional abusing.

[Diana]

So Victoria, at around 5, found a tiny bit of kindness. An adult sister of the nearest neighbor, not yet cynical, I think, as she was visiting, opened the kitchen door and made Victoria her little pet. The story goes that Victoria, rather than begging, had asked if she could do any chores around the house for money or food. This neighbor taught Victoria how to read and let her sit in the quiet kitchen, gave her a bath and just even listened to her. And the kitchen next door was what heaven was like, it seemed to little Victoria. Clean, calm, loving, smelled good.

[Susan]

Nobody was beating her. Nobody was emotionally abusing her. Yeah. It had to give her an idea of what was out there in the world. Because if you're brought up like they were, how would they know?

[Diana]

Well, one day, about a year later, instead of her friend Rachel at the door next door, it was someone else who took her hand and led her into the front room where Rachel lay in her coffin. Rachel had died in less than a day from cholera. Vicki, as she was known then, was six years old. She was too shocked to even cry. She ran out toward home and just kind of stood under those old apple trees. And that was where she said she had her first spiritual experience. She said that the spirits of Napoleon, Josephine, and Demosthenes, who is a Greek orator from the three hundreds, and her recently dead and much beloved neighbor, Rachel, which is sort of a random assortment of people, these spirits came to her and said they were with her, they'd watch over her, not to be afraid. You know, I don't. You know, I don't believe in spirits and the like, but Victoria did. And this. Honestly, she. This poor baby needed somebody.

[Susan]

Yeah. And if it was in her, even if it was in her imagination, a lot of kids have imaginary friends that give them great solace and great company. She just had a nice collection of the five people she'd meet in heaven, you know.

[Diana]

You know what this reminds me of? In one of the latter Harry Potter movies? In the woods, right before he goes to fight Lord Voldemort for the last time. All of his recently departed friends and relations are there kind of telling him that they're going to be with him through this end fight and not to worry. And they would be there at the end. And they would be there, though you couldn't see them in the middle of the fight. And he was to take comfort in knowing that they were present.

[Susan]

That's a nice thought.

[Diana]

Yes. So I'm sure, you know what I Do not begrudge her these visions at all.

[Susan]

No, you know, it reminded me of Joan of Arc. You know, I really did. The strength that gave her, I guess, is the best way to put it.

[Diana]

Well, Vicki reported to her mother that she was destined for greatness according to her spirit guides. And Mama always kind of had a superstition about a seventh child being a powerful spiritual conduit. Anyway, that's a very common theme in folklore. There's 300 incidences of a seventh child or a seventh son of a seventh son. How about that for multiplication of power. Being more powerful. Again, Harry Potter reference. Constantly hinting that Jenny Weasley was more powerful than any of her siblings. She's the seventh child seven, in the.

[Susan]

Bible, which is what Annie kind of claim to guide. Her life is also a very popular number. It's a. It comes up a lot, the number seven.

[Diana]

Yep. So Mama ran with that. And Vicki was constantly told that one day she'd be riding in her own carriage. She'd be beholden to no one but God and master of all she surveyed. There's. There's a certain effect of being told all your life that you're secretly special. No one can see on the outside. But oh, oh, just you wait. Just you wait. And, you know, that's a kind of hope. I think that's the one contribution Mama really made to her daughter's life other than having her in the first place. Yeah, well, Papa saw the potential for a scheme because that's his M.O. there was a fashion in the land for child preachers and I guess the thought was they were purer or closer to God or maybe unmotivated by money or personal gain due to their youth.

[Susan]

Their honesty of a child. You know, the faith of a child is. That's biblical. So he could easily work from there.

[Diana]

Well, meanwhile, parents like Papa are rubbing their hands together with glee in the background. Yeah, well, Vicki had a near photographic memory. It was a gift, I think, also handed down from Mama who couldn't read but could recite Bible verses, maybe the whole Bible. And Vicki also had a nearly complete lack of stage fright which was a perfect combination. So for a fee, townspeople all over Ohio would be treated to a dose of hellfire and damnation from a teeny, tiny girl with curly hair and fire in her eyes.

[Susan]

That photographic memory served her well because she really didn't go to school very much. Maybe spotty attendance from the ages of 8 to 11, was it. So she did not have any bookschooling, but she was really a Very bright kid. And like you said, she had no fear, no stage fear. She would like stand on this hill and give sermons like revival meetings to the kids of the neighborhood. That's a good way to start your public speaking career, I guess.

[Diana]

I guess so. Well, as a matter of fact, I think a lot of showmen start in their basement.

[Susan]

Sure.

[Diana]

You know, with the sheet curtain and the captive audience of parents who have been rounded up to pay $0.50 and watch your show.

[Susan]

That's right.

[Diana]

So Papa wasn't making enough money from the child preaching or the loaning out of his other children as farmhands or hired help. Or the dollar a bottle laudanum and molasses cure all medicine that his wife made in the kitchen. Although it probably made you feel better a lot.

[Susan]

Yeah.

[Diana]

So how quack is it really? He decided to insure that old mill on the property. That old mill that never had run in living memory. And then he decided to carefully establish an alibi far away like, oh, look, my name is Buck Claflin. Pour me another drink. Let me buy you the other half. I'm Buck Claflin from so and so, which is far away. And had by his wife or one of the kids burn it down to get the insurance money. It was the last straw for old Homer, Ohio. I think they were actually literally warming up the tar and the feathers in a wagon when Papa disappeared through this whole story.

[Susan]

He's got a really good way of getting away before the trouble comes. But this time he just left his family there. He hauled out of town and left them there. And then when they were going through his things. At one point he had been the postmaster, which is kind of a respectable job. But they found all these envelopes that said cash inside that were slit open and the money was taken out and the letter was never delivered. That just tells you the level of skeevy he is.

[Diana]

So the respectable ladies of the town had a fundraising event. You know, hand knitted sweaters, cookies, pie. The money raised was to get mama a wagon and a horse so she could get out of town. That is a pointed hint. That is like buying someone deodorants.

[Susan]

It took. It took a while. It took six months to a year from what I could gather for them to get this working and get them out of town. But they did. And Buck ended up catching up with his family in another small town called Mount Gilead.

[Diana]

I looked up the word Gilead and I guess it means universal cure.

[Susan]

That's interesting. Well, there's actually not too far from where I live. There's a Mount Gilead church and school historic site and it's a living history museum. They do school programs where the kids go and they have a day of 1800s one room schoolhouse learning.

[Diana]

Ooh, neat. Do they still have a Duns cap and all that stuff?

[Susan]

No, I don't. No, I don't think so. I don't know, I never asked. But the kids had to like, they had to like dress up as much as possible to 1800s clothing, I mean, as much as you can in the 2000s and bring a pale lunch. Aw, I know. It was a cute program for them.

[Diana]

There's a place like that in Wichita where I grew up called Cowtown. The hook of Cowtown is that they have gone all over Kansas and basically surviving buildings from different towns. Like a blacksmith shop here, an old barn here, a fire department here. They hauled these buildings, these actual buildings from all over different towns and then set them up as if they were one town.

[Susan]

Oh, that is cool.

[Diana]

And then they propped out the insides with actual antiques and things from all over the place. But they propped them out so that they look as if they would have looked. So you go there and you kind of really get a feel for what a town like that might have been like.

[Susan]

Oh, I kind of love that a lot.

[Diana]

Yeah, it's pretty cool. It's a pretty cool place. I highly recommend it when you find.

[Susan]

Yourself in Wichita, Kansas. Yes, as one does.

[Diana]

I keep thinking they have a steampunk convention in Wichita at Cowtown.

[Susan]

Oh, at Cowtown.

[Diana]

We'll have to post a link if that's your thing. They had it last year. I don't know about this year, we'll have to check.

[Susan]

But speaking of clever marketing, Buck was in the market for yet another scheme to support his family. So again, he's going to use his two beautiful daughters to earn their keep. And of course it sounds way better to him than say, I don't know, moving to California and being a prospector in the gold rush, you know, actually working.

[Diana]

It's too much trouble.

[Susan]

Absolutely. And in upstate New York there was two sisters called the Fox sisters. And they were coming quite famous for talking to spirits of a murdered man who wrapped answers to their questions in their house and people would pay. And they could witness this spectacular miracle by the Fox sisters. And they were hauling in some serious dough in upstate New York. So if they could do it, why couldn't the beautiful Claflin sisters?

[Diana]

So he set up 5 year old Tennessee and 12 year old Victoria as spiritualists. So they conducted seances and communicated with the dead. If you had some cash. Now, we've talked in several episodes before how spiritualism was sweeping the land. So we look back and see it as sort of cockamamie. But it was really quite respectable and even quite religious, by which I mean Christian religious. People were absolute believers in it.

[Susan]

They started to do revivals all around the country, and people would get involved. And the thing about spiritualism is that women, because they could be conduits for the spirit's message, could be leaders in these churches, which was very unusual for a woman to be in a leadership role in a church. You know, even today, I know the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod does not allow women pastors or even women elders. So, yes, that's my church. Sorry.

[Diana]

The telegraph even might have played a part in advancing this idea that you could talk to invisible people through the air. After all, you could go down to the telegraph office and give the guy a dollar or two and get a message from New York City if you had a mind to. And how much easier must it be for God to send a message? I guess that's pretty logical.

[Susan]

It's very logical, actually.

[Diana]

We'll not get into it so much here, so we'll give you a link. There are famous names like Mary Todd Lincoln and Arthur Conan Doyle that were spiritualists. It wasn't a fringe subgroup. There's 8 million people at this time in America alone, to some degree.

[Susan]

Mm. The Civil War played a big part in growing the spiritualist movement because all these people were dying away from home, and their loved ones wanted a way they were looking for, desperately for a way connect with them one more time. So that just fed into the popularity of spiritualism. So Buck, you know, ever the marketer, he gave Victoria some very sound advice. He said, be a good listener, child. And in a Daddy Daughter poem, he said, girl, your worth has never yet been known, but to the world it should be shown.

[Diana]

There's a lot of marks walking around as far as Buck Claflin was concerned.

[Susan]

Yeah.

[Diana]

In addition to teaching his daughters how to interpret body language, because, you know, good card players are good at interpreting people's tells or their body language that can kind of expose their inner thoughts. So you know what? That came in handy. He also taught them some sleight of hand. Also good if you're going to cheat at cards or whatnot. Victoria naturally went into these fugue states, which I'm kind of seeing. Like Walter Mitty, These whole dramatic episodes went on in her head, while on the outside, she was just gone. But that I think is trauma. I think that's PTSD from her friend dying and all that stuff.

[Susan]

She's 14 at this point, so she probably knows how to be a shyster. She's picked it up from her dad. And so when she sees that going into one of those fugue states is going to be effective in conveying her spiritualist message, then I'm sure she did it well.

[Diana]

And here's this. Like little Tenny, a lot littler seems to weirdly have had some ability to locate lost objects until the future. So who knows if that was another trick. Confirmation bias. Like you expect that she's gonna find the thing and then you find it within the next two weeks and you think she helped you? I don't know, manipulation of the narrative or some kind of genuine ability, whatever. But who's to say it made some.

[Becky]

Okay, As a type B personality, I have to tell you that cleaning my house does not fall on my list of favorite things to do.

[Diana]

You know what?

[Becky]

It doesn't have to be toxic while you're doing it. So Meat Branch Basics, the only non toxic all natural plant based cleaning products that are also very effective.

