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· Those were the days, when prostitutes dreamed of the presidency and preachers pushed abortions.

By ESSIE FOX [The Spectator] – Victoria Woodhull was quite a gal. Having once been an actress and prostitute in Gold Rush San Francisco, she moved on to New York and was ‘reborn’, becoming the first female broker on Wall Street, then founding her very own newspaper to promote her political dream – which was to stand for the presidency in 1872, fighting under the banner of suffrage, free love and equal rights for all. She was undoubtedly persuasive, being hailed by the Women’s Movement and vast numbers who followed the Spiritualist faith…even the famous Henry Ward Beecher, who led New York’s Plymouth Brethren church.

But then, just as now, the old adage was true: there’s nothing like a woman scorned! When Beecher failed to turn up at a rally and endorse Victoria as he had promised, she swore to bring him down. She had the ammunition, having learned from her lover, Theodore Tilton, editor of The New York Independent and a member of Beecher’s congregation, that Beecher had seduced his wife. What’s more, when she became pregnant, Beecher insisted she have an abortion that, being performed at seven months, almost led to the woman’s death. Beecher then came to visit her house attempting to seek his own form of injunction by asking Lib Tilton to sign a document in which she absolved him from any wrongdoing.

It did not work.

Continued at The Spectator |

 

Essie Fox also notes…

[The Virtual Victorian, 29 May 2011] – One hundred years ago today W S Gilbert died.

Born the son of naval surgeon who went on to write novels and short stories, Gilbert himself originally trained to be part of the legal profession. But it seemed he was not suited to the life of a barrister, and with fewer and fewer clients, and when forced to address a dwindling income he also began to write, particularly for the theatre in which he was tirelessly enthusiastic, creating operatic burlesques, plays and libretti, stories, song lyrics, pantomime scripts – even designing sets and stage costumes, or providing his own illustrations for Bab Ballads; a collection of comical verse. (Bab was his nickname as a child).

Continued at The Virtual Victorian | For information on Essie Fox’s new novel, The Somnambulist, visit essiefox.com | More Chronicle & Notices.

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Essie Fox
12 years ago

Many thanks for posting this…Victoria really was quite a gal and there’s so much more about her life that was,frankly,almost beyond belief.There’s definitely a novel or film to be made!

Essie Fox

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