Victoria Woodhull – Unstoppable - Vox Novus with Victor Fuhrman

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Vox Novus, the New Voice, Vox Novus, the New Dimension,
Vox Novus thought and movement leaders who will share from
their experience and offer tools to help us navigate our
rapidly changing world. My name is Victor Furman. Welcome to

(00:28):
Vox Novus, the New Voice. Many people are surprised to
learn that the first woman to run for US president
did so in eighteen seventy, two decades before women had
the right to vote. Victoria Woodhull was the first of

(00:50):
now more than one hundred women to do so. Some
made their parties ticket, others did not get that far.
My guest this week on Vox Novus, Kate Danaher shares
victorious story in her historical novel Unstoppable, The Victoria Woodhull Story.
This is Kate Danaher's first novel. She holds a doctorate

(01:12):
in English literature from the University of Delaware and is
a former professor of English at Rosemont College, Pennsylvania. She's
an Irish storyteller, fiddler, and a founder and emeritus board
member of the Irish Heritage Theater in Philadelphia. Kate is
an award winning writer whose feature screenplays have received accolades

(01:34):
in more than two dozen festivals and competitions. Her honors
include both Best Period Drama and Outstanding Drama. Her website
is Katedanaher dot com, and she joins me this week
to share her path and Victoria Woodhole's amazing story. Please
join me in welcoming to Vox Novis Kate Danaher.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
Welcome, Kate, thank you, thank you for the invitation. Very excited.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
Kate. Please share with our listeners your path and how
it led to your love for books and writing.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
Oh, my path that led to love of books and writing.
I guess my path was was a path down the
Fairmount Park Cobbs Creek. It was it was just called
Cobbs Creek Parkway, and I could ride my bicycle down
to this beautiful old library. And I used to love

(02:30):
to do that. I could in Philadelphia, and I loved
going in the library. I fell in love with Black
Beauty and Nancy Drew. But it was always a wonderful
thing to be able to do to I can still
see myself riding my bike down that path. That's a
long time ago. So I love books from from the

(02:52):
get go, really, from I guess from the time I
could get on a good bicycle. I don't remember my
my mother reading me books or anything. The earliest memory
I have is the bicycle, which you know, and back
then you could do that, you know, you could go
off on your own, and it was really lovely.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
And were there any books that inspired you early on?

Speaker 2 (03:15):
Oh? Little Women was one of the first that I thought,
that's just wonderful, you know, besides black beauty I loved.
I loved horses, you know, but I love Little Women.
And Nancy Drew And as I said, I loved her
her spirit.

Speaker 1 (03:33):
Do you know?

Speaker 2 (03:33):
She was always on the go, trying to figure things out.
It just gave me a sense of the vibrancy of life.
Do you know that? It just I don't know. It's
interesting that you're asking these I'm trying to find the answers.
What what What did make me like that? I can
still picture myself in my bedroom reading Little Women?

Speaker 1 (03:54):
Yeah, wonderful. Your bio says you're a fiddler and I
I storyteller, an actor and an avid tennis player. Now
most of us know three of these, but Irish storyteller
may be new to many. What is an Irish storyteller
also known in Gaelic as a shaaniky.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
Yes, well, they used to travel from town to town.
That was an itinerant, an itinerant entertainer that went to
houses where people would gather, you know, two for meals
and stories and singing, and he would comm and if
you had a shanicky that would show up. It was

(04:36):
really nice if you had one show up at your house,
if they were in the village, they might come. But
you have in Ireland you have to be always prepared
at any gathering to tell a story or sing a song.
You definitely do. A friend of mine told me they
used to go around the room and hold a frying
pan over your head and say it's your turn. Now
you know, I never had that happen to me. But

(04:56):
it's a very vibrant culture. Love Ireland. My father was
born there and I was at least there fifteen twenty times.
You know that I've been to Ireland because his sister
lived there. For a good bit of my adult life.
I used to go visit her. I also went to
school in Ireland. But how I got to be a

