The Scarlet Sisters (57 page)

51.
no “inducement” to battle sexual diseases:
TC’s sexual equality speech.

52.
How many Social Evil bills:
VW in
Tried as by Fire
.

53.
syphilis was much more dangerous:
Brandt,
No Magic Bullet
. Brandt cites original works: Alfred Fournier,
Syphilis and Marriage
, trans. Prince A. Morrow (New York: Appleton, 1881); L. Duncan Bulkley,
Syphilis in the Innocent
(New York: Bailey and Fairchild, 1894); and Prince A. Morrow, “The Relations of Social Diseases to the Family,”
American Journal of Sociology
(March 1909).

54.
a woman frequently gives gonorrhea:
Brandt,
No Magic Bullet
, p. 212n14.

55.
the “glorious clap.”:
Nora Titone,
My Thoughts Be Bloody: The Bitter Rivalry between Edwin and John Wilkes Booth That Led to an American Tragedy
(New York: Free Press, 2010), p. 278.

56.
a serious venereal malady:
Brandt,
No Magic Bullet
, p. 10.

57.
90 percent of sterile women:
Ibid., p.11.

58.
“flatten” his member:
Ibid., p.12.

59.
5 to 18 percent of all males:
Ibid.

Chapter Ten: Confessions of Sin and Battling the Beechers

1.
the lips of Mrs. Tilton:
Full account in
The Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony
, vol. 3: 1873–1880 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2003), pp. 95–97. Recounted in an interview, extensively reported in the
Chicago Tribune
, July 28, 1874;
WCW
, Aug. 8, 1874; and credited to the
Brooklyn Daily Argus
, July 27, 1874.

2.
at least twenty of his mistresses:
Victoria said she heard this from an anonymous man in the corridors of the Capitol Building in Washington, DC, in January 1870, a year and a half before Stanton relayed the Tilton gossip. More than likely, the thought came from Theodore Tilton, with whom she had a cozy alliance. Months before Woodhull would have heard it at the Capitol, Elizabeth Tilton complained in similar fashion in a letter to her husband: “when you say… Mr. B. preaches to forty of his mistresses every Sunday.” Richard Wightman Fox,
Trials of Intimacy: Love and Loss in the Beecher-Tilton Scandal
(Chicago; London: University of Chicago Press, 1999). This and numerous other letters involving the Beecher scandal are contained in
Trials of Intimacy
appendix p. 340; ET to TT.

3.
full rights of American citizenship:
WCW
, Jan. 14, 1871.

4.
“domineering, querulous and eccentric” autocrat:
Baker,
Sisters
, p. 46.

5.
Victoria’s dramatic version:
WCW
, May 17, 1873, p. 15. Woodhull’s is the only depiction, modified through the years by biographers.

6.
hapless victim of malignant spirits:
New-York Daily Tribune
and the
(NY) Sun
, March 1873, republished in
WCW
, May 17, 1873.

7.
waiting for her to cool down!:
Feb. 6, 1871, Isabella Beecher Hooker letter, published in Ida Husted Harper,
The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony
, chapter 22, vol. 1 (Project Gutenberg ebook version, 2005) www.gutenberg.org.

8.
writing letters to the Hartford papers:
WCW
, May 17, 1873.

9.
a good clip with a shovel:
Johanna Johnston,
Mrs. Satan: The Incredible Saga of Victoria Woodhull
(New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1967; London: Macmillan, 1967), p. 126.

10.
her roman à clef,
My Wife and I
:
Harriet Beecher Stowe,
My Wife and I
(New York: J. B. Ford and Co., 1872).

11.
in the matter of libel suits:
(NY) World
and the
New York Times
, letter by VW, May 20, 1871.

12.
the “propriety of delay.”:
Woodhull,
WCW
, May 17, 1873.

13.
I am a savior:
Ibid.

14.
charmed with sparkling conversation:
Chicago Times
, July 9, 1874.

15.
little lady who started the war:
This legend in various forms has become a historic “truth.”

16.
homely as a singed cat:
Debby Applegate,
The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher
(New York: Three Leaves Press, 2007), pp. 372–73.

17.
smashed the stereotype:
Ibid., p. 212.

18.
reeked of sensuousness:
WCW
, Nov. 2, 1872.

19.
dressed in virginal white:
Applegate,
The Most Famous Man
, p. 284.

20.
loosen her hair:
Paxton Hibben,
Henry Ward Beecher: An American Portrait
(New York: Press of the New York Readers Club, 1942), p. 136.

21.
Shall she go out free?:
Applegate,
The Most Famous Man
, p. 284.

22.
Beecher shouted, “Who bids?!”:
Hibben,
Henry Ward Beecher
, p. 136.

23.
He dragged out heavy iron slave-shackles:
Ibid.

24.
“true kindred” souls to “love”:
Applegate,
The Most Famous Man
, p. 291; Fox,
Trials of Intimacy
.

25.
everything he’d ever hated:
Applegate,
The Most Famous Man
, p. 213.

26.
flowers overflowing the altar:
Information from Applegate,
The Most Famous Man
, and Hibben,
Henry Ward Beecher
.

27.
His rolling-thunder voice:
Applegate,
The Most Famous Man
, p. 211.

28.
their deep love as soul mates:
Fox,
Trials of Intimacy
.

