"A HEROINE OF HISTORY… TO KNOW HER IS TO VINDICATE HER": FIRST EDITION OF TILTON'S BIOGRAPHY OF VICTORIA WOODHULL, 1871
(WOODHULL, Victoria) TILTON, Theodore. Victoria C. Woodhull. A Biographical Sketch. New York: Golden Age, 1871. Slim octavo (4 by 6-1/4 inches), original stitching as issued, original tan wrappers; pp. (1-3) 4-35 (1).
First edition of Tilton's biography of the often infamous American suffragette, published just before Woodhull became the first woman to campaign for President of the United States, in original wrappers.
Victoria Woodhull first made her reputation as a supporter of free love and as one of the only female newspaper publishers (Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly, with her sister, Tennessee Claflin). However, Woodhull swiftly moved into the women's suffrage movement. In a pivotal 1871 speech, she argued that the 14th and 15th amendments already covered women's suffrage. The crowd was transfixed by her feminine beauty, which made the revolutionary content of her speech go down more easily. Woodhull decided to run for president the next year backed by the Equal Rights Party. While she obviously lost—and, indeed, could not have won constitutionally due to her age—Woodhull became one of the most powerful women's rights advocates of her day. This contemporary biography was written by Theodore Tilton, a close friend of many within the movement. In 1872, Tilton confided in Elizabeth Cady Stanton that his wife was having an affair with Henry Ward Beecher. Tilton sued Beecher for alienation of affection and a salacious trial commenced. Woodhull abandoned her friendship to splash the scandal across the pages of Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly. Woodhull was arrested for obscenity and then acquitted—events that gave rise to the Comstock Laws of 1873, arguably the nation's most powerful and successful attempt at censorship. Woodhull emerged from the debacle with fewer friends—Susan B. Anthony, for example, disagreed with her behavior entirely—but nevertheless managed to retain her reputation as a leading supporter of women's rights and as an early American female politician. With page of publisher's advertisement at rear.
A few closed tears at bottom margins, only slightest creasing and soiling to fragile wrappers, minor rubbing to spine. Near-fine condition.