(05:17):
storyteller is this. My father said one day, Oh, there's
Irish actors coming to Philadelphia. There's going to be a
play Philadelphia. Here I come, It's called and I said,
how wow, you know the actor? You know actors? And
he said no, I don't know them, but you don't

(05:39):
want them going back to Ireland, saying they received no
hospitality in Philadelphia, do you? And I said, well, I
guess not, and down he went invited them to dinner,
and of course it was a night of Shanicky's people
telling stories of my father and one of the main
actors in the play became very good friends. And I

(06:00):
knew him when I went to school in Ireland because
I went to every one of his plays. He was
an actor with the Abbey Theater and years later when
he passed away, I was in Ireland with my husband
and his family and invited a lot of people to
dinner downtown to Dublin two. Because you have to visit everybody,

(06:23):
you know when you go to Ireland. If you miss anybody,
you're in trouble. So I said, well, we'll just have
a dinner and everybody can come. And this man's wife came.
Her name was Maura Kelly. He was Amon Kelly. He's
known as Ireland's master storyteller. Well Maura anyway, walked in
and she had his book under her arm, and she

(06:44):
walked up to me before she even sat down, and
she said, here, now you tell these stories. I said, oh, no, no, no, no, no,
I could not do that. I didn't want to sound
like a fake Irish person or you know. He was
so delightful, he was so good his stories. And she
said to me, yes, you can, you can do it,

(07:08):
you know the old people. And I thought, well, that
actually is true, but I still resisted. But a year
later I finally tried, and I became a storyteller. I
still do it. I love it. It's very It brings laughter
to people, which is so healing. And I haven't done

(07:32):
it in a while because when I started writing this book,
I got tied up, you know, with writing, and I
think I have got to get back to telling new
stories live because it's good for me and for the audience.
So I do have one book for next winter, you know,
but I really should do it more. I used to
do it a lot, So thanks for letting me go

(07:53):
on about that much.

Speaker 1 (07:54):
No, that's a wonderful story.

Speaker 2 (07:56):
Yeah. Laughter it just really helps I think it, you know, physiologically,
if they study that, just like they studied. I just
was reading about and you mention it too. And I
see that in your biography about touch and a person's
touch can be physiologically healing, so that's interesting too. But

(08:21):
so I'm interested in that and the always of healing
the soul, you know.

Speaker 1 (08:27):
Absolutely, yes, telling those stories and bringing smiles to people's faces,
especially in the world that we live in today, is
a very very precious way, right.

Speaker 2 (08:36):
Yes, I know, I know. I'm so glad I made
I said, I went there last year. Before I left,
I said on my book, I'm coming back to the
I live in the community in Florida, I said, put
me down for Saint Patrick's week. I'm telling the stories wonderful. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
they're always funny. His stories like about how do people,

(08:59):
you know, what did they think the first umbrella they
ever saw? Or do you know things like that they
don't know what it is, And they're just old country
stories and fun things that happen in the village. It's
they are anyway.

Speaker 1 (09:13):
And also you're also an award winning writer whose feature
screenplays have received accolades in more than two dozen festivals
and competitions. Your honors included both Best Period drama and
outstanding Drama. How does the screenwriting differ from the other
forms of writing you've done?

Speaker 2 (09:32):
Okay, interesting, see, I started with the screenwriting because well,
I saw an article in a paper and I have
a friend who was He's actually a great school friend.
He was a his name was Steve Ravel and he
was a you know, an Oscar nominee for his He
was one of the screenwriters for Nixon, for the screenplay Nixon.

(09:54):
And I told him about this article I saw in
the paper and I said, that could be that'd be
a good story. You should write it screenplay about that.
He said to me, no, you can do it, you
do it. I'm like, what, Well, anyway, I did start.
I tried, I got a I got a writing partner.
We did pretty well with that. He actually liked it,
but we did never sell it. Then we wanted to
do another project, and my screenwriter's partner says, oh, why

(10:16):
don't you try, Why don't you write about Victoria Woodhull?
And we're like, what, who's that? Well then we found
out right, So anyway, but I spent years working on
screenwriting with Victoria Woodhull. And it does differ greatly from
novel writing, which is which I which is what I've

(10:37):
now done, written a novel about Victoria Woodhull, and then
because I liked it much better. There's many reasons why
I switched. I start from the from the screenplay to
the novel, because even though I won awards, I still
felt I had never captured her spirit. It didn't feel right.

