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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Deblia Chuck Aboarding, and I'm Fair Dowdy, and we

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Speaker 1: are barreling right along through women's history one. So far,

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Speaker 1: we've covered a couple of women, a pirate leader and

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Speaker 1: a warrior queen, for example, who both made a name

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Speaker 1: for themselves by fighting against the establishment. In this episode, however,

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Speaker 1: we're going to take a look at one who sought

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Speaker 1: to become part of the establishment and kind of affect

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Speaker 1: change from within, kind of the biggest part of the

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Speaker 1: establishment exactly. And um, by that, we mean we're about

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Speaker 1: to talk about Victoria Woodhull, the first woman to run

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Speaker 1: for president of the United States. Yeah, and her bid

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Speaker 1: for the presidency was really remarkable. And that's not just

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Speaker 1: because it happened almost fifty years before women even had

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Speaker 1: the right to vote, the legal right to vote. It

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Speaker 1: was miraculous because she had this really sketchy pass. She

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Speaker 1: basically came out of nowhere. Uh, the previous entry on

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Speaker 1: her resume before presidential candidate was clairvoyant. That's something you're

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Speaker 1: unlikely to see to and um, in a couple of

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Speaker 1: years she became the leading voice in the women's rights movement.

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Speaker 1: So a remarkable biography. Yeah, you could probably do an

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Speaker 1: entire series on just all the details of her really

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Speaker 1: unconventional and turbulent, sometimes kookie, downright cookie life, but we're

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Speaker 1: mostly going to focus on the meteoric rise that led

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Speaker 1: to her nomination for president, and of course the scandal

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Speaker 1: that caused it all to go horribly wrong. And you'll

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Speaker 1: see that it really makes today's nominees for the most part,

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Speaker 1: not in all cases, but for the most part, look

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Speaker 1: pretty tame bland. Yeah, certainly their names, the names of

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Speaker 1: this podcast are going to be great. I just I

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Speaker 1: want to get you psyched up for that every life.

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Speaker 1: And you know, by saying that she's exciting, we're not

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Speaker 1: just talking about in terms of the scandal. Even her

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Speaker 1: background is really fascinating and unique. So we'll get into

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Speaker 1: that a little bit at first. She was born Victoria

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Speaker 1: Claughlin on September in Homer, Ohio, and her mom, Annie Claughlin,

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Speaker 1: named her after the then eighteen year old Queen of England.

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Speaker 1: She keeps popping up Victoria. So Victoria Claughlin was the

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Speaker 1: fifth of seven living kids, and while she was growing up,

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Speaker 1: her family had a lot of financial struggles. She didn't

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Speaker 1: really let that get to her though. She was still

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Speaker 1: a very confident kid, and she kind of held court

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Speaker 1: on this with her family, you know, telling stories to

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Speaker 1: the other kids. And she was really smart. She had

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Speaker 1: a photographic memory. And there, you know, we we should

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Speaker 1: mention too, because this comes into play later that her

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Speaker 1: intelligence was not educated intelligence. She she only went to

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Speaker 1: school from ages eight to eleven. She was just a

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Speaker 1: a smart, quick learning kid. Yeah, and that's all. That's

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Speaker 1: all the school and she had the opportunity to get

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Speaker 1: at the time. We should say, but she was nicknamed

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Speaker 1: Little Queen because of her proud demeanor and her she

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Speaker 1: would intensely concentrate on things, so people thought that was

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Speaker 1: very queen like, just like Madame de Pompadour. Very similar

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Speaker 1: her dad. But Claughlin was kind of a rascal who

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Speaker 1: just hopped from job to job. I think he had

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Speaker 1: something like a dozen jobs. But eventually his grand get

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Speaker 1: rich scheme was to start calling two of his daughters,

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Speaker 1: Victoria and Tennessee spiritual mediums and set them up as

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Speaker 1: this traveling spiritualist medicine show, which sounds like a really

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Speaker 1: off the Wall idea. But it wasn't quite as out

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Speaker 1: there as it seems, because Buck had heard about this

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Speaker 1: other pair of sisters from New York, Kate and Margaret Fox,

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Speaker 1: and they had earned huge amounts of money working as

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Speaker 1: these traveling mediums, and there was, you know, at the time,

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Speaker 1: this growing interest in spiritualism. I think that's something that

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Speaker 1: comes up in the podcast from time to time too,

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Speaker 1: And women were very important in that movement, partly because

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Speaker 1: it gave them influence. If you're speaking as a medium,

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Speaker 1: nobody is really holding your responsible for what you said,

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Speaker 1: not quite at least um, so you know, you could

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Speaker 1: get away with some stuff like a spooky loophole. So

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Speaker 1: in addition to this, Victoria had also been known to

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Speaker 1: have religious visions of her own from a very young age.

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Speaker 1: In one, for example, a young man in a tunic

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Speaker 1: supposedly told her quote, one day you will lead your people.