[Diana]

It's safe for your skin, safe for.

[Becky]

Peep and Louise, the cats of my house, and safe for any children wandering about your house. It's so safe you can even wash fruits and vegetables with it. That's pretty safe.

[Susan]

Definitely.

[Becky]

For a limited time only, our listeners get 15% off and free shipping on their premium starter pack when you use code history [e-mail] historychicks I think the.

[Susan]

Best part about Branch Basics is that.

[Catherine]

You don't have 47 different cleaning products in that cabinet. They've created a super concentrated formula that works for everything from dishes to laundry to countertops. My grown son just moved into a brand new to him apartment and walked in and it was so clean cause it was fresh and waiting for him. And I said son, are we going to keep it like this? Nice and clean? And I presented him with a Branch Basics premium starter pack. This pack replaces every single cleaner in your whole house. It's fragrance free. I was so excited about that. For him it's easy, it's a refill. So whenever he runs out of any products, it's just that one concentrate.

[Becky]

You can finally say goodbye to the smell of bleach and hello to a fresh home. You no longer have to wear a hazmat suit while you're cleaning up. For a limited time only head to branchbasics.com historychicks and use code historychicks for 15% off your order.

[Catherine]

That's 15% off your order at branchbasics.com historych Knicks and use promo code historychicks.

[Becky]

Choose Branch Basics because cleanliness matters.

[Diana]

Buck treated his cash cows horribly. He'd starve them so they'd look more ethereal. He'd micromanage and yell at them. After all the sessions, he'd beat them. There were hints later from Victoria herself that maybe there had been some sexual abuse.

[Susan]

Yeah.

[Diana]

Victoria gathered some more spiritual advisors. Her dead sisters, Odessa and Delia, who died as babies. I'm not sure how helpful they are. Assorted angels and one spirit made of light that had materialized right out of the river, like a patronus, I might say, told her.

[Susan]

Oh, dang it, I was just gonna say that.

[Diana]

Yeah, well, it told her that she would gain respect and wealth in a city crowded with ships. These are direct responses to abuse. Can we agree on this?

[Susan]

Yes, they are survivors. If their childhood taught them anything, it was how to be a survivor.

[Diana]

So her health fell apart, and Papa called a doctor named Canning Woodhull to save the day. And Victoria saw him as a way to save herself.

[Susan]

Yes. Now, he wasn't. It wasn't like he was just a schlep. He was very handsome. He was about 28 now. She's about 14 at the time. But he said he was the son of a judge. He said he was the nephew of the mayor of New York. He was very charming. Later on, she'll paint him almost as a Prince Charming to her. Cinderella. The story goes that she sold some apples to buy a new pair of shoes to go out on a date with him. The story goes on to say that that very day, she told him she was going to be his wife.

[Diana]

Victoria's only escape from Papa at this time and in this place, was to transfer ownership of herself to another man. So think about that for a moment. She certainly did not have the education or background to be a teacher. You know, what else could you do? So four months after she met him, she married him at the age of 15. And. What is that expression? Marry in haste, repent in leisure. Canning had marketed himself as the son of a judge. No such thing. Nephew of the mayor of New York. No such thing. Was he even a doctor? Maybe not. But we've talked before about how casual and random medical education was in that time. So you could. You could nearly self proclaim yourself as one at any time. Plenty of people got through med school having never seen a real patient. Let's just say, well, you were probably just as effective as a real one anyway.

[Susan]

Yeah.

[Diana]

But what he definitely was was an alcoholic and a morphine addict and a man who had sent his pregnant mistress out of town on his wedding day.

[Susan]

And how about that? So Victoria shares her wedding anniversary with the birth of her husband's child to another woman far, far away, away from her, away from him. That's the kind of level of ick that this guy lives in, which is probably why, you know, the Claflins were drawn to him. They recognized it, although they should have recognized it better. I kept thinking that, you know, well, they don't care. Yeah, but you would have thought that they could see, like, you know, a con man from a mile away because they were.

[Diana]

Well, she had married a better dressed version of her father for sure. A more respectably attired one. He beat her and everything. In one of her autobiographies, she wrote, my spirit gave a great cry of agony. She had thought, I guess she had pinned all her hopes of escape and respectability and safety.

[Susan]

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, it's out of the frying pan into the fire. She thought she had an escape, but she just found out she was even more trapped. And then within a year, she was trapped even more because she was pregnant and gave birth to a son that.

[Diana]

They named Byron, who inherited his mother's good looks, by the way, notoriously, but is referred to as an imbecile. So I'm not exactly sure what we'd say today as to what was wrong with him. There are tales of a difficult birth, a drunken father, doctor, and a possible fall or a dropping out of a second story window.

[Susan]

But whatever it was, he had some type of mental handicap. So now Victoria is not only trapped in this horrible marriage, but she's trapped with a son who needs a lot of care.

[Diana]

So there seemed to be great opportunities in California. It was 1855. The gold rush was really not fully in the swing anymore. At least there was still a fortune to be made in providing services for all the men still out there seeking their fortunes. And now I've said it before, that the people providing the pancakes and pickaxes were the ones that made any money off the gold rush. I mean, reliably so. So maybe a doctor could do well, too. I guess that's the thought. I don't think he had any. Any intention of being a gold prospector at all. I think he just wanted to kind of be a. I hate to say leech, but I think he wanted to tap A new market.

[Susan]

Yeah, no, I think so, too. I did have a hard time understanding how they got there.

[Diana]

Yes.

[Susan]

Because they had very little money. The story goes that she took advantage of some type of travel deal, I guess, to get them there. But however they did it, they landed in San Francisco. The economy there was kind of tanking a little bit.

[Diana]

San Francisco, which one book I read referred to as, quote, an exotic universe of depravity. So do I have to tell you that bringing old Dr. Woodhull anywhere near this universe is not a good idea? I mean, if you thought he was drunk before, if you thought he had a weakness for the ladies before, I mean, come on, if you're that bad in Ohio, if you're dumped into, I don't know, is it Sodom or Gomorrah? Are they the same place? I don't really know. Las Vegas.

[Susan]

They're sister cities. And they both had the same fate. Yes.

[Diana]

So Victoria is far from home, unsupported, with not enough money to live and not enough to get back home. And over this period of life is a veil of uncertainty. That's all.

[Susan]

That is such a good way to put it.

[Diana]

Yes. She took a job as a cigar girl in a very rough part of town. So what is the job description there? I don't think it's cigars. Cigarettes, I mean, I don't think so. I don't exactly know. She took in sewing and, through a customer, was introduced to some people who put her on the stage in a play called New York by Gaslight. So can I please read you what New York by Gaslight is about?

[Susan]

Oh, yes, please do. Although. I know, but go ahead.

[Diana]

The festivities of prostitution, the orgies of pauperism, the haunts of theft and murder, the scenes of drunkenness and debauchery, the sex realities that make up the underground story of New York City. So not the Nutcracker, not the Music man, exactly, you know. Nope. So she's an actress. And what was that job description again? No one's sure exactly what happened, so we're not going to go into it. We're not. Rumors and mudslinging about this period abounded later, of course, but we at the History Chicks are not in the business of unfounded accusations. She had to do what she had to do. I don't know what that was, and nobody does. So she did manage to save enough money at her actress's salary, which was listed as $52 a week.

[Susan]

I saw that. I was astonished.

[Diana]

That's $1,500 a week. That's pretty good now.

[Susan]

Yeah, that sent up another flag.

[Diana]

So I don't know how real that is. But she was able to book passage for her family back to Ohio and she said later that the spirits appeared to her and told her to come home. You know, maybe being a 16 year old with a 30 year old ne'er do well, husband to support might have told her to go home. But if Napoleon tells you to go to Ohio, I guess you go to Ohio.

[Susan]

Yeah. She also had a vision of her sister telling her to come home.

[Diana]

She attributed a lot of her movements to advice from the spirits. It was a way to be decisive without getting blamed for being too assertive. You could say I'm just the messenger. That's not that she was pretending. I don't think she was pretending about it. Don't get me wrong, you mentioned Joan of Arc earlier and this is where I have. Oh, episode 51 I mentioned because it's seems the same like Victoria's genuine, genuine belief in her spirit advisors really helped her and made other people trust her. Just because I myself am a big old skeptic, you know, I can still appreciate that her belief was real and.

[Susan]

There were big old skeptics back then, but they aren't the ones that are paying the money to get her to lay her hands on them and heal them of their ailments.

[Diana]

Yeah, Victoria kind of joined the family business. So she didn't travel with them, she traveled as a spiritual healer. So looking at the day to day workings of her practice. Listen to this. Listening sympathetically to problems that the patients couldn't tell anyone else, giving practical advice and a vegetable compound made by mama that had vitamins and minerals in it. She probably did quite a bit of good just with this part. I don't know about all this marketing about making the deaf here and using magnetism and laying on of hands and telling the future. But for the most part she really didn't do any harm and made quite a bit of money.

[Susan]

And she probably gave some people who were in sticky situations some good advice because she had her whole life was getting out of sticky situations. You know, she could probably tell them, give them advice as to how, what to do, you know, and people would love that. That's like listening to it from a spirit guide. So.

[Diana]

And the stories stuck with her. The stories people would be willing to tell her. I don't know if it's like, you know, how you tell the bartender or the hairdresser stuff, you just don't tell anybody else. And like abuse, trapped women, unhappy marriages, just despair, poverty. This is when she started to realize, I guess, that other women were in bondage. Just like she was feeling this nebulous feeling, like she couldn't put her voice to it. But that's what she kept hearing, is other women felt like they were in bondage. Interesting. Now, unlike old Papa, who was traveling around as Dr. Claflin, the King of cancers, of course, he was with his companion, Miss Tennessee, and her Magnetio Life Elixir, which may in fact have been the exact same thing Victoria was marketing, more truthfully, as a tonic.

[Susan]

I read a couple places that it had that one of its key ingredients was laudanum.

[Diana]

Yeah, that's an ingredient in a lot of patent medicine. I mean, with the added advantage that it makes you feel something so you feel like it's working. Papa in Tennessee had set up infirmaries for the laying on of hands method of treatment. And it's sort of, gosh, I have to say, they kind of tortured cancer patients with false hope. And also, this caustic skin treatment that was full of lye would, like, burn you, right?

[Susan]

Which probably at the time felt like it was healing, but it would just leave, you know, nothing there, you know, holes in their skin. And Papa had a lovely disclaimer, said, now if the patients live up to the directions, meaning if they follow the directions, but obviously if they die, they didn't follow the directions that we gave them, you know, that was his out.

[Diana]

One of Miss Tennessee's cancer patients inevitably succumbed to cancer with burns from the lie on her body. And Tennessee was charged with manslaughter, and they had to flee town. Yeah, so there's that. That's what they're doing now. Victoria had another child, a daughter named Zulu Z. Names are so hot right now at JET summer camp, we go past the names of the preschoolers in the hall because they all have their little coat hook, you know, and so far, there's a Zachary and a Xander and a zilla. Oh, and then there's also a Xander, spelled with an X. Oh. But anyway, this time, Zulu was born a healthy baby, despite her husband not having changed his ways. In fact, her husband cut the umbilical cord part way, and blood ended up soaking the pillow and the bed. And a neighbor had to come and save Victoria from death because after he.

