The Notorious Victoria

Show Description:

Forty eight years before the suffragists won the right to vote, one scrappy woman pointed out that the 14th amendment already gave women that right, and announced her decision to run for president of the United States in 1872.

Victoria Woodhull, who’d been supporting her fractious family of colorful characters since she was a 14 years old, would rise above years of abuse, neglect, poverty, and innumerable odds to promote the causes of working women, wives, mothers, union organizers, immigrants, children, and suffragists. But for all her history-making milestones, her contributions were mostly overshadowed by scandal and harsh criticism of those who saw her as “unladylike…” a threat to propriety, the institution of marriage, and the status quo. While history books have all but ignored her, much of what was passed along was more fable than fact. Anne McEvoy from Women in History shares Victoria’s story in a first-person hour presentation, including a Q & A.