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Speaker 1: So it seems kind of prophetic for what's coming up

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Speaker 1: in this podcast, but a lot of historians say that

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Speaker 1: it may have just been because her mother was really

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Speaker 1: religious that she said she had these visions. We're not

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Speaker 1: and we can't be really sure she actually had them

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Speaker 1: or not, but kind of the environment she was growing

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Speaker 1: up in. Yeah, definitely, she might have just been picking

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Speaker 1: up on what she had seen, regardless of the motivations

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Speaker 1: and inspiration, I guess so. Victoria and Tennessee did turn

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Speaker 1: a pretty big profit for their family doing this. So

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Speaker 1: the girls weren't really sure how to approach it at first,

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Speaker 1: and they kind of went to their dad and they're like,

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Speaker 1: what are we supposed to do? And so Buck gave

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Speaker 1: Victoria this advice. He said, be a good listener child,

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Speaker 1: and that's kind of all he told her. But we'll

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Speaker 1: see that that comes into play later. Following that advice,

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Speaker 1: that is, it sort of becomes the foundation for some

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Speaker 1: of her later ideas. I think it would be awkward

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Speaker 1: if your dad told you and your sister to go

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Speaker 1: be mediums, Like, oh, no, where to start with that exactly? Um,

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Speaker 1: But yeah, you're right. It does prove to be a

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Speaker 1: really big foundation to her later beliefs. And marriage was

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Speaker 1: another big foundation of these later beliefs, and she got

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Speaker 1: married for the first time when she was only fifteen

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Speaker 1: years old, to a doctor named Kenning wood Hall, and

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Speaker 1: it seemed like a promising match at first, except that

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Speaker 1: he turned out to be a drunk, and Victoria was

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Speaker 1: very unhappy and wanted to leave him, but because of

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Speaker 1: Victorian social standards and the marriage laws at the time,

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Speaker 1: she was trapped. Her property was her husband's and she

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Speaker 1: really couldn't get out. So she ended up because Canning

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Speaker 1: was such a drunk and also cheated on her, I think,

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Speaker 1: and just basically wasn't a great provider at that time.

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Speaker 1: He wasn't a very successful doctor. Even though he was one,

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Speaker 1: he didn't have that many patients, So she's not too surprising, right,

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Speaker 1: So she supported him and her two kids, Byron and Zulu,

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Speaker 1: by dressmaking. Then she did a short stint with acting

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Speaker 1: when they were living out on the West Coast, and

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Speaker 1: then she efluentially returned to the family business, which got

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Speaker 1: increasingly sketchy as the years got by. Buck actually started

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Speaker 1: claiming that Tennessee was a healer who could cure cancer,

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Speaker 1: and at one point later on down the road, she

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Speaker 1: is charged with manslaughter when a man dies of cancer.

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Speaker 1: This is kind of what I meant. Women didn't get

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Speaker 1: too much in trouble for what they said as clairvoyance.

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Speaker 1: Unless you go say you're going to cure someone's cancer,

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Speaker 1: unless you start making medical claims of the line. I guess.

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Speaker 1: So Victoria's role, though, was different from Tennessee's. She wasn't

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Speaker 1: out curing cancer. It was more like the job of

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Speaker 1: a therapist. Onmost she listened to people's problems, often problems

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Speaker 1: about unhappy married life, and uh, hearing enough stories convinced

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Speaker 1: her that in some cases divorce was necessary and called for. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and this is combined with her own experience, Right, so

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Speaker 1: she's had her own unhappy marriage and now she's hearing

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Speaker 1: us from other people. So obviously that would influence you

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Speaker 1: a little bit. Yeah, So she's starting to change her mind.

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Speaker 1: And this belief actually ends up coming in handy when

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Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty four she moves to St. Louis and

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Speaker 1: she meets a man by the name of Colonel James

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Speaker 1: Henry Blood who's just back from the Civil War. He's

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Speaker 1: also into spiritualism, and she likes him immediately, not just

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Speaker 1: because they have that in common, but he's very attractive

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Speaker 1: and so they hit it off. But he comes to

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Speaker 1: see her as a patient and she supposedly this is

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Speaker 1: the story that is told that she supposedly goes into

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Speaker 1: a trance and tells him that his destiny is to

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Speaker 1: marry her from like a far away voice, as if

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Speaker 1: someone else is the same way to do it, you

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Speaker 1: will marry me. Um. So of course after that they

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Speaker 1: said they must get married even though they're both married,

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Speaker 1: even though they're both married at the time, So they

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Speaker 1: file for divorce and they get married eventually in July

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Speaker 1: eight sixty six. She does keep the name Woodhole though,

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Speaker 1: which some find to be scandalous. Some people think that

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Speaker 1: because she kept the name, that meant that she never

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Speaker 1: really married Blood. But maybe she just didn't want to

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Speaker 1: be Victoria Blood. That's true, that's a scary name sounding um,

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Speaker 1: but Blood the husband did have a really huge influence

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Speaker 1: on Victoria's ideals and further shaping them, and he becomes

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Speaker 1: something of a mentor to her and exposes her to

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Speaker 1: these radical ideas of the time, like birth control and

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Speaker 1: free education and equal rights for women and um it

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Speaker 1: starts to shape her into a new person with some

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Speaker 1: pretty new ideas. Definitely, by the time Victoria and her

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Speaker 1: extended family moved to New York City in eighteen sixty eight,

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Speaker 1: and this was also at the direction of one of

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Speaker 1: her visions. By the way, by that time, she's committed

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Speaker 1: to social reform, but she realizes that to be a

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Speaker 1: real player in the fight for equality, she needs some cash.

