BREAKING DEMOCRACY’S GLASS CEILING

Eden Collinsworth’s The Improbable Victoria Woodhull traces her extraordinary journey from poverty in Ohio to Wall Street, suffrage speeches, and the improbable feat of running for U.S. President

- RAJESH OP SINGH

Eden Collinsworth beautifully presents the life of “Victoria Woodhull,” the first female presidential candidate in the world's oldest and most powerful democracy (U.S.A.) and a notable 19th-century businesswoman and activist, in a fascinating, entertaining, and extraordinary story in her new book, “The Improbable Woodhull”.

Born into poverty during the Civil War and the Golden Age, Victoria Woodhull reinvented herself each time and rose to wealth and fame. After working for years as a spiritual advisor and visionary, she became a politician and a Wall Street stockbroker. In America, she lectured primarily on sensitive topics such as women's suffrage, love, labour reform, and birth control.

Collinsworth's book begins with a fascinating debate between Victoria Woodhull and a male lawyer in a London court in 1894. The lawyer questions Woodhull's ability to imagine, to which Woodhull replies, “You think that because I am a woman, and you refuse to believe that women can be intelligent human beings.”