Woodhull, Victoria (née Claflin, 1838-1927)

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Victoria California Claflin was born on 23 September 1838 in Homer, Ohio,  and died on 9 June 1927 in Bredon's Norton, Worcestershire, England. She was a suffragist, Socialist, and Spiritualist-turned-reformed-Christian who is best remembered as the first woman, in 1872, to run for the Presidency of the US, as the  Equal Rights Party candidate on a suffrage platform. She advocated for free love, sex education, and labor reform as well as women's rights. With her sister, she opened the first woman-owned stock brokerage and one of the first woman-owned newspapers, Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly, which advocated women's rights, legalized prostitution, clothing reform, and veg*nism.

Woodhull's writings are primarily theoretical and her interest in food or animals is linked to the improvement and elevation of the human race. In Humanitarian Government, she suggests that some animals, such as dogs, exhibit social traits that offer proof of humanity’s evolution from a previous animal condition. In The Rapid Multiplication of the Unfit, she explains the proliferation of the working class and paupers because “abundance of rich food lessens fertility" while food scarcity prompts sexual activity and fertility (31).

 

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