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Speaker 1: Most women's rights activists at the time came from the

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Speaker 1: upper and middle class, so that was the example she

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Speaker 1: had for getting in. Yeah, and that's an important thing

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Speaker 1: to keep in mind for some later issues she runs into.

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Speaker 1: But Victoria and Tennessee sat themselves up as clairvoyance in

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Speaker 1: New York City, and they have business cards and everything.

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Speaker 1: They're like really going for it, and they aren't making

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Speaker 1: any claims about medical expertise anymore. After that man's letter charge,

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Speaker 1: you know, they've learned better than that. And it seems

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Speaker 1: like the business gets off to an amazingly lucky start

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Speaker 1: because one of their first clients is seventy three year

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Speaker 1: old multi millionaire commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt. So yeah, he's the

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Speaker 1: kind of guy who can make your clairvoyant career. Definitely.

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Speaker 1: And actually it's very unclear how much this no nonsense

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Speaker 1: railroad and shipping tycoon actually believed in the sisters spiritual powers.

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Speaker 1: But he liked them in general, and when we get

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Speaker 1: down to it, he really just thought they were pretty.

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Speaker 1: He liked hanging out with pretty women, so he takes

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Speaker 1: to them, and Vanderbilt teaches the sisters about the stock market.

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Speaker 1: And I saw a quote in an American Heritage. It

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Speaker 1: wasn't a quote actually was said by John Gordon, the

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Speaker 1: writer of this article in American Heritage, and he compared

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Speaker 1: this to getting stock tips from Warren Buffett. So just

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Speaker 1: to give all the listeners out there an example of

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Speaker 1: how major this was. This was a pretty significant person

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Speaker 1: to be giving you advice. So he gives them tips.

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Speaker 1: Colonel Blood invests money for them on their behalf using

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Speaker 1: Vanderbilts advice, and suddenly they find themselves with a little

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Speaker 1: bit of wealth. Yeah, paid off pretty quickly. And so

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Speaker 1: now that they're secure, Victoria is ready to make her

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Speaker 1: debut into this women's rights movement, and she does that

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Speaker 1: in January eighteen sixty nine. But she knows that her

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Speaker 1: clairvoyant job title is going to hold her back a

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Speaker 1: little bit. She can't be a reformer and a working

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Speaker 1: clairvoyant or no one will pick her seriously. So she

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Speaker 1: gives up her old line of work and makes starts

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Speaker 1: taking calculated steps to recreate herself again. Her first opportunity

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Speaker 1: for reinvention comes by September sixty nine, and that happens

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Speaker 1: to be Black Friday on Wall Street. When the market crashed,

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Speaker 1: Investors began selling off their stocks in a panic, and

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Speaker 1: Victoria basically just sat outside the exchange and bought up bargains.

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Speaker 1: She supposedly made seven thousand dollars by the end of

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Speaker 1: eighteen sixty nine, although some people think that she inflated

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Speaker 1: that figure when she reported it. But she made a

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Speaker 1: lot of money, to say the least. Yeah. After that,

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Speaker 1: Victorian Tennessee, they think, Okay, we've had a little success,

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Speaker 1: we can probably become major players on Wall Street. So

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Speaker 1: they asked for Vanderbilt Backing to open their own financial firm,

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Speaker 1: and he shows his support. He gives them seven thousand

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Speaker 1: dollars to to do that. It's called Woodhull, Claughlin and Company.

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Speaker 1: And the sister has become the first female stockbrokers on

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Speaker 1: Wall Street, the first of many first for at least Victoria.

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Speaker 1: And they got a lot of attention because of this,

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Speaker 1: and they met a lot of really influential people, and

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Speaker 1: some people came by just to sort of check out

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Speaker 1: this company, you know, it's going by and see what

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Speaker 1: it's all about. Walt Whitman even comes by he says

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Speaker 1: something that sounds very Walt Whitman quote, you have given

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Speaker 1: an object lesson to the whole world. You are prophecy

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Speaker 1: of the future. There you go, yes to put that

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Speaker 1: on their new business cards. And that's just from doing,

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Speaker 1: you know, a little walkthrough. Um So, overall, I think

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Speaker 1: they had to rain in that people just walking through

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Speaker 1: randomly thing. But business was good. Some people suggest that

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Speaker 1: might have been because of Vanderbilt's name being behind it.

