Free Lover: Sex, Marriage and Eugenics in the Early Speeches of Victoria Woodhull

by Victoria Claflin Woodhull, Michael W. Perry (Introduction)

Aldous Huxley's Brave New World was fiction. Victoria Woodhull's Brave New World was to be terrifyingly real. As the first female Wall Street brokers, Victoria Woodhull and her sister Tennie had reputations to protect. They fretted about Tennie's well-publicized remark, "Many of the best men in [Wall] Street know my power. Commodore Vanderbilt knows my power." She had meant her skill as a fortune teller, but the press quite rightly picked up hints the attractive pair traded sexual favors for assistance in their business. To make matters worse, in their magazine the sisters had published articles promoting free love, while distancing themselves from what was said. Taking the offensive, Victoria moved, step by step, until in a speech on November 20, 1871, she boldly proclaimed: "And to those who denounce me for this I reply: 'Yes, I am a Free Lover. I have an inalienable, constitutional, and natural right to love whom I may, to love as long or as short a period as I can; to change that love every day if I please, and with that right neither you nor any law can frame any right to interfere.'" Having come out of the closet, she had to defend that lifestyle from those who warned that it meant social ruin. In speeches across the country, she championed a new society that, in its nineteenth-century context, was remarkable similar to Huxley's 1932 classic, Brave New World. Babies were not grown in bottles, but pregnant women were to be treated as "laboring for society," "paid the highest wages," and once the baby was weaned, "the fruit of her labor will of right belong to society and she return to her common industrial pursuits." To critics who warned that free love meant children growing up without parents, she replied that, "not more than one in ten" mothers was competent, and that parents should be replaced by the State because, "It is but one step beyond compulsory education to the complete charge of children." In her Brave New World, you could have all the sex you could attract, but it would be impossible to be a genuine parent.

Genres: History

184 pages, Paperback

First published December 30, 2005

About the author

Victoria Claflin Woodhull (September 23, 1838 – June 9, 1927) was an American suffragist who was described by Gilded Age newspapers as a leader of the American woman's suffrage movement in the 19th century. She became a colorful and notorious symbol for women's rights, free love, fighting corruption, and labor reforms. The authorship of many of her speeches and articles is disputed. Many of her speeches on these subjects were not written by Woodhull herself alone but also by her backers and husband. Either way, her role as a representative of these movements was nonetheless powerful and controversial. She was the first woman along with her sister to operate a brokerage firm in Wall Street and then open a weekly newspaper. She is most famous for her declaration and campaign to run as the first woman for the United States Presidency in 1872. Many of the reforms and ideals espoused by her for the common working class against the corrupt rich business elite were extremely controversial in her time though generations later many of those implemented are now taken for granted. Other ideas and reforms still remain controversial and debated today.

Reviews

[S. Wigget · Rating 1 out of 5]

If this book were what I expected--a collection of speeches by Victoria Woodhull compiled by a feminist scholar who maybe wrote an introduction, then I'd give it at least 4 stars.

While the book does contain some of Woodhull's speeches, the compiler and other (21st century) writer is some patriarchal creep who twists Woodhull's beliefs around. This creep misinterprets "free love" in order to demonize Woodhull. In fact, in 19th America, the term "free love" covered anything from women simply being legally able to divorce and not be their husband's property... to sex outside marriage, relationships that today are normal. I assumed this book was published by someone who respected Victoria Woodhull and knew that she was ahead of her time.

I made the mistake of ordering this from Amazon.com. No doubt this crap wouldn't have been on the shelves of a quality local independent bookstore. Yeah, I'm taking a break from ordering stuff from Amazon (though admittedly, I have a bunch of books on pre-order). Amazon promotes homophobia--particularly from a fundamentalist Xian slant--and treats its employees like crap while the CEO is a billionaire who doesn't pay his share of taxes.