[Susan]

Cut the umbilical cord, delivered the baby, he just left. He just left his newborn child and his wife so that he could go out tomcatting for days. She said several days later, she saw him Staggering into the wrong house.

[Diana]

So, Robert Downey Jr. If you don't know what I mean, you're gonna have to look that up. So Victoria swooped in and took her little sister Tennessee as a partner in that old clairvoyance business, where weirdly, they got run out of several cities and towns, one after the other. What's the deal with that? Wasn't this the same schtick as before? Ah, yes. Guess what? These were no longer cute little girls anymore. These were very attractive young women. And were these customers coming up those stairs late at night for spiritual comfort or something else? They were over and over suspected being ladies of negotiable affection. That's what the problem was. And I assure you that rumors of having run a brothel followed her through her whole life. Well, everyone met up again in the city of St. Louis, where we keep ending up. We keep ending up back here in St. Louis. Victoria, in fact, just missed both Mary Lincoln and Lizzie Keckley. Back to the medical type work solo this time, and in the daytime. And one day a customer came in that would change the course of her life.

[Susan]

When they had landed in St. Louis, Victoria had set up shop in a very nice hotel and was visited by a 29 year old civil War veteran who was also a local spiritualist named Colonel James Blood.

[Diana]

Well, I don't know if he was really a colonel, but his name is epic. I know, let's just put it that way. Very effective. Was Colonel Sanders really a colonel? We just don't know. Colonel is another one of those titles. Especially in the South. Dudes could just be colonels because they had the right attitude. I think there was a lot of faux colonelism. He might have been a real one though, because he was the commander of the sixth Missouri. So he has at least some paperwork.

[Susan]

That's right. There's a little trail there.

[Diana]

So he was a customer who became a lover. This was right as Lincoln was assassinated. Society is in turmoil and Victoria felt like something had to change. And Colonel Blood had kind of had it with, you know, being a legitimate worker. He felt like society was falling apart and it was just. He didn't know what to do. And they took off. Victoria abandoned her husband and her family and her city for this man and traveled with him as Mr. And Mrs. Harvey.

[Susan]

They took off on a caravan with ball fringe top is how it was kept from being described over and over again. And it's kind of think of like a circus trailer, you know, with the wheels that kind of that shape. Kind of like the 1860s RV, I think. And he. She wasn't the only one who left her family behind. He left his wife behind too. But, you know, they were drawn to each other. They were. They had this connection that they hadn't felt before. So I guess if the caravan is a rockin, nobody should come a knockin.

[Diana]

Oh my. Well, they did this. This work and this play, I guess I should say, until they had enough money to secure his divorce and possibly hers. Yeah, this is where there's another one of those veils drawn over. So we just don't know. But as far as they were concerned, the spirits had drawn them together. And they which the spirits have joined, let no man put asunder.

[Susan]

Well, both of them believe that the government should not be involved with affairs of the heart. So, you know, as far as they were willing to take that in their own personal lives.

[Diana]

Well, the spirits spoke to Victoria. The strangely specific message of, and I quote, go to New York city, to number 17 Great Jones street, where your destiny awaits you.

[Susan]

That's pretty darn specific.

[Diana]

And it was pre furnished and happened to be vacant. I just think, honestly, they went there, they signed a lease. But that's not as romantic. Well, in the 1840s, this was a pretty prestigious block. And I have to say, it took serious downturn. In the 1880s, it was pretty bad. But in the 1840s, before all the rich people moved away, this was a pretty nice address.

[Susan]

It was. And it was nestled in a good area for them to set up their business, because on one side was a lot of wealthy people, and in the area, there's a lot of the bawdy dance halls and saloons that those wealthy people went to. And then a little further back, there was all the people that worked in those businesses, so they were all easily accessible to their house. That could be a very big client base for them.

[Diana]

So you know what they said? Guess what else? We're taking Tenny. I know she's been your meal ticket, but she's had it. And she wants to come to New York City too. So how about it? And papa's income was just cut off. Colonel Blood was the man. He was a match for Papa anyway.

[Susan]

Yeah, he was a match for both of them. And, you know, he had the education that she didn't have, so she was able to pick up all that information from him that her own personal life had left holes, you know, like grammar. Yeah, exactly.

[Becky]

Here's something I'm really looking forward to. There is a cocktail called the Lion's tail that I Make only when it turns to fall. Mostly because in defiance of the original recipe, I use apple cider and I make it a hot cocktail. Yes. Would you like that recipe?

[Diana]

Send us a [e-mail] I would like that recipe.

[Susan]

Do I have to send a note?

[Diana]

Absolutely not.

[Becky]

I will send it to you the second we get off the phone. Something else I'm looking forward to for the fall is slipping into a cozy sweater from Quince. A cashmere sweater.

[Catherine]

I took out my sweaters this week because I have one of those closets that I need to turn over when the seasons change. And the first thing that I grabbed was that Quint sweater, the cashmere one.

[Susan]

It's tan.

[Catherine]

It's just a cardigan. It goes with everything. And I put it out and then.

[Susan]

I packed it away because you and.

[Catherine]

I are going on a trip and it's coming with me.

[Becky]

Susan, I understand that you got a washable silk skirt also that goes very nicely with that cardigan.

[Susan]

I did. It's green.

[Catherine]

It's lovely.

[Becky]

You know what I like is a sweater and a silk skirt and some tights and combat boots. I think that is super fabulous. And Quint has things like leather jackets as well.

[Catherine]

All of their Items are priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands.

[Becky]

By partnering directly with top factories and cutting out the cost of the middleman, Quince passes the savings on to us.

[Catherine]

And Quince only works with factories that use safe, ethical and responsible manufacturing practices and of course, premium fabrics and finishes for that luxury feel in every piece.

[Becky]

Get cozy in Quince's high quality wardrobe essentials. Go to quince.com chicks for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns.

[Catherine]

That's Quince Q U I N C E.com chicks to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com chicks.

[Diana]

So they moved this pair antennae into a glittering new world of sophistication and wealth. And they looked around, they looked around and oh, did they find their man. Their mark might say Cornelius Vanderbilt, grandpa of our old subject, Consuelo Vanderbilt from episode nine.

[Susan]

He was the crude grandpa that sat in the corner drinking his beer and, you know, making off color comments and jokes. He's the guy that got his hands dirty to make the money so the rest of his kin could live high on the hog.

[Diana]

Oh yeah, he had hauled himself out of a rough start and he was now one of the richest and honestly most ruthless men in America. These girls recognized that kind of man. And his burping didn't affect them. Like they'd seemed much worse than burping. But his nouveau riche relations were very embarrassed of him.

[Susan]

Right. But you know what, he was at a really weird time in his life because he'd had some business downfalls and his wife had died. So, you know, a lot of the things that were working for him always in the past were kind of like falling away. So he was kind of searching, I think, a little bit. And the Claflin women gave him the answers that for some things that he.

[Diana]

Was looking for, well, you know, he looked to spiritualism to give him some answers. And that was a fact known to all. So they had him kind of, they were drawn in like, oh ho. The two sisters called on old Cornelius. So 74 year old Commodore Vanderbilt, he really took to Tenny, who was 22. I mean, I don't know what it says exactly that everyone seemed okay with Tenny sitting on his lap and calling him her old boy and him calling her his little sparrow.

[Susan]

Well, he never had a problem liking women, you know, his entire life. So being around pretty women made him very happy. And Tenny was very pretty. She also wasn't married. So that gave her a little bit more freedom, I think, than Victoria had. Yeah, because Victoria was married and she had children.

[Diana]

Well, can we safely assume that Tenney and Mr. Vanderbilt were having an affair? The servants reported that she was found tousled and rosy in his bed. When they came to light the fire.

[Susan]

Maybe they just had like a tickling match. Maybe she was doing her laying on of hands, healing him. Okay, let's safely say it.

[Diana]

So Victoria was his spiritual advisor and he paid them back in stock tips. Though the rumor was that Cornelius Vanderbilt was instead taking stock tips, clairvoyant ones from the sisters. Hey, you know, why dispel that kind of pr?

[Susan]

Not at all. And all along the way they're learning how the stock market worked because this was new to them. You know, they'd been selling their laudanum laced elixirs. So the whole stock market thing, that's exciting. And he's teaching them how it works.

[Diana]

Now Victoria's story here intersects with those of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

[Susan]

Elizabeth Cady Stanton was episode 36.

[Diana]

A women's suffrage meeting was being held in Washington D.C. that's within striking distance of where she is. It's the very first one in the nation's capital. And the subject really intrigued Victoria, you know, has been in her heart for a while and it was growing and growing and crystallizing and she had been sort of examining her own life. You know, she's either been the pawn of men or having to trick them to get what she wanted. And I was thinking that she's like Scarlett O'Hara, who's tired of playing the game and just wants to be regarded as a person with a brain. And maybe this movement, this women's movement, was something she could go ahead and put some energy in.

[Susan]

In the women's movement at that point, it was a bunch of little fractions that were trying to congeal. You know, you had the Elizabeth Cady Stantons who were considered a little bit more radical, and then like the Lucy Stones and the Harriet Beecher Stowe, who were really conservative. So they're all, like, clashing a little bit, but they need to congeal their efforts to get things going properly. So in theory, this national suffrage convention was going to do that.

[Diana]

So there were valuable lessons and philosophies there, to be sure. But Victoria came away very dismayed at all the infighting among factions. This is like me at the PTA meeting. She just thought that, you know, here's Victoria thinking, you know, I appreciate that you want the vote for women, and that was considered the radical faction, in fact.

[Susan]

Right.

[Diana]

I appreciate that you want the vote for women. But it is very meaningless to give women the vote. It's window dressing if men still hold absolute power over women's lives in all other areas. It's ridiculous. And she saw all the attendees there as elitist. It's an upper. An upper middle class scenario. These women were out of touch with the problems that most women in society were having. She called this whole meeting a bunch of hurricanes in a teacup. Though I will say that Elizabeth Cady Stanton, as we talked about in a previous episode, had touched on the idea of marriage becoming more of an equal partnership under the law. So I'm not saying that she came up with this on her own. Elizabeth Cady Stanton also called for, and I quote here, women of brains should step out of the worlds of fashion and folly and open new avenues for aspiration and ambition. Elizabeth Cady Stanton had run for Congress a few years before. She got 24 votes. But Elizabeth Cady Stanton had bypassed the fact that women couldn't vote and went ahead and ran for office. And you know what? Fine, then, says Victoria to herself. I guess I'm going to lead by example.

[Susan]

Well, why wouldn't she? She was already living a life that these women were aspiring to. She made the money for their family. She was independent. She could Live on her own. She was married in a very. I don't want to say open marriage, but a very mutually agreeing marriage that they. Neither one of them was trapped. So she was already living the life that these women were aspiring to, you know, so why wouldn't she want think that she was going to be this figurehead and take it a step further?

[Diana]

One thing she had to do before anything else was to lay off this clairvoyance racket. People were falling away from their respect for that. What she needed was a respectable launch pad from which to take her political career that she had just discovered that she wanted. So, looking around her for her assets, of course, right at the forefront of her acquaintance was old Commodore Vanderbilt, who during the gold panic of 1869, which is the original Black Friday, the one where most people lost their shirts and not the one where you gain a large television set. The price of gold collapsed. And Victoria, with the knowledge given to her by Mr. Vanderbilt, sat outside the exchange and did backdoor deals. Spent four days being bold and taking risks that netted her what could be over half a million dollars today. And Cornelius Vanderbilt openly said, you are a bold operator. Like, his hands are up. Like, I. Okay, hey, you're officially bathed by fire. I approve that message. You have. Wow.