(10:57):
And even when I had a producer that said I
want to option your script, I said, well, nah, And
she said, what do you mean. I said, because that
is not where it needs to be. It doesn't it
doesn't capture her. I know that. Even though you know,
even though these people say it's great, you know, I
don't think so. So we started still reworking it. But

(11:19):
here's the story of why I switched to to writing
the novel instead. So we write it, and we were
relying on We're relying on the most recent biographies. There
was like three of them that came out, like from
ninety four, ninety six, ninety eight, you know, in that
period of time, and this is this is like two

(11:41):
thousand and eight, this is years ten years later, right,
But we thought, okay, those are good reliable biographies, and
we used those. My partner and I to tell her story,
and I worked on that off and on. My partner
went on to other projects. When we didn't we didn't
get any traction. We want them words together. Then I
did it myself and I want a words myself. And

(12:03):
then I got this producer. So this we're talking eight
years into this. I'm really trying to crack the nut
to get the story of Victoria Woodhull onto a screenplay.
And we worked together, this producer and I. We polished
it some more. Then we got somebody to look at it.
This person was somebody I had met years before when

(12:24):
I first started on Victoria Woodhull. I looked her up
and she had a website and she sold T shirts
and I bought one, and I thought she was a
nice lady. I called this lady back. I said, you
might not remember me, but I, you know whatever. She's like,
oh yeah, And I said, would you read our screenplay?
We want to be sure we're true to the spirit
of Victoria Woodhull and she's like, what, I don't know.

(12:47):
She hesitated, and I said, well, you know, really, we
really are genuinely, you know, serious about this. Okay. She
reads it and then she comes back to us. Okay,
it's you know, it's some nice screenplay, except it's not true.
And I said, what do you mean it's not true?

(13:07):
She said, well, like, like what what's not true? Well, well, like,
well you're let's start with your first scene. I said,
that first scene, it says in that biography, it says
according to her own account, Victoria's own account. I can
see those words. She says, yeah, but that but that

(13:27):
was somebody who said it was her own account. That
wasn't really Victoria Woodhol's own account. And I'm like, okay,
what else is wrong? Next? Well, the next scene, you know,
there's really no evidence that she did that. In fact,
I have evidence to the contrary. Oh my god. It
was like everything was, you know, just blown out of

(13:49):
the water. I'm like, all right, then I just started
investigating why why is this stuff not true? That is
a whole other story. People are very very sloppy and
so called biographers, and they're supposed to be doing you know,
detailed work if somebody's writing it, and some of them

(14:11):
did a very good job on some things and then
really not good on others. And I had to like
face that reality that I'd spent eight years doing that,
and it wasn't. And then I let four years dribble By,
got very friendly with this person, by the way, did
some research for her and started learning more about why

(14:31):
everything was so wrong about Victoria Woodhall through the century,
what myths had been created about her. I was my
world was growing and my awareness was growing. And then
when covid hit, I thought, here we go. I'm gonna
turn it into a novel. Anyway, that's my long answer.

Speaker 1 (14:52):
I'm sorry, you know, it's really interesting because my next
question was why would you choose the historical novel format
as opposed to something a little more in the vein
of biography, for example. And I think you've just answered
that question. But what was I about Victoria that attracted you?

Speaker 2 (15:11):
Yeah? Well, the other thing is I Mary, the person
I consulted with that told us everything was wrong, that
it was all a series of whisper down the lane.
One myth led to another, and they grew and grew
and grew. She is writing a biography. She has researched
for thirty years. Her name's Mary Sheer, and she has

(15:37):
a website Victoria Dashwoodhall dot com. And there's another website,
Victoria Rising. You can find all the serious history there.
That's a wonderful place. So sorry, Now, what was your question.
I've meant to tell you that before I got into
the and.