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Speaker 1: I think people automatically assume that maybe he was pulling

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Speaker 1: the strings. But regardless, he did well. Clairvoyant ability, you

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Speaker 1: never know, that could also be an aspect of it. Um. So,

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Speaker 1: Victoria starts making some pretty influential friends and eventually she

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Speaker 1: enlists one of them, Stephen Pearl Andrews, who was very

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Speaker 1: educated also another reformer, to help her buff up her

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Speaker 1: education a little bit, you know, polish her basic reading

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Speaker 1: and writing skills, and and sort of get a new

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Speaker 1: start there as well. And so in April eighteen seventy,

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Speaker 1: the New York Herald begins to publish this series of

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Speaker 1: articles by Victoria, and she really comes out swinging for

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Speaker 1: the first one she does. She says, while others of

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Speaker 1: my sex devoted themselves to a crusade against the laws

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Speaker 1: that shackle the women of the country. I asserted my

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Speaker 1: individual independence. While others prayed for the good time coming,

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Speaker 1: I worked for it. Others argued the equality of woman

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Speaker 1: with man. I proved it by successfully engaging in business,

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Speaker 1: while others sought to show that there was no valid

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Speaker 1: reason why women should be treated socially and politically as

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Speaker 1: being inferior to man. I boldly entered the arena of

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Speaker 1: politics and business and exercise the rights I already possessed.

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Speaker 1: I therefore claimed the rights to speak for the unenfranchised

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Speaker 1: women of the country and announced myself as a candidate

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Speaker 1: for the presidency. There you go. I know she dropped

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Speaker 1: a bomb with that one, definitely. So Ulysses of Grant

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Speaker 1: was in his first term at this time, and most

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Speaker 1: people were thinking that he would run again in eighteen

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Speaker 1: seventy two, so the Republican nomination was out. She knew

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Speaker 1: that she wouldn't get the Democratic nomination, so if she

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Speaker 1: was going to run for president, she was going to

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Speaker 1: have to nominate herself and get enough support to get

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Speaker 1: her name put on the ballot. So that's what she

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Speaker 1: sets out to do, and she has pretty creative ways

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Speaker 1: of going about it. She does. She launches into this

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Speaker 1: whole series of kind of next steps to prepare for her.

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Speaker 1: You can't really call it a campaign, I guess, but

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Speaker 1: it sort of was ance an unannounced campaign a good

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Speaker 1: way to put up. So she started by getting this

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Speaker 1: a big, fancy house between Madison and Fifth Avenues in

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Speaker 1: New York City's Murray Hill district, which was one of

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Speaker 1: the more aristocratic neighborhoods. So again we see the whole

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Speaker 1: class issue coming up here. She wanted to establish herself

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Speaker 1: as someone who was somebody rather than you know, a

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Speaker 1: poor girl from Ohio, definitely. And the next thing she

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Speaker 1: does is buy a newspaper. Yeah, buying a newspaper meant

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Speaker 1: that you're someone really influential. So she does buy one,

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Speaker 1: and she calls it wood Hole and Claughland's Weekly. And

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Speaker 1: she sets this up as doing a certain number of things.

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Speaker 1: Of course, first and foremost, it supports Victoria's c wood

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Speaker 1: Hole for President. It's a mixture of mud raking, fads

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Speaker 1: and scandals. For example, she publishes in her publication the

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Speaker 1: first English translation in the US of the con Munist

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Speaker 1: Manifesto just totally bizarro. That was one of the things

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Speaker 1: that threw me for the biggest loop in this episode.

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Speaker 1: I think, yeah, it's sort of mentioned as a fact

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Speaker 1: in her life, but seems like it should be a

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Speaker 1: very big deal. But I guess when we have so

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Speaker 1: many different things going on, it's hard to make any

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Speaker 1: one thing that prominent. Yeah, but you know, so she

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Speaker 1: is running this newspaper and it's not as out there

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Speaker 1: as it seems. It had a circulation of twenty people

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Speaker 1: by fall eighteen seventies, so she has a pretty large

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Speaker 1: audience reading all this Victoria woodhol of her president business.

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Speaker 1: But even with all this, she knows it's still going

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Speaker 1: to be tough to get elected if women can't vote

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Speaker 1: for her. Simple enough, right, So she moves to Washington

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Speaker 1: and declares herself a lobbyist on behalf of women's suffrage.

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Speaker 1: While she's in Washington, she befriends a congressman named Benjamin Butler,

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Speaker 1: who helps her kind of navigate the political arena. So

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Speaker 1: again another male presence who's kind of helping her find

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Speaker 1: her way. Together, they decided that women actually didn't need

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Speaker 1: an amendment to vote, they already had the right under

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Speaker 1: current laws. This is what they kind of formulated their lines.