[Susan]

You know, her ability to read people, she could see the guys that were extremely desperate so she could make those her marks and, you know, buy low so she could sell high later.

[Diana]

So Victoria and Blood had the idea, women opening a brokerage firm. The first Wall street brokerage firm owned by women. This move was calculated for press coverage and in her words, she said, for female invasion of that most masculine precincts of finance. Hmm. She did it on purpose because she felt like that's where she would get the most notoriety, but in a respectable kind of way.

[Susan]

Right? And it would elevate her from her clairvoyance in the eyes of all the women suffragists. You know, it puts her on a nicer podium, I guess. Before they set it up, Victoria and Tenny, because they're gonna work together with the Commodore's help, kind of had a little pre launch promotion where they sat in some parlors at a very fancy hotel and just talked about their enterprise and talked about what they were gonna do, and it drew a lot of attention. They did get. They got that press that they were looking for.

[Diana]

So Woodhull, Claflin & Co. Was open for business. And although, yes, it was a major event, there was a private women's entrance. Everyone from every respectable brokerage firm in town, Cent representatives Press was there. It was amazing. Now there was some bad press. What do I even call this, like sarcastic or little patting on the head press. That said, how refreshing that the stock exchange shall exhibit a variety of costumes as diverse as a ballroom. Gross. More appropriately, Susan B. Anthony, who came to visit also wrote, these two ladies, for they are ladies, much surprise in her voice, are determined to use their brains, energy and knowledge of business to earn their own livelihood. This marks a new era. You know what genteel appearance really gets you pretty far?

[Susan]

Well, not only genteel appearance, but they were, the two were dressing alike. They dressed in like a women's version of a men's suit. They wore ties instead of neck necklaces and their skirts were as short as they could get him almost to their ankle. So they were looking like they were fashion forward. They were very confident. And Victoria, as we've talked about, was a great public speaker. So they were able to, you know, convey their message in a very business like manner compared to any other women that would have been doing business at the time. So now they're getting press, not only from the regular press, but they're getting press in the revolution with, you know, Susan B. Anthony's paper getting exactly the way that Victoria had planned it.

[Diana]

Now, by March. Now see, this is why I keep mentioning the months, because this goes at a clip.

[Susan]

Yeah, very fast.

[Diana]

So by March, Colonel Blood was honestly running the firm sort of haphazardly, it might, might be said mostly the firm just pushed customers into gold speculation. Like, hey, it worked that first time. So I don't know how tailored their recommendations were or, you know, anything. But Colonel Blood was the day to day. And the sisters were the public face of the firm. So their job was to keep our name in the press. There was an incident at Delmonico's. Delmonico's had a very firm, no unaccompanied females, because you know what that is? That's a prostitute. And you know what else that is what that was. Until the 1960s, a lot of hotels did not allow unaccompanied females in the bar. So they pulled a coachman off the street and set him at the table. And then they said, okay, now we want tomato soup for three. And they dined in style. So she's just proved your ridiculous rules. You know, see how much we don't care about this and see how easily overcomeable they are. Like you are a mug and we're not taking it. So in April, she announced her candidacy for The President of the United States in 1872. So that's two years of a head start.

[Susan]

And she had gotten a column in the New York Herald. Now remember, there's all those newspapers out at the time time, little ones, kind of like blogs of the day. But the New York Herald was a big paper and she at this point, she's 32 and she wrote. While others of my sex devoted themselves to crusade against the laws that shackled the women of the country, I asserted my individual independence. While others prayed for a good time coming, I worked for it. While others argued the equality of woman with man, I proved. And then she goes on, there's no valid reason why women should be treated socially and politically as being inferior to men. I mean, she just put it all out there. And that's when she said she was going to be seeking the presidency in the elections of 1872.

[Diana]

By May, the women were publishing a 16 page newspaper that was called Woodhull and Claflin's Weekly. Now commentators of the modern day have said that Victoria and Tenney did really not have the education to have written all the political articles there. I don't know. Colonel Blood did write a lot of them. And an eccentric genius called Steven Andrews, more on him later. So I don't really know, but except, you know, what people learn, people self teach. It's not like the way you start is the way you have to stay.

[Susan]

No, that's very true. Although they did take submissions from other writers. In their first issue there was an article written by George Sand. I love their banner line. It was upward and onward. You know, what a great way for her to get out her, you know, her political message.

[Diana]

A front page from the second year of operation. The banner line is progress, free thought, untrammeled lives remaking the way for future generations. So they've even like expanded their thought in the second year.

[Susan]

I know, I like it short and sweet.

[Diana]

This eccentric genius called Steven Andrews that they hired to write a lot of the things things. And kind of got them into a little trouble later. He had once founded a commune called Modern Love. Huh. That was beyond even hippie communes. In the 1960s, for example, it was considered impolite to ask who the father of any newborn was. And frankly, surprising if the mother even knew.

[Susan]

Yes, wait, let's just go back and say there were people that were there. It wasn't just him talking about this dreamy nirvana. I mean, it was a fact.

[Diana]

So the paper did cover free love. Now Mr. Andrews's end of it was the extreme one, of course, the extreme one. The one people latched on to as scandalous and shocking. And Victoria stood also unfortunately calling it free love. In the part where women should have property rights, she should be able to choose her partner rather than have it be forced upon her through financial necessity. She implied this was. This was pretty radical for the time, I guess. But she implied, therefore that marriage was institutionalized. Prostitution.

[Susan]

Yeah.

[Diana]

Ouch. They advocated shorter skirts, but for sanitary and safety reasons, not for sexual reasons. She had a very, very controversial stance on what she called and what in fact is marital race rape. Very controversial. And also the fact that she thought women should be able to both divorce a husband. Shocking. And brace yourself for this. To choose whether or not to have children and when she should be able to have them now, which of course the conservative faction thought, well, that's against God's plan. God sends them. How? Who are you to say?

[Susan]

And it also opened up the door for abortion to be discussed. So these are all topics that, you know, we're still talking about today, but back then, even just mentioning like marital rape, you don't talk about that. Nobody in proper society talks about that.

[Diana]

So she's not talking about everybody walking around Woodstock painting parts of their body like daisies and dancing around. But it was regarded like that.

[Susan]

Right. Because anyone. The first time you heard free love, what do you think of that?

[Diana]

Yeah.

[Susan]

Victoria moved into a mansion. She wanted her exterior, her home, to reflect the person that she wanted. It's kind of like, you know, dressing for the job you want. She decided to move into the house for the job she want. It was in Murray Hill. It was a huge brownstone, four floors. There was a flower garden in front, a greenhouse inside, two staircases leading up to a massive front door. There were balconies and columns and 10 foot high windows. It was the house of a leader. And in it moved Victoria, her two children and her husband.

[Diana]

And men of eminence who had no problems networking in this way. It became almost like a salon for the exchange of ideas. Victoria opened an office in Washington D.C. by the fall. This is all the same year. She's a fast worker. She's a very quick study seeing how things worked. All right, then, let us network. Soon she had parlayed a friendship from her house parties into an introduction to this ferocious, no nonsense, radical Quaker congressman who had been wholly anti slavery and was now super into getting women the right to vote. He had a sister that had introduced him to these kind of sentiments. And he was on. He was on board his name was George Julian, and he had put forward the very first proposed amendment to the Constitution which attempted to give women the vote. Defeated. In fact, he was also speaking of anti slavery, the author of the 15th Amendment, which says, in case you're rusty, the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of race, race, color, or previous condition of servitude. So that's his amendment.

[Susan]

And that's the last amendment at this point in time to have been ratified.

[Diana]

And now, much to the shock of female reformers that were planning to hold the Women's Rights convention that day, Mrs. Woodhill was about to be introduced to Congress, or at least committee Congress, to give a speech insisting that they themselves, old Congress, had already given the right to vote to women through their own passage of the 14th and 15th amendments. Here's a little refresher on the 14th amendment. I'm just going to read the first section. Section one, part one. All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. There's a lot more to that amendment. Evidently it's the most litigated section of any of them. Even on Wikipedia, which I normally don't reference, there's a list of cases dealing with the 14th amendment. It's pretty interesting off track. We'll give you a link if that's your own personal rabbit hole. But Mrs. Victoria Woodhull was the first woman to address Congress. So these amendments specify that persons are citizens, was her argument. The Author of the 14th Amendment said, you are not a citizen, you are a woman. I don't know what's of person you are, but you are no citizen. You say it yourself. Let's follow this. All persons born here are citizens. No state shall make any law abridging the rights of citizens. The end says Victoria.

[Susan]

Yeah.

[Diana]

And the man said, oh, what about condition of prior servitude from the 15th? And then there were great amounts of laughter from the peanut gallery, just the gallery where all the women who hadn't gone to the meeting that had been put off were filling the balcony. And they all started laughing. Condition of prior servitude. Like if that's what you're hanging your hat on, you know, yes, we can all attest to a condition of prior servitude. She said, oh, yes, but just for clothes and board, really. Not even for wages. Hmm. She did a great job.

[Susan]

Yeah, she sure did. Only Two congressmen ended up agreeing with her.

[Diana]

They fizzled out of it.

[Susan]

I know they would, like, put. They put her off on the states.

[Diana]

Well, there was a later segment of the 14th amendment that guaranteed specifically all males over 21. And so they said, well, that implies if you're not a male over 21, you're not covered. Which seems like, so weaselly, because you seriously said persons a second ago. Persons. All persons. The end, per se.

[Susan]

Yes. Yes, it makes sense to me.

[Diana]

So that was her position. She articulated it quite well. It didn't work. Fine. That's fine. It was just the first attempt. Speaking of attempts, she and Tenney both attempted to vote in 1871. Those votes were not accepted. The official had been told to. He was under orders to say no. He was pretty embarrassed. He was also not making eye contact and really not saying too much. And she told him to go get a copy of the Constitution, which he did. And he's more like, you know, there's. Honestly, I can read this all day. I'm not supposed to take, you know, your vote. That's the end. I can. I'll read it, if that's what you want, but because you're a lady and I'm a gentleman, but I'm not going to take your vote. So that kind of stuck, but, you know, no dice. Officially, this feat, especially Congress, made her the absolute darling of the radical arm of the women's movement. Although, I have to say, the stuffed shirts of the more conservative arm thought she was just wt. Hmm. And who were her people anyway? You know, gossip was getting a little out of control, and, of course, with more real basis in fact than you usually find, I'm sorry to say, but Elizabeth Cady Stanton defended her and said, during the war, did men inquire about the backgrounds of the soldiers fighting next to them? They did not. Who cares?

[Susan]

Yeah.

[Diana]

If we're gonna dig into everybody's antecedents, that's exactly what the men want us to do, is to get derailed.

[Susan]

She must have thought she had a kind of a kindred spirit, because she'd been shocking conservative suffragists since she took obey out of her marriage vows. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was living the life that she wanted, just like Victoria Woodhull was. So at first, she probably thought. Thought that this is somebody I can closely tie myself to.

