OUR SCANDALOUS VICTORIA; SUFFRAGIST'S LIFE INCLUDED PASSION AND SPIRITUALISM.Byline: Jonelle Bonta Special to the Daily News ``Notorious Victoria: The Life of Victoria Woodhull Victoria Claflin Woodhull (September 23, 1838 – June 9, 1927) was an American suffragist (see Suffragette) who was publicized in Gilded Age newspapers as a leader of the American woman's suffrage movement in the 19th century. , Uncensored'' by Mary Gabriel 301 pages, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill; $24.95 Our rating: Three Stars ``Other Powers: The Age of Suffrage, Spiritualism spiritualism: see spiritism. spiritualism Belief that the souls of the dead can make contact with the living, usually through a medium or during abnormal mental states such as trances. and the Scandalous Victoria Woodhull'' by Barbara Goldsmith 512 pages, Alfred A. Knopf; $30 Our rating: Four Stars Victoria Woodhull was, among other things, a fortuneteller, spiritualist spir·i·tu·al·ism n. 1. a. The belief that the dead communicate with the living, as through a medium. b. The practices or doctrines of those holding such a belief. 2. , writer, publisher of her own weekly newspaper, mother, ``free lover one who avows or practices free love. See also: Love ,'' lecturer, blackmailer and, allegedly, a prostitute. She was also the first female stockbroker and the first woman to address Congress. An outsider and outcast from the women's suffrage The term women's suffrage refers to an economic and political reform movement aimed at extending suffrage — the right to vote — to women. The movement's origins are usually traced to the United States in the 1820s. organization, she is best remembered, if at all, as the first woman to run for president (in 1872). Yet, there is little more than a sentence or two on her in most American histories of the period; in fact, Woodhull is barely mentioned in Susan B. Anthony and Cady Stanton's six-volume history of the suffrage movement. How could a woman who helped create a time be accorded so little space in its history? This question has inspired two books on the life of Victoria Woodhull - ``Notorious Victoria: The Life of Victoria Woodhull, Uncensored,'' by journalist Mary Gabriel and ``Other Powers: The Age of Suffrage, Spiritualism, and the Scandalous Victoria Woodhull,'' by Barbara Goldsmith. The first can be classified as a standard biography; the second fits more comfortably under the category of social history, placing Woodhull in the rich tableau of the American political scene during the tumultuous and scandal-ridden years after the Civil War. Woodhull was born into a large, very poor Midwestern family. Her father was a thief and con man who encouraged his daughters to earn their livings as prostitutes; her mother looked after their souls and her own living by training them as spiritualists. (Victoria reported communicating with the spirits of Demosthenes, Napoleon and Josephine throughout her life and even ``predicted'' such tragedies as the assassination Assassination See also Murder. assassins Fanatical Moslem sect that smoked hashish and murdered Crusaders (11th—12th centuries). [Islamic Hist.: Brewer Note-Book, 52] Brutus conspirator and assassin of Julius Caesar. [Br. of President Lincoln). A disastrous marriage produced a mentally retarded son, and Victoria blamed herself for having married an alcoholic. Gabriel describes the suffering Woodhull endured and her conclusion that the constraints marriage put on women made it a more insidious institution than prostitution. ``It was that alone, that made me feel that I had nothing else to do but to ask, from every platform on the face of the Earth, that women should awaken to the responsibility of becoming mothers . . . I realized from that day that I should wage war against this seething seethe intr.v. seethed, seeth·ing, seethes 1. To churn and foam as if boiling. 2. a. To be in a state of turmoil or ferment: mass of hypocrisy and corruption existing under the name of the present social system.'' Ultimately, Victoria's fervent belief in ``free love'' and her refusal to back away from this hardly respectable issue precipitated her fall from grace. It also made her life a great deal darker than Gabriel portrays her in ``Notorious Victoria.'' In ``Other Powers'' (whose subtitle might be ``The Really Notorious Victoria''), Goldsmith details an ugly blackmail scam which precipitated a break with Susan B. Anthony, up to then her ally and defender in the wake of criticism, when Victoria's past was revealed. Desperate to recruit support for her presidential bid, ``Victoria had indeed compiled a set of `slips' detailing sexual behavior sexual behavior A person's sexual practices–ie, whether he/she engages in heterosexual or homosexual activity. See Sex life, Sexual life. of various individuals in the suffrage movement who she felt maligning her.'' Victoria's sources were none other than leaders of the suffrage cause. Goldsmith's nonromantic view of her subject succeeds in illuminating the social and sexual politics Woodhull fought by detailing the lives of characters who are only peripheral in Gabriel's book - the famous clergyman and secret philanderer phi·lan·der intr.v. phi·lan·dered, phi·lan·der·ing, phi·lan·ders 1. To carry on a sexual affair, especially an extramarital affair, with a woman one cannot or does not intend to marry. Used of a man. 2. Henry Ward Beecher, the theologian Theodore Tilton, the co-founder of the suffrage movement, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and, of course, Susan B. Anthony. In the suffrage struggle, Anthony was the organizer, Stanton was the stabilizer stabilizer: see airplane. , and Woodhull was the agitator ag·i·ta·tor n. 1. One who agitates, especially one who engages in political agitation. 2. An apparatus that shakes or stirs, as in a washing machine. Noun 1. , the Thomas Payne of women's emancipation. All three lived to ripe old ages. The irony is that only Victoria Woodhull lived to see women finally win the vote almost 50 years later. But, in an ending none of her contemporaries would have anticipated, Victoria married a wealthy English banker and died a wealthy dowager DOWAGER. A widow endowed; one who has a jointure. 2. In England, this is a title or addition given to the widows of princes, dukes, earls, and other noblemen. in 1927. A month before her death, she wrote what could be her epitaph epitaph, strictly, an inscription on a tomb; by extension, a statement, usually in verse, commemorating the dead. The earliest such inscriptions are those found on Egyptian sarcophagi. : ``. . . I feel well assured that whatever be the misrepresentations to which I may subject, the events must be committed to time, who relentlessly unravels all distortions and right all wrongs . . . whoever I am, whatever I have done, belongs to the spirits.'' CAPTION(S): Photo Photo: no caption (Book cover - OTHER POWERS: THE AGE OF SUFFRAGE, SPIRITUALISM AND THE SCANDALOUS VICTORIA WOODHULL) |
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