OK, who can name the first ever female US presidential candidate?

[Nye Bevan]

Victoria Claflin Woodhull, later Victoria Woodhull Martin (September 23, 1838 – June 9, 1927) was an American leader of the woman's suffrage movement. In 1872, Woodhull was the first female candidate for President of the United States. An activist for women's rights and labor reforms, Woodhull was also an advocate of free love, by which she meant the freedom to marry, divorce, and bear children without government interference.[1]

Woodhull went from rags to riches twice, her first fortune being made on the road as a highly successful magnetic healer[2] before she joined the spiritualist movement in the 1870s.[3] While authorship of many of her articles is disputed (many of her speeches on these topics were collaborations between Woodhull, her backers, and her second husband, Colonel James Blood[4]), her role as a representative of these movements was powerful. Together with her sister, she was the first woman to operate a brokerage firm on Wall Street, and they were among the first women to found a newspaper, Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly, which began publication in 1870.[5]

At her peak of political activity in the early 1870s, Woodhull is best known as the first woman candidate for the United States presidency, which she ran for in 1872 from the Equal Rights Party, supporting women's suffrage and equal rights. Her arrest on obscenity charges a few days before the election for publishing an account of the alleged adulterous affair between the prominent minister Henry Ward Beecher and Elizabeth Tilton added to the sensational coverage of her candidacy. She did not receive any electoral votes, and there is conflicting evidence about popular votes.

Many of the reforms and ideals Woodhull espoused for the working class, against what she saw as the corrupt capitalist elite, were extremely controversial in her time. Generations later many of these reforms have been implemented and are now taken for granted. Some of her ideas and suggested reforms are still debated today.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Woodhull

Sounds like a fascinating woman.

[Thinkingabout]

1. Thanks for the History lesson, it has been a long time coming.

[CentralMass]

2. Thanks for posting. I did not know that.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

3. Victoria Woodhull. Yep.

Ahead of her time, as all visionaries are.

[oberliner]

4. That's not true

Belva Lockwood was the first woman to run for President.

[Nye Bevan]

5. According to Wikipedia she didn't run until 1884 (nt)

[Wounded Bear]

6. But NCIS.....DiNozzo said....

[oberliner]

7. Wikipedia frequently contradicts itself

I checked the Lockwood entry and it says:

Belva Lockwood was the first woman (or second, depending on one's opinion, after Victoria Woodhull) to run for President of the United States.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belva_Ann_Lockwood

I believe Lockwood was the first woman who actually ran for president.

If you look at the National Archives, it says:

In 1884 Lockwood turned heads again when she became the first woman to run a full-fledged campaign for the presidency of the United States

http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2005/spring/belva-lockwood-1.html

Similarly, this book about her from the NYU press says:

In 1884 Lockwood continued her trailblazing ways as the first woman to run a full campaign for the U.S. Presidency.

http://nyupress.org/books/9780814758342/

I think it does a disservice to Lockwood's legacy to take away from her the distinction of being the first woman to run for president.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

8. K&R, LOL for sure

[JEB]

9. Before my time. Thanks for posting this.

I do remember this fine candidate.

Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm (November 30, 1924 – January 1, 2005) was an American politician, educator, and author.[1] In 1968, she became the first African American woman elected to the United States Congress,[2] and represented New York's 12th Congressional District for seven terms from 1969 to 1983. In 1972, she became the first major-party black candidate for President of the United States, and the first woman ever to run for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination.[2]

Chisholm's legacy came into renewed prominence during the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries, when Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton staged their historic 'firsts' battle – where the victor would either be the first major party African-American nominee, or the first woman nominee – with observers crediting Chisholm's 1972 campaign as having paved the way for both of them.[3]

In 2015, Chisholm was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_Chisholm