[Catherine]

As summer turns into fall, my skin is saying to me, susan, we need a little more help down here. We know, says my skin, that you want to keep that summer glow all year, but you're going to need to up your skincare game. That's why I'm so excited to give Oak Essentials a try. Oak essentials isn't just good for my skin, it's going to be good for my heart too. Oak Essentials skincare is cruelty free, non GMO and organic whenever possible. Plus they're free of silicones, colorants, sulfates and a host of other nasties. And you can say hello to Clean Spot Quality skincare too that delivers a moisture rich glow. Our listeners will get 15% off their first order when you use code HISTORYCHICKS15 at checkout. That's 15% off your first order at O A K E S S e n T I a l s.com using promo code historychicks. There's a couple products that I am especially excited to give a try. The first is their moisture rich balm. I'm excited about it because it's designed to support collagen production and deliver intense hydration for an instant radiant glow. I am excited also to try the dew body oil and experience the glow and hydration that my skin deserves and needs at this time of year. So let's all say hello to Clean Spot quality skincare essentials that deliver a moisture rich glow. Our listeners will get 15% off your first order when you use code HISTORYCHICKS15 at checkout. That's 15% off your first order at O A K E S S E n T I a l s.com promo code history chicks. So let's all go ahead and treat ourselves and get our best radiant skin this fall with Oak Essentials.

[Diana]

Victoria's paper had really kind of turned toward exposing corruption among politicians and businessmen. In addition to quoting Victoria's platform, listen to this platform. Eight hour workday, welfare for the poor, national public education, repeal of the death penalty, tax reform for the rich. Like I. E. They're gonna pay some a one term presidency. Sounds good. Kind of sounds regular now. Kind of sounds regular because we have a two term presidency. That's fine.

[Susan]

These are things that are in our election this year and every bit of.

[Diana]

It made someone powerful mad. And then there was this. All laws shall be repealed which are used by the government to interfere with the rights of an adult individual to pursue happiness as they choose. That also sounds very topical. Gay marriage is what I'm thinking.

[Susan]

Oh yeah. Well, you know, basically she said, you know, you can love who you want when you want for as long as you want. You know, that's. That's what she said. Paraphrasing Because I don't have in front of me, but, you know, whoever that should be legal.

[Diana]

And did her enemies seize on this one? Oh, it's free love. Oh. And they started to conflate this simple concept of privacy and marriage reform with the way that Andrew was acting in the paper. I will say, after all, in her paper referring to marriage as prostitution and worse, and tarring the women's movement as a whole as loose women on the prowl, kind of what it ended up doing. And worse was to come, I have to say these sisters had carefully erased and I have to say, enhanced their turbulent childhoods. The shack became a rose covered cottage. Papa became a lawyer. Their traveling sideshow became homeopathy. But alas and alack, all the whitewash was about to be blasted off. And the source of it irritates the crap out of me. The whole freaking Claflin clan had descended upon them some time ago like locusts, like rats. Gutter snipes is an excellent word I like to use when referring to them. And suddenly, Mama brought a case against Colonel Blood, saying that he had threatened her life, he had threatened her with putting her into an asylum, and also had made her daughters disrespect her.

[Susan]

So when they all appeared in front of a judge, basically he said, the only thing I see here is that you disagreed with your mother in law. They could have just walked away at that point, but for some reason, Blood wanted to clear his name.

[Diana]

I actually wrote down, the judge told Colonel Blood, bro to bro. Look, man, all I see here is that you're the boss of your house. Why don't I just put this in a drawer? And he didn't take the out. They wanted to go to trial. Oh, my God. And oh, Lord, what got dragged out in the public forum, man. So maybe Blood and Victoria were bigamus, still married to their first spouses. Mama and Papa had sent blackmail letters to prominent men. I know you've been with Tenney and Victoria and give me money or I'm gonna tell the papers. So Victoria and Tenney had given them money to get out of New York, but they kept coming back. Worst of all, this seems like. Why is this the worst of all? But it was worst of all. Victoria's first husband, Dr. Woodhull, was living under the same roof with Victoria and her second husband. What jezebel is this?

[Susan]

Tenney and Victoria were on the defensive the whole time. You know, but the thing is that Canning Woodhull, he was sick, he was an addict. And she felt like she needed to Take care of him. He was her children's father. And because of the kind of marriage that they had, Blood approved of it. Well, why is that anybody else's business? And you know, the thing that gets me about this lawsuit is that these people are leeching off of Victoria and Tenney. So they're just going to cut off the food supply if they win. They think they're going to win a lot. They're not.

[Diana]

I just think it's crazy. Her explanation makes total sense to me. I can help him easily. He's in distress. I can provide him a home. We have a mentally infirm child that it pleases him to take care of. Of. And Colonel Blood does not object. Those clampets, I mean, Claflins. That's funny because I didn't have that written down. That's fine. So the clampets are no help at all. No help at all except to sell papers, which that's pretty useful, actually. Some speeches that she made about this time gave her opponents even more ammunition. Tenets of these speeches include, sex should be by consent of both parties, even if married. Society should not disdain prostitutes if they accept their customers. Birth control is vital to the mental health of women. Sex education for both boys and girls is vital for healthy adults. Damaged men produce damaged children. She was called a sex radical, but.

[Susan]

It was also filling the halls, you know, because it was kind of like morally sanctioned, soft core as far as they were. You know, as far as the audiences were concerned. It's like, oh, we can go listen to this speaker in this respectable hall and she's gonna tell us some titillating information. So she was becoming a really popular speaker at one speech that she's notorious for. Unfortunately, it was held in New York and it's called the Free Lover Speech now. Cause that's how it was referred. The hall was packed and she gave a very compelling dramatic presentation. But when she got to the part about freedom from the bondage of sex, she kind of lost control of the crow. People started hurling questions at her that she kept trying to answer, but it was kind of off script. So she's trying to answer one and then another one comes in. And one of the hecklers was one of her sisters throwing crap at her. So at one point someone says, are you a free lover? Point blank. And she says, yes, I am. I have an inalienable constitutional and natural right to love whom I may, to love as long or as short of a period as I can, and to change that love every day if I please. And they Went crazy. She talked for two hours. All they heard was promiscuity.

[Diana]

So needless to say, the women's movement had to take one giant step back from supporting her. Though I think in Elizabeth Cady Stanton's case, with some regret, Susan B. Anthony was mad. She was so mad at being drawn in. Like, she felt like the serpent had acted all nice up until she was, like, involved with Victoria Woodhull. And then she felt betrayed by what has just happened. She was mad because it made her look a little silly. There was an incident where Victoria Woodhull actually kind of hijacked Susan B. Anthony's meeting, and Susan B. Anthony went out and had the janitor turn all the gas lights off. So everyone had to kind of fumble for the actual. She was done. Susan B. Anthony was done.

[Susan]

Yeah.

[Diana]

So Victoria had to look for support in other groups. Spiritualists were won over by some papers she wrote exposing frauds and charlatans as hurting their religious reputation. The irony there is thick. Thick, of course.

[Susan]

Of course.

[Diana]

Yeah. So she won over the radical end of the labor movement by associating with Carl Marx. The very first publication of Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto in English was in her paper.

[Susan]

And the two sisters actually headed up Karl Marx's International Working Men's Association. They became chapter leads in New York, and like Beckett said, they printed the Communist Manifesto. So they're getting supporters, but they're kind of fringe people, I guess.

[Diana]

As she branched out into some very anti capitalistic speeches that kind of referenced the Bible in novel ways, shall we say? Including such phrases as Jesus was a socialist, go sell all you have and give it to the poor. Which I think is a direct quote, but whatever.

[Susan]

Yeah, it is, actually.

[Diana]

And she said, a corporation may steal a million dollars and the blindness of the people who are swindled every day before their very eyes don't know anything is wrong because no official law has been violated. That actually sounds very familiar for today. It's very topical. Isn't it amazing?

[Susan]

I mean, we're talking 1871 at this point.

[Diana]

So respectable people. Respectable is in quotes in my notes. People begin to mock her pretty freely. That's the death knell for being taken seriously. She was featured in a vicious cartoon in which she was depicted as a winged devil labeled Mrs. Satan, trying to trick a poor woman who was carrying a drunk husband on her back and surrounded by children trying to trick her away with a sign that basically said, I'll save you with free love. There's layers of meaning here, and I'm actually Kind of still wondering if it's sarcasm or not, because it seems to imply that the woman is silly for not taking the path of least resistance and following Victoria Woodhouse when she could put down all her burdens and go the other way. So, I don't know.

[Susan]

We'll put it in our show notes so you can take a look at it and decide for yourself.

[Diana]

That's a good idea. I was just like, am I overanalyzing this? Is he really meaning she's Mrs. Satan run away, or is he trying to show how silly that is to me?

[Susan]

You're overanalyzing it because I just read it as, you know, she's Mrs. Satan, period. The end. But I'm not as deep a thinker as you. So there you go. Victoria was doing a lot of speaking, but she wasn't attracting people to her cause at all. As a matter of fact, she was doing just the opposite. But she not only had the suffragists who didn't like her, but she also had people that were just basically not fans. They were anti women suffrage to begin with. So what Victoria was selling, they wanted no part of. Heading up. This group of fans is the Beecher family. Sisters, Catherine and Harriet, Harriet Beecher Stowe, who wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin. They opposed suffrage. They were kind of like the Phyllis Laughleys of the day. And please don't ask us to cover her, because I don't think I could do it very sympathetically. But they were anti anti women's suffrage. And Harriet actually went so far as to write a story that appeared in a Christian newspaper and wrote a character that was very loosely based on Victoria. And she certainly wasn't the heroine in the story.

[Diana]

Her name was Audacia Danger Eyes.

[Susan]

Wow. Yeah. Even with the name, you can tell she's not gonna be the hero. Now, what did the Beechers have against Victoria? Well, aside from a platform that they felt was against everything they believed in. They knew that Victoria had gotten a little bit of dirt on their family from Elizabeth Cady Stanton, specifically about their brother, the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, who was pastor of a very large church, Plymouth Church in Brooklyn.

[Diana]

And it was in her pocket, ready to go. And that made them so angry. So if you discredit the people ahead of time, if they ever do come out with that will, then nobody will listen to them. Right.

[Susan]

So while Victoria is spreading her message, they're doing everything in their power to totally discredit her behind her back.

[Diana]

So a motley crew of special interests gathered together under the name the Equal Rights Party to nominate Victoria Woodhull as the presidential candidate.

[Susan]

Now, the Equal Rights Party wasn't one of the big parties. Even today, if you look at the ballot, I always go to the. To vote, and there's all these candidates that I'd never heard of because they were from these minor parties, but they somehow got on the. On the ballot. And I'm not even talking about the Libertarians or the Green Party because they, you know, they're making their strides. They're pretty well known. But I'm talking about here in the United States States. There's a Reform Party, a Socialist Party, a party of socialism and liberation, the Americas Party. There's even a Prohibition Party and a Nutrition Party on our ballot. Yeah, isn't that something? So the Equal Rights Party was kind of between the Nutrition Party and the Libertarians. You know, they were. But they were men and women, and they got excited about having Victoria be their candidate, and she got excited about naming Frederick Douglass as her running mate, although it was an honor that he never accepted or even acknowledged he was.

[Diana]

Actually campaigning for the Republican candidate. Keep in mind, before you write me, the Republican and Democratic parties switched platforms between the 30s and 60s in the United States. So don't get after me about Frederick Douglass, the black man, campaigning for the Republic. Republicans. Do you know what I'm saying? I'm tired of explaining that over and over. And he actually was stumping for the Republican candidate, who was Ulysses S. Grant. I am disgusted, in fact, by the way, that many newspapers referred to this ticket as the highly colored human ticket. Gross. Gross. Yeah, I don't like it.

