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🔥 Victoria Woodhull: Spiritual Medium, Political Firebrand – and she stood for the Presidency 50 Years before Women got the vote!
- Marc Stuart
- May 19
- 3 min read
Let’s talk about Victoria Woodhull, shall we? The first woman to run for U.S. President. A spiritual medium. A suffragist. A publisher. A stockbroker. A sexual radical. And absolutely not someone who wanted to flip patriarchy on its head just so women could stand on it in high heels.
In short: she was a revolution in petticoats with a spirit guide on speed dial.
Please note that many aspects of Spiritual Mediumship have changed since these early days, just in case you watch the video below. Fortune Telling nope! So says Marc Stuart Medium the Scottish Medium!
👑 The Political Medium Who Ran for President
In 1872, Victoria Woodhull made history by becoming the first woman to run for President of the United States, nearly 50 years before women could vote. Running under the banner of the Equal Rights Party, she had the audacity to name Frederick Douglass, the Black abolitionist, as her running mate. (He never officially accepted, but that didn’t stop her.)
Her platform?
Women’s suffrage
Free love
Labor reform
Racial equality
It was bold. It was feminist. It was spiritual. It was…arrested.
Yes, she spent Election Day in jail for publishing details of a high-society sex scandal. Because when a woman tells the truth in public, men have historically called it obscenity.
💸 How Did She Pay for All This?
Let’s not pretend she was living off incense and intuition.
Victoria and her sister Tennessee Claflin were clairvoyants and magnetic healers, and they turned those talents into cash — and connections. One particularly important connection? Cornelius Vanderbilt, railroad tycoon and one of the richest men in America. He funded their work and helped them open:
The first female-run brokerage firm on Wall Street
A radical newspaper, Woodhull & Claflin’s Weekly
This gave Victoria the power to finance her campaign, her causes, and her courtroom battles. She wasn’t just preaching empowerment — she was bankrolling it.
🔮 The Spirits Made Her Do It
Woodhull was a spiritual medium, plain and simple. She claimed to channel Demosthenes, the ancient Greek orator, who told her to speak up and change the world. Her politics were infused with mysticism. Spirit told her to rebel. Spirit told her to run. Spirit told her to speak truth to patriarchal power.
In 19th-century America, spiritualism was legal but scandalous — especially when a woman used it to get on a platform instead of just setting one.
But here's the kicker: spiritualism gave her power when religion and politics had no use for women. And she used it like a sword.
☭ Was She a Communist?
Not Quite.
She published the first English translation of The Communist Manifesto in her paper — but don’t let that fool you.
She wasn't a communist by today's standards:
She ran a private business (and quite successfully).
She didn't believe in abolishing personal property.
She despised centralized control — especially the Profile of Victoria Woodhull.
Even Karl Marx thought she was full of spiritual nonsense. He called her a "shameless demagogue."
She probably would have taken that as a compliment.
👠 Would She Want a Role-Reversal Matriarchal Society?
Let’s put it plainly:
No. Victoria Woodhull didn’t want to flip the script — she wanted to burn the script altogether.
Sure, she hated how men used power to control women. But she never argued for women to dominate men in return. Her mission was liberation, not reversal.
She believed in:
Personal sovereignty
Freedom in relationships
Freedom of speech, work, and belief — for everyone
If you'd asked her whether she'd like to live in a world where men were treated the way women were in her day, she’d probably say:
“What’s the point of flipping the cage if the bird’s still inside it?”
She wasn’t fighting for a female-ruled society. She was fighting for a free one.
🧨 Why She Still Matters
Victoria Woodhull didn’t live to see women get the vote. She was written out of textbooks. Condemned. Ridiculed. Forgotten.
But now?
Feminists quote her.
Mediums honour her.
Historians are catching up.
She stood at the crossroads of spiritualism, feminism, finance, and rebellion. And in an age where we’re still fighting for bodily autonomy, spiritual freedom, and gender justice — she might just be the spirit guide we need.
✍️ Written in honour of the women who didn’t ask for permission. And the spirits who told them not to wait.
Marc Stuart Medium
The Scottish Medium.
A video Presentation going into the life of Victoria Woodhull in detail.
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