Speaker 1 (15:53):
That's exactly That's exactly what I was asking. What was
the inspiration about Victoria that made you write this book?

Speaker 2 (16:00):
Oh? Well, the first inspiration was was when my writing
partner's wife said, want to write about Victoria Woodholm and
we're both like, well, who the heck is that? See
none of it.

Speaker 1 (16:10):
We didn't know her.

Speaker 2 (16:11):
So that my first inspiration. How come I didn't know
about the first woman? She's the first woman that ever
ran for president?

Speaker 1 (16:18):
You know.

Speaker 2 (16:18):
His wife says, well, how do we not know that?
Why did we not know that? So then you want
to ask, you want to answer that question, what is
the reason? And then you start learning about her, and
you still don't know the reason. You know why. It
takes years to learn the reason why she why she
was hidden. You know, it's not like nobody's going to
answer that immediately. Although Mary sheer Well on her website

(16:41):
you say why don't we know her? She's she has
a little kinds of questions you can click on and
find the answers to, but Yeah, that inspired me also
that she had you know, she came from a struggling childhood.
It wasn't easy. She you know, lived in a small town.
It wasn't as some writers say today even today they

(17:01):
write a scrub of a place. Now, it was actually
a small town. It was a stagecoach stop. She was
exposed to a lot of you know, information, people coming
and going. She knew what was going on in the world,
and she, you know, she grew up very alert and aware.
I would say, she had to be of what the

(17:22):
what life was like. And I wanted to explore how
does a struggling girl, you know, her father had lost
a lot uh In in his speculations. Was not the
con man people said he was. He did not set
his mill on fire just for the insurance money. People
like to say that about him. They don't know, and

(17:43):
you know, but they did struggle. How did she become
the person she became to run to, you know, to
go from there to run for US president. So I
was just inspired by that, by that leap, you know,
I wanted to fill in the gaps, you know, like
what what what happened all along here? And it's been

(18:04):
a most fascinating journey from the from the dispelling of
all the multiple myths. You have to be careful. Let
me tell your listeners, don't believe what you read on
the internet, because it's all going to be simplified. It's
oversimplified and exaggerated, misrepresented a lot of it. You have

(18:24):
to be super careful. So I wanted to write this
book because I thought, well, Mary's writing the biography. I
wanted to write a book to recreate this this girl.
Do you know what was she like? How did it?
How did she grow and become the person she became
that was able to do what she was able to do,

(18:47):
and a lot of that we don't have information about
her young life. So I would extrapolate from what she
became and what she spoke about as an older adult,
you know, what would have led her to those beliefs.
You know, those were the gaps I wanted to fill in,

(19:07):
and I wanted to make it into a into an
experience like let's go along, Let's go along for a
ride with Victorious. See what's her life like? What happens
when she's married at fifteen, how does she feel? What
does she think? And then when a year later, she
gives birth to a severely disabled child. What is that like?

(19:29):
What does she think and feel? I wanted to create
that experience as part of a novel which also just
hits the marks on putting in the things that actually
did happen to her, you know, where all the places
that she moved in life, and how she made her way,

(19:50):
what she did and what she did in New York,
and her work with the Suffrage Association, and her conflicts
with the leading religious and political figures of the time.
Those events all happened to her. And then in between
I fill it out. I put some flesh on the bones.
As they say, it's been fascinating. I just really love it,

(20:11):
and I hope that people would love the novel to
read Unstoppable and think what made her unstoppable and then
you know, sort of experience with rather than just read
an article and learn the facts, get the I want
to get the feeling of her life. And so yeah,
so that's what I did.

Speaker 1 (20:32):
My guest is Kate danaher her brand new book Unstoppable,
The Victoria Woodhull Story. Kate, please share with our listeners
where they can get your book and find out more
about you and this amazing work.

Speaker 2 (20:44):
Oh thank you uh. My book is available on at
Barnes and Noble book Book Bookshop dot org, Amazon dot
com delinks her on my website, which is Kate Danaher
dot com. My last name is. Lots of things on
there for you to peek at. Little video to a

(21:07):
little trailer that's fun to look at.