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Speaker 1: They found in loophole and the lagic behind this was

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Speaker 1: that the fifteenth Amendment stated that the rights of citizens

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Speaker 1: of the U. S. Shall not be denied or abridged.

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Speaker 1: Then the fourteenth Amendment said that all persons born are

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Speaker 1: naturalized in the U. S. Or citizens. So when you

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Speaker 1: put the two together, it means that all citizens have

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Speaker 1: the right to vote. And since women are citizens, they

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Speaker 1: have the right to vote too. Yeah. So Woodhall, thanks

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Speaker 1: to Butler's influence, actually becomes the first woman to address

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Speaker 1: Congress on January eleventh, eighteen seventy one, and get to

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Speaker 1: make her case with this little loophole and and try

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Speaker 1: to see what everybody thinks about it. It doesn't really work,

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Speaker 1: but suffarate jets, including Susan B. Anthony, were really impressed.

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Speaker 1: I mean, how would you not be impressed by the

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Speaker 1: first woman speaking before Congress. Yeah, it's a pretty big first.

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Speaker 1: So Victoria was invited finally. She wanted this for a while,

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Speaker 1: but because of her background and because of her scandalous

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Speaker 1: sort of scandalous newspaper that she had, she wasn't invited before.

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Speaker 1: But she was finally invited to become part of the

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Speaker 1: National Women's Suffrage Association, but it was long before it

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Speaker 1: became clear to the others who were members that Victoria

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Speaker 1: wasn't just interested in women's rights. She started talking about

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Speaker 1: things like national public education, institutionalized welfare for the poor,

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Speaker 1: and perhaps the most controversial of things, she talked about

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Speaker 1: free love. Yeah, it's not quite the free love like

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Speaker 1: what we think of today. Basically, she wanted to reform

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Speaker 1: marriage laws and make man and wife equal partners in

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Speaker 1: a marriage, a relationship that was based on love and

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Speaker 1: free will. That's free love. It sounds a little more

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Speaker 1: scandalous than it was, but still it was something that

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Speaker 1: was pretty radical for a lot of the suffragists. A

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Speaker 1: lot of them were not on board with this idea

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Speaker 1: at all. No. I mean, for one thing, they didn't

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Speaker 1: want women's rights to be diverted by other concerns. And

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Speaker 1: on the other hand, some of the ideas like free

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Speaker 1: love were way too extreme for a lot of the

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Speaker 1: people who were involved. So regardless, Victoria gave the speech

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Speaker 1: about free love on November one, and this was kind

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Speaker 1: of a turning point for her because after she gave

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Speaker 1: the speech, it sparked this huge controversy all around her

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Speaker 1: and her cause. People pretty much ignored her message of

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Speaker 1: free love the way she had interpreted it and was

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Speaker 1: trying to get it across, and they took it more

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Speaker 1: as something that would be considered immoral in that day,

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Speaker 1: probably more like we consider free love to be now.

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Speaker 1: And so she was denounced in the press. It was

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Speaker 1: a big to do, yeah, and leaders of the Suffrage

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Speaker 1: Association withdrew their support. And so Victoria now is not

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Speaker 1: backed by this group of wealthy, influential women and people anymore. Um,

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Speaker 1: she's splintered off with a group of more radical women activists.

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Speaker 1: So this radical group forms the Equal Rights Party, which

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Speaker 1: has both men and women involved, and it's a party

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Speaker 1: about all sorts of reforms, basically a reform minded party.

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Speaker 1: And in eighteen seventy two the party nominated Victoria for president. Interestingly,

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Speaker 1: they also nominated Frederick Douglas, who was, of course the

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Speaker 1: very famous African American leader in the anti slavery movement

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Speaker 1: at the time as vice president. He turned the offer down.

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Speaker 1: But wood Hall, of course it does accept and in

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Speaker 1: her acceptance speech she says, quote, I've sometimes thought that

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Speaker 1: here is something providential and prophetic, and the fact that

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Speaker 1: my parents conferred upon me a name which forbids the

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Speaker 1: very thought of failure, So again bringing attention to her

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Speaker 1: queenly name again, Little Queen. At this time, though after

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Speaker 1: she was nominated, the Little Queen Star was already in decline.

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Speaker 1: Her views had caused her to lose a lot of

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Speaker 1: supporters already and her Wall Street business as well. She

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Speaker 1: went broke and she got turned out of her fancy

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Speaker 1: home and she had to suspend publication of her weekly.

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Speaker 1: So just a really kind of fast fall, you know,

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Speaker 1: because of the loss of her support and business, and

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Speaker 1: also because she had put so much money into these

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Speaker 1: campaigns that she was trying to pull off. Yeah, but

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Speaker 1: it was this one last scandal that really did her in,

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Speaker 1: and unfortunately it was instigated by Victoria herself. Yeah, here's

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Speaker 1: just a little background on that. The wealthy and influential

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Speaker 1: Beacher sisters from Boston, Katherine Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe

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Speaker 1: of Uncle Tom's Cabin fame, they hated Victoria. According to

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Speaker 1: author Jacqueline McLean, who wrote a biography of Victoria Woodhull,

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Speaker 1: the Beacher's opposed women's suffrage, and we're really just critical

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Speaker 1: of how vocal Victoria was and everything that she did,

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Speaker 1: both in her paper and in the speeches that she gave.