[Susan]

I don't like it either. And I'm sure they weren't really crazy about it, you know.

[Diana]

Now, I have to say, she had no thought of actually winning the presidency. Victoria Woodhull is smarter than that, really. But what she set out to do and did well, in my estimation, was to bring society's attention to the fraction, kind of big, over 50% of the population that was left out of the usual party conversation and what their concerns were. I will tell you, the Republican platform included the following sentence, and I almost think that it has a lot to do with her agitation of the norms. Get this. This is the Republican platform for that year. The honest demands of any class of citizens for equal rights should be considered with respectful consideration. Now, I will tell you, that was at great, great personal cost. Hotels, restaurants, banks, and shops started to reject her business, bar her from entry. Even she once came home to find her children surrounded by suitcases on the sidewalk after having been kicked out. The landlord of her newspaper premises raised the rent by a thousand dollars. The Wall street brokerage was doing really badly. Tenny had been indiscreet a while ago and lost the support of Mr. Vanderbilt. She had embarrassed him. And she'd also admitted to the public that she had humbugged him for years, which, you know, everybody always knew. Anyway, his friends and associates had peeled away from their firm. You know, you gotta choose your side. The novelty factor had worn off. And honestly, they weren't that great at advising their clients without the inside info that they used to have. So the sisters needed money and also, I think, some revenge for the way they were being dragged through the mud and really vilified by upstanding citizens, or rather men who marketed themselves as such but then lived their lives far more eyebrow raising than Victoria, for sure. I will say Tenny was more of.

[Susan]

A free spirit, but which often got her into trouble. Yes, like a lot of those lawsuits that had been piling up in their travels and she was leaving in her wake. They were finding her because they were on a bigger platform. And she can only say, oh, I always get mistaken. Taken for that woman in St. Louis all the time for so long before, you know, she had to pay.

[Diana]

Super common name of Tennessee.

[Susan]

Yeah, right.

[Catherine]

Hey, history chicks listeners, this episode is proudly brought to you by Lola V, an award winning hair care line founded by the ever fabulous Jennifer Aniston. Tell me if you've heard this one before. This is what's going on in my head right now. Do you ever wonder why your hair never seems to reach its full potential anymore? It might be the weather, but it might also be hidden in our scalps.

[Diana]

Our scalps.

[Catherine]

And there's one factor we can control. And Lola V has bioengineered a two in one game changer to clean and nourish our scalps. Lola V's new exfoliant and detox scalp shampoo combines the power of a scalp scrub and a clarifying shampoo. There's science behind it. Lola V's proprietary BE Pro 3 bond technology ensures that our locks are protected from damage. It's a treat for your hair and for your scalp. And here's a treat for you. For a limited time, you can get an exclusive 15% off your entire [e-mail]. just use code CHIX15 at checkout. LOLAvie's Exfoliate and detox scalp shampoo is clinically proven to increase scalp hydration and hair volume. That's what I need right now. And this I love about this product, there is a precision nozzle, so it's so easy to apply directly to our scalp. Once it's on your scalp, it's easy to massage in and you'll get this beautiful, luxurious lather. And if you want to go in another extra step, follow up with Lola V's intensive repair treatment. It'll be like a spa experience right there in your shower. Check out all of Lolavie's products at their [e-mail] as our loyal listener, you'll get an exclusive 15% off your order when you use code Chicken15 at checkout. That's 15% off your order at LOLAV. L O L A V I E.com with promo code Chicks15. That's Chicks15. Please note, you can only use one promo code per order, and discounts can't be combined. After you purchase, they're going to ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them that we sent you, Beckett and I.

[Susan]

And your hair will all.

[Catherine]

Thank you.

[Diana]

In a fall issue of the paper, on page nine, sort of buried under this innocuous headline, Victoria outed one of the country's most famous and beloved preachers, Henry Beecher, as a philanderer, a lech, an inveigler of virtue, as a wolf preying on his flock, the female part of his flock. For years, she had sat on this information while Henry Beecher's sisters had raked her over the coals in public. Well, now is the time to expose what passed for holy behavior. This is part of that article that was published on page 9, not on the front page. This is the husband talking in this case. I went to Elizabeth and confronted her with the damning tale she had told me. My wife did not deny the charge. She was then enceinte, which I means pregnant, and I felt sure the child would not be my child. I stripped the wedding ring from her finger. I tore the picture of Mr. Beecher from my wall and stamped it into pieces. Indeed, I do not know what I did not do. I look back to it as a time too horrible. She miscarried the child and it was buried for two weeks, night and day. I might have been found walking to and from that grave, bordering on distraction. I stamped my wedding ring with which we had plighted our troth deep into the soil that covered the fruit of my wife's infidelity. It was not good. Even worse, according to some people, is that, oh, yeah, well, he can do whatever he wants because He's a man and he can love who he wants. But what he oughtn't do is act like he's all good and condemn other people for behavior that is far less bad than that. I don't mind the behavior. I just mind the hypocrisy. And that's the part people could not deal with.

[Susan]

No.

[Diana]

Which amazes me. The wronged husband in this case, Mr. Tilton is his name, later became Victoria's biographer and probably Slash, possibly nobody knows her boyfriend, but it doesn't matter. Never mind. Never mind. This story was a spark. This is a smoldering spark, Ray. Now, that story, shocking enough, but it was just sitting there because Henry Beecher did not respond to this article. Curious, people thought. How curious? More acutely, in the same issue, Tenney had written an account of a respectable banker's attendance at a dance. Ooh. It was so specific and so shocking that honestly, I don't, I don't feel like I can go into it too much even now.

[Susan]

I was shocked. In this day and age, it didn't fall.

[Diana]

15 year old girls and a hundred men. That's as far as I'm going with specifics. His name was Luther Chalice and he lost no time in prosecuting. No time. The sisters were arrested and Victoria was prevented from voting for herself in the presidential election of 1872. Although we know how that worked last time by the simple virtue of her being in jail at the time, charged with liberty and with obscenity because they.

[Susan]

Had mailed the newspaper and there was a law on the books that you can't send this type of obscene material through the mail. And that's how they got them on obscenity charges, even though she was reporting the facts.

[Diana]

There was a man, a man associated with the YMCA named Mr. Comstock. And I have to tell you, Victoria did not help her case by calling the YMCA the Young Men's sorry for the reference to your name. Christ Association. See, you know, why do you poke them?

[Susan]

Why? I know. And he was looking. Oh, Anthony Comstock was looking for a high profile case to spread his name and his message and to help, you know, rid the world of obscene materials and anything else that didn't measure up to his standards of morality. So he really got more than, you know, he could even imagine with Victoria.

[Diana]

Can I back up just a tiny, tiny bit to this election that she couldn't attend because she was in jail. Her name was not on the ballot officially in any state, though I will say some states either added her as a Write in or allowed her as a write in. She received no electoral votes. That was not a surprise. And who knows how many popular votes because they were not counted. So all I can say is another woman, a woman who ran 12 years later in 1884, her name's Belva Lockwood. She got almost 5,000. Now, keep in mind, no women can vote. So 5,000 men voted for her. So Victoria got likely somewhere between 0 and 5k.

[Susan]

Yeah, somewhere in there.

[Diana]

It didn't really matter or wouldn't have mattered because Victoria Woodhull was actually only 34 and the rules require you to be 35. So she was technically ineligible two ways. But let's just say no one focused on her age. No one.

[Susan]

No, no. Her gender did it all for her as far as they were concerned. And the fact, you know, that she was in jail, and she was in jail for a long time. I mean, like a month.

[Diana]

Well, and in and out for two years, she sort of chased around and hounded at times. She was pulled right off stage after a speech. She went up there dressed as an old Quaker woman. Woman. And threw off the disguise while she was on stage. And sure enough, they were waiting to take her off the second she was done.

[Susan]

Her speeches were moral cowardice and modern hypocrisy. So she's not veiling it at all. She's telling him what she's going to talk about. So.

[Diana]

And she referred to this situation of her being, like, chased around as the American Inquisition. Her point is, you know what? Either have the trial or let us be. Have the trial, be done with it. The end. We're. We're convicted, we're acquitted, but just let us be. And they were eventually acquitted, but not before they were just wrecks both financially and emotionally. Victoria continued to lecture, and audiences, by the end of all this press scenario were completely surprised about how ladylike and refined and well spoken she was. Like, you're not at all what we expect.

[Susan]

No.

[Diana]

After all this in the paper, can.

[Susan]

I just point out they were still coming to her speeches?

[Diana]

Oh, well, yeah, yeah, yeah. They might have been a little disappointed.

[Susan]

That, yeah, probably they were expecting Mrs. Satan with the horns and the tail and the whole nine yards.

[Diana]

Dang it.

[Susan]

I know.

[Diana]

Why did we pay our 25 cents?

[Susan]

I know.

[Diana]

So then that smoldering spark, the smoldering spark called the Beecher Scandal finally broke for real. Even such a luminary as Mark Twain had even said, you know, where there's smoke, there's fire on this one. This is a mess. This is a mess. Even Mark Twain. Yeah, there are ticket scalpers, tabloids paying off of witnesses, confessions, letters, digging up of random dirt. They did not want Victoria Woodhull to testify, even though the Beechers lawyers kept bringing her up as attack to smear his opponent, you know, the wronged husband. This is one of my favorite excerpts right here. They asked the wronged husband, he's the most victimized of everybody. Did you bathe with that woman, Victoria Woodhull? And he said, I've never been in the water with her my whole life. Except the present hot water, which is really clever, I thought.

[Susan]

It is. Well, he was a writer, so, you.

[Diana]

Know, he had a thing with wood. Victoria Woodhull said to everyone, I mean, she, she was called, she gave some letters that proved nothing other than she'd been writing letters to Tilton about the biography he was working on. There was nothing incriminating in those letters. It was more like, well, I hope to see you soon for dinner. We're gonna have this, you know, so and so and so and so. We're gonna be here. I know you'll get along great. You know, it was more social, engagement, prep work type of things. Not nothing. She said to the court, look, if I'd been in bed with him, I would just tell you. You know me, I would just tell you right now. It doesn't make me, you know, never mind.

[Susan]

That's right.

[Diana]

I'm not gonna pretend. So. And that actually kind of rang true, like, oh, well, that's okay. Yes, that's true. But ultimately he, Henry Beecher, was found to be not guilty. And a quote from the verdict says, a man of such religious magnificence possibly be guilty. And I have to tell you, I find that quite horrible.

[Susan]

Well, I think God got caught up with him because he died two years later. But this was a six month trial. I can't even imagine what a six month trial these days would be for. And all because he had stolen his wife's affection. That was the charge.

[Diana]

Well, Victoria was a mess. They followed her up and down the earth, misrepresenting my views. She said, this is a quote from her. I am weary of the struggle. Even a stone will be worn away by a constant drip of water. In 1876, the paper folded. Victoria and Colonel Blood were divorced pretty amicably from what I can see.

[Susan]

Yeah, he had an affair and she let him out of the marriage, I guess is how to put it.

[Diana]

Well, but I don't know that it was. I don't know that she was Mad about it. It was more like it had run its course. Yeah. You know, via condios.

