On this Day...

Victoria Woodhull by Mathew Brady

On this day, May 10, 1872, a day after "Victory Day", Victoria Woodhull was nominated for President of the United States by a small, independent party: the Equal Rights Party, previously known as the People's Party, at Apollo Hall, New York City.

A year earlier, she had announced her intention to run. Also in 1871, she spoke publicly against the government being composed only of men; she proposed developing a new constitution and a new government a year thence.

This made her the first woman candidate ever.

Except as a politician, she and her sister were the first women to start a Newspaper in the U.S. and the first women to run the brokerage firm on Wall Street that employed other women as well.

Victoria Woodhull was also known as an activist for women's rights and labor reforms, leader of the women's suffrage movement ( she testified before Congress in support of Women's suffrage), civil rights and anti-slavery.

Once she had said:

Why is a woman to be treated differently? Woman suffrage will succeed, despite this miserable guerilla oppositions.

If Congress refuses to listen to and grand what women ask, there is but one course left then to pursue. What is there left for women to do but to become the mother of government?