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Speaker 1: But Victoria had something on them too. She had damaging

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Speaker 1: information about their brother, who was a prominent Brooklyn pastor,

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Speaker 1: Reverend Henry Ward Beecher now Reverend Beecher, had an affair

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Speaker 1: with the wife of one of his colleagues, possibly even

390
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Speaker 1: impregnated her. She had a miscarriage. Yeah, very scandalous. And

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Speaker 1: Victoria knew about this, but she hadn't used it yet.

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Speaker 1: I mean, this sort of war between the Beacher sisters

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Speaker 1: and Victoria had been going on for some time. So

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Speaker 1: weird too if you think about it. The Beacher sisters,

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Speaker 1: I mean, come on, we think of them as reformers too, definitely,

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Speaker 1: and and I know you were mentioning earlier. It is

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Speaker 1: strange that they were not reformers involved in the women's movement,

398
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Speaker 1: but so prominent in the abolition movement. Definitely, and I

399
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Speaker 1: think they were also Victoria saw them as being part

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Speaker 1: of that sort of elitist upper class set that she

401
00:22:50,119 --> 00:22:53,439
Speaker 1: just could the old establishment that she just couldn't break into.

402
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Speaker 1: So they were just always at odds because of that.

403
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Speaker 1: But in October eighteen seventy two, she revived the weekly

404
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Speaker 1: for one issue to write an expose about the whole

405
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Speaker 1: affair with the reverend. Maybe there are different theories about

406
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Speaker 1: why she did this. Maybe it's because the reverend wouldn't

407
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Speaker 1: lend her money when she came to him when she

408
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Speaker 1: was broke. Maybe it's because she just wanted to get

409
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Speaker 1: back at all her critics, especially the Beach Your Sister.

410
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Speaker 1: She had been blasted in the press for her free

411
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Speaker 1: love ideas, and she wanted to basically say, Okay, you

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Speaker 1: guys are hypocrites because I may be talking about free love,

413
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Speaker 1: but you guys are actually out there practicing if you're

414
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Speaker 1: having affairs with you know, your colleagues wives. So that

415
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Speaker 1: was sort of the motivation behind it. But the issue,

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Speaker 1: as you would imagine, flew off the stands. I think

417
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Speaker 1: people were buying not just the copies, but then buying

418
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Speaker 1: used copies, and the price kept going up. So it

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Speaker 1: was very popular, but it backfired against her in a

420
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Speaker 1: big way. Victoria and her sister were arrested for distributing

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Speaker 1: indecent literature through the mail and spent the election day

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Speaker 1: itself in jail. Yeah, and so after that, after a

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Speaker 1: scandal of that magnitude, even her biggest supporters turned against her.

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Speaker 1: So her political career, which hadn't ever really launched, I

425
00:24:12,160 --> 00:24:14,919
Speaker 1: mean to be honest, it hadn't really gotten off the ground,

426
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Speaker 1: came to an end quite suddenly. Yeah. I think they

427
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Speaker 1: were in jail for about two months, and then kept

428
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Speaker 1: getting re arrested after that for various indecency charges, libel charges,

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00:24:25,200 --> 00:24:28,120
Speaker 1: and so it was a struggle for her after that,

430
00:24:28,280 --> 00:24:30,680
Speaker 1: as she had to travel around again with her husband

431
00:24:30,680 --> 00:24:32,639
Speaker 1: and her sister giving speeches here and there for a

432
00:24:32,680 --> 00:24:36,320
Speaker 1: little money. But people didn't really take her seriously after that,

433
00:24:36,480 --> 00:24:39,000
Speaker 1: more of a side show than a speaker you were

434
00:24:39,160 --> 00:24:42,920
Speaker 1: truly interested in hearing, right, So, yeah, kind of a

435
00:24:42,960 --> 00:24:46,960
Speaker 1: disappointing ending after a sort of promising rise. But we'll

436
00:24:47,000 --> 00:24:48,920
Speaker 1: have to wrap up the details of her life a

437
00:24:48,960 --> 00:24:51,120
Speaker 1: little bit. As I said at the beginning, there's so

438
00:24:51,200 --> 00:24:53,720
Speaker 1: much to say about her, even her later life after

439
00:24:53,880 --> 00:24:55,960
Speaker 1: all of this, that we could probably do a separate

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00:24:56,000 --> 00:25:00,200
Speaker 1: podcast on just the post election victoria. But in ed

441
00:25:00,240 --> 00:25:02,040
Speaker 1: we'll just give you a little bit. She ends up

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00:25:02,040 --> 00:25:05,400
Speaker 1: divorcing Blood in eighteen seventy six when she catches him

443
00:25:05,400 --> 00:25:07,960
Speaker 1: with another woman. So so much for free love, right,

444
00:25:08,359 --> 00:25:10,920
Speaker 1: we know she's not going to go for that. So

445
00:25:11,320 --> 00:25:14,560
Speaker 1: in eighteen seventy seven she joins up with her sister

446
00:25:14,800 --> 00:25:18,119
Speaker 1: Tennessee again besides seeing it, maybe they'll work better together,

447
00:25:18,160 --> 00:25:20,560
Speaker 1: and they moved to England and they get a fresh start.