[Susan]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Diana]

So the sisters looked around at this rack and ruin of their ambitions and their hard work and, in fact, their lives and their reputations just. Bleh. And they needed to make a new start. They needed to get out and just at the right moment. I think this is a good bit of timing. I mean, sucks for him or whatever. Commodore. And he left nearly all of his fortune to his oldest son, just like one would do in England with primogeniture or whatever. 97%, I think, of his fortune went to that one child. When the other siblings moved to take their older brother to court. Oh. Suddenly, the sisters, our sisters, and all of their possessions and a great deal of cash were traveling over the Atlantic to England in some luxurious accommodations to prevent them from being called into the trial. Never mind. Whatever. Thanks for the $100,000 and the new start. That's super awesome.

[Susan]

Well, you can't deny that these two are very opportunistic. And they know a good deal when they see one. I mean, and you are right, the timing. They were so fed up with America, it held no appeal for them whatsoever. So, yeah, that worked out really well.

[Diana]

Now, it took a few years of demure living to somewhat sanitize their reputations, even in England. But ultimately, Tenney, at 39, married the third richest man in England and became ultimately Lady Cook. So there. And Victoria, after a long and tumultuous courtship in which Victoria changed her name to Wood hall, which doesn't seem that much more refined, but. And basically betrayed all of her former beliefs, kind of. She married John Biddulph Martin, the son and heir of a major banking institution, a man who had 11 relatives who were members of parliament and a man whose family was not 100% down with no.

[Susan]

Not even though she was denying that she was that woman.

[Diana]

What?

[Susan]

Free love. What are you talking about? You know, she. Yeah.

[Diana]

No, as a side note, after her marriage, she finally met Frederick Douglass. That's right. They never met, though their names had been linked for 15 years at this point. So she was just in a hotel lobby in Italy, you know, oh, hey, see Frederick Douglass across the lobby. And she introduced herself to him, and his response was, she was a woman of great poise, great intelligence, and I'm not sure how well I hid my surprise. And he also mentioned that she was a very handsome woman. That was the end. That's the whole relationship they have ever had, ever. But maybe, maybe, probably living well, is the best revenge, I guess. We both end up very rich women and at least at the beginning, both in love. Although Tenny's relationship, I think, fell apart a little bit. Let's leave Tenny's story here. I don't think it has a happy end.

[Susan]

No, it. Not really, but they could. They really separated.

[Diana]

Yeah.

[Susan]

I mean, they weren't together for the rest of their lives.

[Diana]

It had probably been a good run, like. Yeah, just break away. Victoria began a new newspaper called the Humanitarian with the help of her now grown up daughter, who had changed her name to Zula, which is marginally better than Zulu, I guess.

[Susan]

Yeah.

[Diana]

In addition to the regular politics, women's rights she'd always written about, and now she had articles on scientific advances in farming and developments in medicine and other health coverage. She also wrote about eugenics, which is. Here's the very short explanation. Improving the bloodline of humans by selective reproduction. So you can see, based on her own life, why she wanted to get to the bottom of why children were born with disabilities and also maybe to prevent the poor from having so many children. So that's got definite basis in her life. But these sorts of discussions are so problematic, fraught, I guess, now that we could likely fill another show with them, modern day. So I'm gonna simply give you a link in the show notes if you want to explore it yourself. It has a long history. It has a long history and is very. Not. Not politically correct, let's just put it that way.

[Susan]

No. And unfortunately, later it turns into, you know, the Aryan Nation and all that. Down the line, Hitler gets his hands on it and it goes downhill fast. Really, really fast.

[Diana]

So she was invited to run as the presidential candidate for the newly refurbished Equal rights party in 1892. But the whole thing fizzled. The whole thing fizzled. She's here. She's in New Orleans for the conference. Didn't work out too well. And Victoria and her husband John simply went to Chicago, where he'd been named the British commissioner for, wait for it, the Columbian Exposition.

[Susan]

Oh, you stole my lines again. Yeah.

[Diana]

Inevitably, it seems like everyone who's alive during this year ends up at the.

[Susan]

Columbia national in Chicago at the World's Fair. No kidding. Gosh, that must have been. It's so well attended.

[Diana]

So John Martin died while away from home when Victoria was only 53. And by a very strange quirk of fate, namely, his father had died days before him and Papa's property had therefore passed to John already. Victoria inherited quite a fortune. Quite a fortune. Had the Two deaths been reversed, Victoria would have received about a hundred total. My, my, my, my.

[Susan]

We're talking three days. That's it.

[Diana]

I'm just amazed. I know about what has happened.

[Susan]

And suddenly, you know, this woman who was raised the way she was in Ohio is suddenly the largest shareholder in Martin's bank. She and Zula were still. They were still together. And actually, Byron's still alive, too, so she's still living with her kids. They moved into one of her mansions that she now has several of in rural Braden's Norton. At first, they turned it into a women's agricultural college that at one time had maybe 31 students. Then they shifted the house into a children's school for the village kids. But the government closed it down when they decided that their curriculum wasn't quite up to snuff. She did have one of the first cars in the area and really helped. She just. She reminded me a lot when Beatrix Potter set up shop in the country. You know, just really getting involved in life of the village. She did the same thing, you know, during the war. She made sure that everyone in the village had vegetable plants and seeds, and she taught classes to help women with their finances when all the men were out of, you know, at war. She founded war effort programs that provided fabric for the village women to make soldiers shirts. She let wounded soldiers stay at her house. You know, she really went a long way to make herself part of the community.

[Diana]

Yeah, it started out a little rocky there. You know, she would put some gas lights up, people would tear him down. She did something, and people would mock her. They just weren't used to change. But by the end, by the end, decades later, she was a beloved and honored lady of the manor. I have to say, she was generous. She was charitable. She'd open her barn for village parties. I mean, one book I read called her the Fairy godmother of the village.

[Susan]

Yeah, that's what I saw, too. Yeah, I know. What a. What a lovely image of her at the end of her life. You know, it's not these sweeping social changes, but it's social change in a small corner of the world, and she's making it better for the residents. I love that.

[Diana]

She did get increasingly erratic as she got older. There's a couple of instances that I wanted to talk about. She looked out the window and saw that a guy was pulling weeds up outside. A gardener, not a rando. And she looked out the window and yelled at him. They never did anything to you just because they grew in the wrong place. Doesn't mean you have the right to pull them out and throw them away. I'm like, okay. And then she had cards printed up that said, I do not shake hands from a sanitary standpoint. Victoria C. Mar Martin. So that is two subjects in a row now that have had cards printed instead of just saying whatever out loud. Do you remember that Marie Curie had cards printed that said, I don't have time to give you an interview today. Yeah. And handed them out. I mean, what should my card say? What would yours say? Here's mine. Maybe. Are my giant white headphones not enough of a sign to you? No, that's probably not that mean. I'm a mean person.

[Susan]

No, that's a good one.

[Diana]

How about you think about that and everyone can send what their cards would say.

[Susan]

Yes. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for giving me an out. Because I. Off the top of my head, all I can think of is the story of why we haven't covered Eleanor Roosevelt yet. Because I write that one out quite a bit. Should I just tell it?

[Diana]

Well, sure. Don't leave me in suspense.

[Susan]

Oh. We were going to cover Eleanor Roosevelt, and we started to research her, and then I lost my voice, and I didn't have a voice for three months. And then we started to research her again once I got my voice. My father had been very sick, and as we're getting ready to schedule recording, my father died. So rather than find out what was going to happen next, we kind of shelved Eleanor. So anybody that writes is asking for Relinor Roosevelt. She's on the list, and we will be brave enough to cover her at some point.

[Diana]

Okay, so I'm gonna say that's too many words to go on.

[Susan]

I know that's too many words for a card.

[Diana]

So Victoria got the greatest contentment in her very, very later years from being driven in her car in the backseat with the wind blowing it in her face. And I wrote, peace at last. Peace at last. That was her greatest. I mean, she could spend a whole day doing that, 20 miles an hour, even at top speed. But that's okay. Victoria Woodhull died in her sleep on June 9, 1927, my birthday, incidentally. She was 88 years old. There was a tiny, tiny private service that neither of her children attended. And I think by her wish it was. There was a notable line from that service. The preacher said, and I quote, she was in advance of her time and accordingly suffered persecution. Now, I'm glad someone at that time recognized that, because I was thinking throughout this whole research Time like, this woman really belonged to the 1960s and 1970s.

[Susan]

Yes.

[Diana]

Gloria Steinem, of course, the noted women's rights activist, actually wrote the foreword for one of the books I used. And Victoria Woodhull seems like more of that era's type of activist she was. She came. She came down from the clouds too early.

[Susan]

Mm. Yeah. No, I totally agree. And in the 60s and 70s, that her background actually might have been an asset to her rather than a detriment, you know, from.

[Diana]

Look what I had to deal with.

[Susan]

Exactly. Exactly.

[Diana]

So her ashes were scattered in the ocean between England and America. And Zula had a memorial for her mother placed in Tewkesbury Abbey. There's a picture in the Pinterest page where. And I don't think it's the only one, but there is a red votive candle lit in front of the memorial every day. I think that's the custom of the abbey. I don't think it's just hers.

[Susan]

No.

[Diana]

So she was kind of a time traveler. Like, look at this eight hour work day which we had. And it's kind of disappearing again. I'm sorry. We might be on the verge of electing the first female president. And we are undeniably in an era of the first woman candidate from a major party for president. That's not. You know, finally, sex scandals are hitting powerful men like Anthony. Is it wiener or wiener? I don't know.

[Susan]

I think it's Weiner.

[Diana]

It's unfortunate. I know he was destined.

[Susan]

Yeah.

[Diana]

The 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote. 1920. This is going to shock you. Or maybe it won't. Marital rape was not illegal in all 50 states until. Do you know this? Do you want to guess?

[Susan]

I'm going to go with in the 80s.

[Diana]

1993. Holy crap. So that took a while. And then how about this sentence? When will the politicians remember that they are the representatives of the people. People and not their overlords? Something we're talking about with Congress even now.

[Susan]

Yeah.

[Diana]

So other things have come true. Let's let that come true, too. Yeah. And now it is time for media recommendations, which, of course, traditionally we always.

[Susan]

Start with books because we love our books. You want to start with kids books?

[Diana]

Yes. I only have. I only have one. And of course, never having spoken to you about this, I don't know if you and I have the same one.

[Susan]

I bet you we do.

[Diana]

You think?

[Susan]

Yes.

[Diana]

A Woman for President.

[Susan]

The Story of Woodhull by Kathleen Krall. Yes. Illustrations by Jane Dyer. Yeah, I did, too. I thought it was really cute. They kind. I. I wondered how they were going to talk about her childhood in such, you know, in kid terms. And I thought they did a pretty.

[Diana]

Good job by basically leaving most of it out. Yeah.

[Susan]

Okay. Why don't you give your books and then I'll give mine.

[Diana]

Okay. The polar opposite of that. And this is a book I highly recommend. It's. I think the newest book I have is the Scarlet Sex, Suffrage and Scandal in the Gilded age by Myra McPherson.

[Susan]

Okay. That's my book. That's. We're gonna have exactly the same books.

[Diana]

Okay, very good. And then there's two sort of regular biographies that I have. Regular meaning they're not, as you know, sparky, but are quite thorough and have used a lot of original source material. Other Powers by Barbara Goldsmith and Notorious Victoria by Mary Gabriel.

[Susan]

Yes, indeed.

[Diana]

And see if you have either of these.