29.
one of the fairest pairs:
Applegate,
The Most Famous Man
, p. 308.

30.
“Philadelphia Nigger Convention.”:
On the
Brooklyn Eagle
’s racism, see Applegate,
The Most Famous Man
, p. 285.

31.
ugly and deformed child:
Ginzberg,
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
, p. 118.

32.
He did a lot of good:
Tucker-Sachs.

33.
he was “no vestal virgin.”:
Ginzberg,
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
, p. 118.

Chapter Eleven: “Yes, I am a free lover!”

1.
Hastily T.T.:
Beecher trial documents in Charles F. Marshall,
The True History of the Brooklyn Scandal
(Philadelphia, PA; Chicago, IL: National Publishing Co., 1874); letters published in the
(NY) Sun
at time of the Beecher trial, May 17, 1875, p. 3.

2.
most extraordinary woman:
Robert Shaplen,
Free Love and Heavenly Sinners: The Story of the Great Henry Ward Beecher Scandal
(London: Andre Deutsch, 1956), p. 144.

3.
the ruin of my church:
WCW
, Nov. 2, 1872.

4.
What I shall or shall not say:
Marshall,
The True History
.

5.
I may take my own life:
WCW
, Nov. 2, 1872, p. 12.

6.
announcing Victoria’s speech:
Chicago Tribune
, Nov. 24, 1871.

7.
their expression by a lady:
New York Times
, Nov. 21, 1871.

8.
I haven’t come here for nothing:
New York Herald
, Nov, 21, 1871.

9.
Free Love ladies and gentlemen:
Ibid.

10.
Woodhull paced, cheeks burning:
WCW
, May 17, 1873, recounting the event.

11.
I have the honor of introducing:
Chicago Tribune
, Nov. 24, 1871.

12.
most astonishing doctrine:
New York Herald
, Nov. 21, 1871.

13.
rule the female citizens:
WCW
, May 17, 1873; portions of the lecture text not used by newspapers are included, from the full text.

14.
his shouts were hissed down:
New York Herald
, Nov. 21, 1871.

15.
come into this world without knowing:
Newspapers all carried variations of what was said: “[H]ow could you expect to be recognized in society unless you knew who your father or mother was?” (
New York Herald
, Nov. 24, 1871); “Would you like to come into this world without knowing who your father or mother was?” (
Chicago Tribune
, Nov. 24, 1871); and “[H]ow would she like to have come into this world without knowing who was her father?” (
Baltimore Sun
, Nov. 24, 1871).

16.
Utica sat back down:
New York Herald
, Nov. 21, 1871.

17.
at race-horse speed:
Ibid.

18.
“Are you a free lover?”:
Chicago Tribune
, Nov. 24, 1871. Contemporary reports and subsequent books confuse the manner in which she uttered the famous phrase. Some dramatize it as an extemporaneous response when someone shouted from the audience, “Are you a free lover?” Others contend it was a scripted part of her speech. Tilton confused the issue by testifying that the written speech was not inflammatory, just the extemporaneous parts, but his reason for saying so was self-serving. The contemporary pamphlet printed by Woodhull, Claflin and Co. contains the quote. The
New York Times
and the
Baltimore Sun
did not even use it. The
Herald
stated that she uttered it without prompting, but perhaps extemporaneously. An eyewitness, Benjamin Tucker, who worked at the
Weekly
, claimed it was in the text and that he had heard her deliver it soon after “with great calmness in Boston.” This declaration “was planned and plotted in advance, to be flung into the teeth of the hostile.” He fought with Emanie Sachs, Woodhull’s first biographer, to correct her high-drama account. She did not, and others followed suit.

19.
this form of slavery:
WCW
, May 17, 1873. Reprinted the entire text.

20.
The Tilton relationship remains a probability:
One source, who had an axe to grind, Benjamin Tucker, claims that Woodhull told him she had had sex with both Tilton and Beecher.

21.
kiss my ass:
Tucker-Sachs.

Chapter Twelve: From Spirit Ghosts to Karl Marx

1.
read aloud at the meeting:
Underhill,
The Woman Who Ran for President
, p. 169.

2.
the most mystical and ethereal type:
Tilton, “Victoria C. Woodhull.”

3.
“The Queen of Quacks”:
(NY) World
. Reprinted in the
Chicago Tribune
, Sept. 17, 1871, p. 6.

4.
If apples are wormy:
For a century this quote has been attributed to
Harper’s Weekly
, but a Harper’s website states that the magazine reprinted it from the
New York Tribune
, September 11, 1871, http://nastandgreeley.harpweek.com. Note: one hundred years later, women were still battling for political recognition and failed in the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment.

5.
the first American publication to print:
Messer-Kruse,
The Yankee International
, p. 170.

6.
few holding all the wealth:
New York Times
, March 16, 1872;
WCW
, March 16, 1872.

7.
plant the Flag of women’s rebellion:
WCW
, Oct. 18, 1873, quoted in Miriam Brody,
Victoria Woodhull: Free Spirit for Women’s Rights
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 35.

8.
English-language organ:
Messer-Kruse,
The Yankee International
, p. 106.

9.
“highly-interesting” paper:
Ibid., p. 106.

10.
an embarrassment:
Messer-Kruse,
The Yankee International
, p. 197.

11.
only religious sect in the world:
National American Woman Suffrage Association Collection, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.