448
00:25:20,600 --> 00:25:23,240
Speaker 1: But the really weird thing is it takes a hundred

449
00:25:23,280 --> 00:25:26,920
Speaker 1: thousand dollars for them to get to England and set

450
00:25:27,000 --> 00:25:30,800
Speaker 1: up quite nicely, and most people suspect that that money

451
00:25:30,920 --> 00:25:34,240
Speaker 1: came from a very prominent source. Yeah, a lot of

452
00:25:34,280 --> 00:25:36,439
Speaker 1: people suspect that they were actually bribed to leave the

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00:25:36,440 --> 00:25:40,960
Speaker 1: country by Vanderbilt's son William after his death. And that's

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00:25:41,000 --> 00:25:44,000
Speaker 1: because of some feuding that was going on between the

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00:25:44,080 --> 00:25:48,280
Speaker 1: Vanderbilt siblings over their inheritance and William, since he got

456
00:25:48,280 --> 00:25:52,040
Speaker 1: the biggest chunk, he was afraid that the other siblings

457
00:25:52,080 --> 00:25:54,879
Speaker 1: were going to try to prove that their father was

458
00:25:54,920 --> 00:25:57,399
Speaker 1: not well in his mind when he made out his

459
00:25:57,480 --> 00:26:02,480
Speaker 1: will and used the the Claflind sisters unfortunately as an

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00:26:02,480 --> 00:26:06,679
Speaker 1: example of why he was unwell. So William might have

461
00:26:06,840 --> 00:26:10,200
Speaker 1: bought them off and sent them packing to England. Yeah,

462
00:26:10,200 --> 00:26:13,320
Speaker 1: it's quite likely that somebody did, and it was probably him,

463
00:26:13,400 --> 00:26:15,640
Speaker 1: because they really didn't have any money at that point.

464
00:26:15,680 --> 00:26:18,479
Speaker 1: They weren't earning much on the on Victoria's speech circuit.

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00:26:18,680 --> 00:26:20,920
Speaker 1: It's a good offer for them to have taken, though,

466
00:26:20,960 --> 00:26:23,959
Speaker 1: because once they're there, both of the ladies end up

467
00:26:23,960 --> 00:26:27,000
Speaker 1: becoming rich again. These these women have made so many

468
00:26:27,040 --> 00:26:29,760
Speaker 1: fortunes and lost so many. This time it's the old

469
00:26:29,760 --> 00:26:33,760
Speaker 1: fashioned way though. They just marry rich and m Victoria.

470
00:26:34,200 --> 00:26:37,040
Speaker 1: I think you mentioned she actually ends up inheriting not

471
00:26:37,240 --> 00:26:40,520
Speaker 1: just her husband's fortune but his father's as well. Yeah.

472
00:26:40,600 --> 00:26:44,320
Speaker 1: Unfortunately share her new husband, who loves her by all accounts,

473
00:26:44,400 --> 00:26:48,439
Speaker 1: he after he dies. I think he dies maybe a

474
00:26:48,560 --> 00:26:51,320
Speaker 1: day after a few days after his father dies. So

475
00:26:51,400 --> 00:26:54,840
Speaker 1: she inherits a ton of money and retires to the

476
00:26:54,880 --> 00:26:59,320
Speaker 1: English countryside with her daughter Zulu, and they spend the

477
00:26:59,320 --> 00:27:03,160
Speaker 1: rest of their life kind of funding these philanthropic efforts

478
00:27:03,200 --> 00:27:07,040
Speaker 1: and like education and so forth. And um, she lives

479
00:27:07,080 --> 00:27:09,359
Speaker 1: to be eighty eight. She lives to be eight. She

480
00:27:09,440 --> 00:27:13,960
Speaker 1: dies June nine in her sleep, seven years after American

481
00:27:14,000 --> 00:27:17,119
Speaker 1: women were granted the right to vote. Yeah, so this

482
00:27:17,280 --> 00:27:19,640
Speaker 1: kind of reminded me a little bit of our Chinese

483
00:27:19,680 --> 00:27:23,919
Speaker 1: Pirates episode in that it ends so well. Usually usually

484
00:27:23,920 --> 00:27:26,280
Speaker 1: I feel like our podcast, even if they're upbeat, they

485
00:27:26,320 --> 00:27:29,960
Speaker 1: have kind of a tragic ending. Not this one. Yeah,

486
00:27:29,960 --> 00:27:32,359
Speaker 1: this one has sort of a if not a happy ending,

487
00:27:32,400 --> 00:27:34,800
Speaker 1: because I think that she did want to redeem her

488
00:27:35,480 --> 00:27:38,320
Speaker 1: her name and her character and her image and maybe

489
00:27:38,359 --> 00:27:40,119
Speaker 1: never quite got where she wanted to get with that.