[Susan]

Oh, wait, I have. Wait, can I do one? Maybe you don't have this one.

[Diana]

Okay.

[Susan]

Okay. It's called the Highest Glass Ceiling Women's Quest for the American Presidency. It's actually not just about Victoria, but it's about all the women who have run for president.

[Diana]

Ooh. And in this particular month or season, I guess I should say election craziness, because there was a bit of November involved. That's a pretty good book to go through.

[Susan]

Yeah, I thought so. Yeah. I didn't actually finish it, so I don't know who the last person is. I just read the Victoria part and the Shirley Chisholm part and. Sure. Oh, okay. Shirley Chisholm is the last part. There's more book afterwards, but there's an epilogue and then a bunch of notes that I didn't get to.

[Diana]

So, yeah, there's a couple that are parallel a little bit, if you're interested, as I was at reading some of the speeches that Victoria Woodhull gave and some of the articles that she and Colonel Blood really, I guess, is the thought wrote throughout the years. There is a book called Victoria Suffrage, Free Love and Eugenics, and they are all collected under one roof, as they say. And there's some letters in here, too, and they is a series of correspondence with Lucretia Mott in here. So I thought that is a good book for a little background reading and might be. Goes a little bit more into the eugenics, which we didn't have time to cover. And then there's a book about women in Wall street called Petticoats and Pinstripes, of which near the front of the book, there is a chapter on Tenney and Victoria Woodhull.

[Susan]

Excellent. I guess that would probably be at the very front of the book.

[Diana]

Yes, they're at the very front of the book, except for the fact that there is a long introduction. So while they are the first story, they are not the first chapter.

[Susan]

Okay. Is that all you have for books?

[Diana]

That's all I have for books.

[Susan]

Okay. As far as documentaries go, I only found one and it was. There was America's Victoria Remembering Victoria Woodhull.

[Diana]

And.

[Susan]

And it's narrated by Kate Capshaw and Gloria Steinem appears in it. The one I got from my library is actually two discs. There's the director's commentary and photo slideshow and then there's the feature length documentary. So there's a lot of pictures and stuff. So if you like your learning visual, there's that. There's actually a new one coming up. It's called it's by the Rouse sisters. It's Victoria Woodhull. It's not finished yet. It's in final editing. I did contact them to find out what stat what the status was and they wanted me to make sure that we said that this is a labor of love for them that they're making this documentary on her. So we will link you up to their Facebook page and their Kickstarter page. Although I don't think they're taking funds anymore. I'm not sure. It didn't look like they were. It looked like they had met their goal. But that should be coming up very.

[Diana]

Soon because I was thinking there's a wide open field for a movie. I cannot, I mean, think about the elements like the poor childhood, the rags to riches, the sex scandals, the newspaper drama, the courtroom drama, those family members coming out of the woodwork all over the place. I just think some. Somebody's missing the boat here.

[Susan]

I have to agree with you because there's so much drama. And even in just that two year period, you know, between 70 and 70, the election in 72, the amount of drama between in there was. It's a whole movie in itself. Now who would you cast?

[Diana]

That's Victoria Woodhull? I, I don't think that Jennifer Law Lawrence maybe is the right person. She has the right depth to her. Oh, and I'm reminded of in the Hunger Games how she came from a scrappy District 12 and had to pretend to be. She had to keep a lot inside. She eventually became the face of a movement, that kind of thing. So I guess I'd say rather than Jennifer Lawrence, I'd probably cast Katniss Everdeen.

[Susan]

That'S funny. So did you happen to run across the Onward Victoria musical?

[Diana]

I said in here in my notes, I said, send people to read the program for Onward Victoria, that poor Broadway musical that only lasted a day, but.

[Susan]

It was on Broadway for one day.

[Diana]

So I will provide you a link with, you know, going in to see that. It's a whole playbill. I mean, someone printed it and spent all that time. So it's there for you.

[Susan]

And I honestly, I want to say that there was other productions of it, like, you know, in regional, you know, playhouses or something, because I want to say that I saw more than one. More than just the Broadway. Like, somebody did it. I don't know. Was it cheap to get? I don't know. I don't know how those things work. But anyway, anyway, it's out there. You know what the. You probably ran across this website, too. It's Victoria woodhull.com and it's by the webmaster. She does all the writing. Is the great, great, great step granddaughter of Victoria through the blood side.

[Diana]

Oh, my goodness.

[Susan]

I think it was through the blood side. I didn't write it down. Anyway, yes. So she. She is very obsessed with this woman. I mean, that is. I say that with respect and not in, like a kooky way, because she's got all the fat. You know, she like, researches and researches. This woman, this is her area of expertise is Victoria Woodhull. So her website is just jam packed with all kinds of information. And I love that on the front of the front of it, she has offered a $200 reward for anyone who can provide proof that the women were indeed prostitutes, that they were advertised. The cult of love was an actual thing because she has yet to see any documentation of it.

[Diana]

Well, and that's kind of why we shied away. Like, there's no source documents that will prove anything. I mean, there's rumors, but there's rumors about everybody. You know what I mean? Like, they used to say this sort of stuff about Cleopatra. The more things change, the more things stay the same. So, you know, we take that with a grain of salt. But that's good. I have that listed as a good place to go to view source materials, like original material.

[Susan]

Yeah. And also, if you want a Victoria Woodhull for President bumper sticker, that's where you can get it.

[Diana]

You know, not so with the bumper stickers, because I feel like, number one, kind of none of people's business. And number two, I worried about them damaging the fender of the car, but If I were to get a bumper sticker, I would like that one a lot.

[Susan]

Yeah, there's T shirts too. But you also don't wear shirts with things written on them, correct?

[Diana]

Or short sleeve anything, right?

[Susan]

Oh yeah.

[Diana]

Or zero. That's my. That's my mo. Three quarter zero. So I have. This is more like serious background stuff, kind of rabbit holes I fell down while doing some things. There's an article about literacy in America and citations proving, quote, proving that America was actually quite literate during this time, despite my immediate jumping to the conclusion that everybody's walking around not being able to read. So that was a very pleasant thing to discuss. There is a very good history of the fifteenth Amendment article I will link you to. And also the text of a case involving the 14th Amendment and voting rights. And then as promised, an article about eugenics during this time, what it meant, why it existed, what the goals were. I do have a Huffington Post article detailing little thumbnails about the women who ran for president. Penn it in order. Just kind of like your book that you had.

[Susan]

Yeah.

[Diana]

And her obituary from the New York Times, which is quite long. I've posted that in there. There is a history of homer, Ohio from genealogytrails.com and then there's a whole article on great Jones street at Media History New. A little street two blocks long that I'd never heard of is worthy of entire years worth of research. So it is much, much admired. Actually. I was quite interested to read it and click on the pictures. So that is all of my things.

[Susan]

When they were arrested, they were put in the Ludlow street jail. And the Ludlow street jail has a very colorful history in and of itself. Boss Tweed actually died there, but it was. The jail was used as a debtors jail, but you could buy nicer rooms. Yeah. And like when the girls were. The women, I shouldn't say girls were arrested. They should have been put into nicer, a nicer cell. But the nicer cells were being used by the warden's family to live. And so they apologized. They had to be put in a cell together with the rest of the population. And the men on the floor said they wouldn't smoke while the women were there. But there's more to the story, so I will link you up to that. And I also have a. I found a really great history of voter rights, the whole history, because even though, you know, when the 19th amendment was ratified, it gave all women the right to vote. And then every. The states started taking that away from women of color, from native American women, from Japanese. You know, any women that weren't white, they started taking that away from them. So finding. Watching the trail of how they. This. It got to be so that we could all vote. It took forever. And so it's really interesting, this history of it. I really liked it. And I'm going to find a link to. Actually, I already found it. To your old cow town in Wichita.

[Diana]

Oh, yes.

[Susan]

Yeah, I was actually. I looked at it online. I was really impressed by it. They had a lot of activities.

[Diana]

They really did. And I guess they've moved their steampunk convention from November to May, which makes, I guess, a little more sense. The weather's probably nicer. Yeah. Although I just deleted. I. I'm sad I just deleted it, but I'll get it back. I actually have a link to a scene from that Kevin Costner movie, the War where the lip. Nikki kids. Those, like raggedy kids that reminded me so much of Victoria Woodhull's family are arguing with each other.

[Susan]

Oh, okay. That's great.

[Diana]

To get a little view of what I had in my mind as Victoria was growing up. That's what it is. Now. There are subtitles in a language that I am honestly not certain what it is, so ignore the subtitles. You don't need them because it's an English video, so. But I'll find it. I just went through my phone and deleted it for some reason.

[Susan]

Okay, that sounds good. I have nothing else.

[Diana]

We can remember Victoria Woodhull as an opportunist and a trailblazer and a bringer up of uncomfortable topics, for sure. A con man or con woman? I don't know what the female con man is. A brave warrior, an empathetic friend to the poor and downtrodden, and certainly as a reformer. But we can leave you, as requested by Victoria Woodhill herself, with a sentence that she herself responded with when someone asked her how she'd like to be remembered. And this speaks a little bit to how her background would have helped her. Later, she said, you can't understand a man's work by what he has accomplished, but by what he has overcome in accomplishing it. And that will complete our coverage of Victoria Woodhull, the first woman to run for the American presidency. Thank you so much for listening.

[Susan]

Bye.

[E]

What is this? Me, man. I live my life, but it seems I can't escape from this duality. I am so different from whom I've been. And now I've been so tired of their rules, trying to consume all the words that they choose. But I never had a chance to decide which way to somebody else speaking my mind. I been broken down, I won't turn around. Cuz I grow sick and tired of you telling me to swim up your stream. And if you undermine me, close my eyes and blind me. And think you can define me. I'm so wrong. Why trust these seeds of regret. When there is so much for me to learn? Yet I'm so nearly consumed by it all. We don't know what will become but we have to move on. And it's not like the world stopped turning. It's not about the destination, it's about the learning. You couldn't swallow truth and now you're so pitiful Wondering why I am so critical. I been broken down, I won't turn around. Cuz I grow sick and tired of you telling me to swim up the stream. And if you undermine me, close my eyes and blind me. And think you can define me. You're so wrong. Where could I belong? No, my situation won't end. So I'm caught between my heart and myself. Is there any way to break this down? But I won't worry now. Sweating across the ridge before I did it. My time will never come if I give myself up before I'm done. Broken down, I won't turn around, I won't. Sick and tired of you telling me this. If you undermine me, hold my eyes and blind me. Think you can define me? You're so wrong.

[Diana]

Oh my gosh. What are you doing? I'm scared. I'm scared. Why are you scared? Jet has determined that he's gonna make a pad and do a backflip on the ground instead of the trampoline. I'm kind of like looking at him. Oh, okay. Do it, Jet, because I gotta get back to recording. Oh my God. I'm looking at you. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. I think he's changed his mind. Okay, I'm gonna watch him two times and then I'm gonna get back to recording because he's down again. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh my God. I am not comfortable with this at all. Oh, my God.

[Susan]

Well, all I can say is, you know, as if he didn't have enough to attract the girls. Nothing a girl likes more than that guy that can do a back aerial.

[Diana]

Having a heart attack. You know what I about like to pee in my picnic bench when he dropped into that bowl at the skatepark the first time. And I guess what I'm taking from this is I myself should simply not look Okay. I might actually leave some of that in. I don't know. Holy moly.