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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. Woodhull went from rags to riches twice, her first fortune being made on the road as a highly successful magnetic healer〔Johnson, 1956, p. 46〕 before she joined the spiritualist movement in the 1870s.〔Johnson, 1956, p. 46-47〕 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〔Johnson, 1956, p. 86, p. 87〕), 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.〔''The Revolution'', a weekly newspaper founded by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, began publication two years earlier in 1868.〕 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. ==Early life and education== She was born Victoria California Claflin, the seventh of ten children (six of whom survived to maturity),〔Johnson, 1956, p. 45〕 in the rural frontier town of Homer, Licking County, Ohio. Her mother, Roxanna "Roxy"〔 Hummel Claflin, was illiterate and was illegitimate. She had become a follower of the Austrian mystic Franz Mesmer and the new spiritualist movement. Her father, Reuben "Old Buck"〔 Buckman Claflin,〔1850 federal census, Licking, Ohio; Series M432, Roll 703, Page 437; father listed as Buckman, brothers incorrectly transcribed as Hubern (Hubert) and Malven (Melvin).〕〔Wight, Charles Henry, ''Genealogy of the Claflin Family, 1661–1898''. New York: Press of William Green. 1903. ''passim'' (use index)〕 was a con man and snake oil salesman.〔 He came from an impoverished branch of the Massachusetts-based Scots-American Claflin family, semi-distant cousins to Governor William Claflin.〔 Victoria became close to her sister, Tennessee Celeste Claflin (called Tennie), seven years her junior and the last child born to the family. As adults they collaborated in founding a stock brokerage and newspaper in New York City.〔 By age 11, Woodhull had only three years of formal education, but her teachers found her to be extremely intelligent. She was forced to leave school and Homer with her family after her father, after having "insured it heavily,"〔 burned the family's rotting gristmill. When he tried to get compensated by insurance, his arson and fraud were discovered; he was run off by a group of town vigilantes.〔 The town held a "benefit" to raise funds to pay for the rest of the family's departure from Ohio.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Victoria Woodhull」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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