490
00:27:40,320 --> 00:27:44,359
Speaker 1: But um, a comfortable and a comfortable ending, a peaceful

491
00:27:44,520 --> 00:27:48,119
Speaker 1: kind of ending. So and as we said, that is

492
00:27:48,200 --> 00:27:51,040
Speaker 1: the end. That's all we have today on Victoria Claplin

493
00:27:51,560 --> 00:27:53,679
Speaker 1: with the whole, but we do have listener mail. We

494
00:27:53,760 --> 00:28:00,199
Speaker 1: do have listener mail. Sarah. You just mentioned to are

495
00:28:00,280 --> 00:28:03,679
Speaker 1: don't cross the Dragon Lady podcast, and this letter is

496
00:28:03,800 --> 00:28:07,400
Speaker 1: about that. It is from Jennie and Janie. I'm very

497
00:28:07,400 --> 00:28:10,000
Speaker 1: sorry if I mispronounced your name, but just gave it

498
00:28:10,040 --> 00:28:13,600
Speaker 1: my best shot. And she says, I'm really enjoying the

499
00:28:13,680 --> 00:28:16,720
Speaker 1: Dragon Lady podcast. I'm a proud member of the International

500
00:28:16,720 --> 00:28:19,200
Speaker 1: Wenches Guild, and I've played a pirate at my home,

501
00:28:19,240 --> 00:28:22,920
Speaker 1: Renaissance Farris since before it was cool. Just a little

502
00:28:22,920 --> 00:28:25,600
Speaker 1: tidbit regarding your bit about the no raping women rule.

503
00:28:25,640 --> 00:28:30,280
Speaker 1: You were discussing the notorious pirate Blackbeard and Parends Edward

504
00:28:30,280 --> 00:28:34,080
Speaker 1: Teach was well known to be a vicious barbarian. However,

505
00:28:34,160 --> 00:28:37,560
Speaker 1: he loved women. For all his violent, crazy antics, he

506
00:28:37,600 --> 00:28:40,600
Speaker 1: did not tolerate rape, abuse, or man handling of women

507
00:28:40,600 --> 00:28:43,800
Speaker 1: in any way. The punishment was death. He had multiple

508
00:28:43,840 --> 00:28:46,800
Speaker 1: wives and several ports, and allegedly showered them with gifts

509
00:28:46,800 --> 00:28:49,800
Speaker 1: and loving gestures. He treasured women and demanded that his

510
00:28:49,840 --> 00:28:52,600
Speaker 1: crew do the same. I guess he couldn't be all

511
00:28:52,720 --> 00:28:58,640
Speaker 1: bad because some firecrackers stuck in into beard. Not all

512
00:28:58,680 --> 00:29:01,360
Speaker 1: that bethan much there um. So Yeah, if you have

513
00:29:01,440 --> 00:29:05,520
Speaker 1: any more suggestions or comments you want to send us,

514
00:29:05,560 --> 00:29:08,440
Speaker 1: feel free to email us at History Podcast at how

515
00:29:08,520 --> 00:29:11,400
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. We're also on Twitter and mist

516
00:29:11,440 --> 00:29:15,040
Speaker 1: in history, and we're on Facebook. We check them both regularly,

517
00:29:15,200 --> 00:29:17,920
Speaker 1: so that's a great way to drop us a line.

518
00:29:18,360 --> 00:29:20,200
Speaker 1: And if you want to learn a little bit more

519
00:29:20,280 --> 00:29:23,440
Speaker 1: about the presidency in the United States, we have an

520
00:29:23,520 --> 00:29:26,720
Speaker 1: article called how the US President Works, and you can

521
00:29:26,760 --> 00:29:30,800
Speaker 1: find it by searching our homepage at www dot how

522
00:29:30,880 --> 00:29:38,720
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. For more on this and thousands

523
00:29:38,760 --> 00:29:41,320
Speaker 1: of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com. So

524
00:29:41,440 --> 00:29:44,280
Speaker 1: learn more about the podcast, click on the podcast icon

525
00:29:44,400 --> 00:29:47,400
Speaker 1: in the upper right corner of our homepage, The How

526
00:29:47,480 --> 00:29:50,720
Speaker 1: Stuff Works iPhone app has arrived. Download it today on

527
00:29:50,760 --> 00:29:51,240
Speaker 1: iTunes