Post by Deleted on Oct 19, 2016 5:01:25 GMT 7
This, according to Hillary Clinton, is where the movement to shatter the “highest, hardest glass ceiling’’ — the presidency — got started.
It began with Victoria Woodhull, who was born here in 1838 and 34 years later became the first woman to run for president.
Her problems then put Clinton’s now into perspective.
In 1872, Woodhull never had a chance. She couldn’t (as a woman) vote for herself. If elected she’d have been too young, under the Constitution, to serve. She got only a handful of votes (even her running mate, Frederick Douglass, voted for President Ulysses Grant). On Election Day she was in jail for slandering the nation’s most famous preacher.
With none of those handicaps, Clinton has a good shot of becoming the first female president — a seemingly momentous prospect that has nonetheless failed to excite much of the electorate, including many Clinton supporters.
But Woodhull’s admirers are trying to use Clinton’s run at history to gin up interest in their own heroine, who has largely been written out of history.
“No one’s paid much attention to her because there was no reason to,’’ Amie Hatfield, the local librarian, says of Woodhull. “Now, with Hillary running, there is.’’
A library display case devoted to Woodhull contains a letter from Clinton, who says of her predecessor: “As a leader of the women’s suffrage movement, and as the first woman to run for president, she was a pioneer for equal rights and put the first crack in the glass ceiling that we are still working so hard to shatter. And it all started in Homer.’’
www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/10/18/victoria-woodhull-hillary-clinton-first-woman/92051476/
It began with Victoria Woodhull, who was born here in 1838 and 34 years later became the first woman to run for president.
Her problems then put Clinton’s now into perspective.
In 1872, Woodhull never had a chance. She couldn’t (as a woman) vote for herself. If elected she’d have been too young, under the Constitution, to serve. She got only a handful of votes (even her running mate, Frederick Douglass, voted for President Ulysses Grant). On Election Day she was in jail for slandering the nation’s most famous preacher.
With none of those handicaps, Clinton has a good shot of becoming the first female president — a seemingly momentous prospect that has nonetheless failed to excite much of the electorate, including many Clinton supporters.
But Woodhull’s admirers are trying to use Clinton’s run at history to gin up interest in their own heroine, who has largely been written out of history.
“No one’s paid much attention to her because there was no reason to,’’ Amie Hatfield, the local librarian, says of Woodhull. “Now, with Hillary running, there is.’’
A library display case devoted to Woodhull contains a letter from Clinton, who says of her predecessor: “As a leader of the women’s suffrage movement, and as the first woman to run for president, she was a pioneer for equal rights and put the first crack in the glass ceiling that we are still working so hard to shatter. And it all started in Homer.’’
www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/10/18/victoria-woodhull-hillary-clinton-first-woman/92051476/