Speaker 1 (21:09):
And we'll be back with more of Kate after these
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Speaker 1 (22:44):
Back on Box Novus, My guest this week is Kate Donaher.
We're talking about her book Unstoppable, The Victoria Woodhull Story. Kate,
tell us more about Victoria. You say that she was
ahead of her time?

Speaker 2 (23:01):
How so well she?

Speaker 4 (23:04):
Ah, she was.

Speaker 2 (23:07):
It's interesting that she was. In some ways, she was
right in her time, but she was one of the
of a group of people. There were lots of people
that call themselves spiritualists at the time, and she she
was one of them. But they weren't. They weren't a

(23:29):
majority of people that you know, there were churches that
still wanted people to uh pay to listen to what
they said, abide by their their rules, listen to the
dictates of the clergy. But uh, there's so many factors
that go into you know, the what changes a country.

(23:49):
And but spiritualism was developing. People wanted to they wanted
to be more dependent on the individual communion with God,
you know who, instead of you know, listening to the authorities.
And so she was she was like that. She picked

(24:12):
up the she picked up you know, the spirit uh
that was flowing through at that time. And and a
lot of people look down on all those people. They're
gonna they want to be individuals. They're gonna they're gonna
women want to be speakers. Women were able to become
trance speakers. When Victoria was young and growing up, there

(24:35):
were plenty of people like that doing that. But the
people opposed them, they thought, oh, they're gonna upset, you know,
they upset the cultural balance. Here. They're going out, they're
not staying in their homes, and they're you know, taking
care of the family. They're doing this, they're doing that,
and you know, she just grew up in that world.

(24:55):
She couldn't help but absorb it. So she was ahead
of her time. However, in that she would not I
mean a lot of people sort of toned down. She
was like, no, we got to go for this. We
gotta go for this. You've got to you know. She
she met people like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Katie Stanton,

(25:17):
and she said she she learns about what they're doing
and how long they had been fighting for you know,
two decades fighting to get more freedom for women and
women's votes. And she's like, two decades, what's going on here?
And they even felt Elizabeth Katie Stanton said we need

(25:39):
you know, we need a new evangel at this time.
We need someone to carry the torch. And she she
just knew, I'm the I'll do it, I'll do it.
And they were very, very excited when she joined. She
brought a new life to the whole women's movement. She's like,
this is this is enough? You know.

Speaker 1 (25:59):
And for our younger listeners listening who may not be
familiar with talking about the suffragette.

Speaker 2 (26:05):
Movement, yes, yes, yes, and they call them suffragists back then,
Actually that's one thing, I don't know why it changed
from suffragists to suffragette, but that's something we can all google, right,
But yes, Elizabeth Katie Stanton began the first Women's Rights
Convention in eighteen forty eight. In fact, it's in Seneca Falls,

(26:28):
New York, and I was just there about two weekends ago,
and I've been invited to come back next year and
to speak at the National Women's Hall of Fame to
speak about Victoria Woodholl who has been inducted into the
National Women's Hall of Fame. So I'm speaking of what
they call Convention Days, which is in mid July. It
celebrates the Elizabeth Katie Stanton and her four friends who

(26:53):
started the first Women's Rights Convention, And so that's what
I'll be doing. Then, Susan Biant and he actually, which
people that's the name people are familiar with, did not
know Elizabeth Katie Stanton at that time. She met her
about three years later. But anyway, that's what that's what
I'm looking forward to doing. But Victoria was looking forward

(27:18):
to like helping these people, and they were very excited
that she did it. But she did eventually come to
what would you say, like a break with them. Not
Elizabeth Katie Stanton. She always agreed with what Victoria did.
She thought she brought new life into the movement. She
brought the spiritualists, she brought the labor reformers, she brought

(27:39):
the workers because she was interested in all kinds of reform,
economic and social freedom, not just the vote. But the
problem became that Susan B. Anthony said, we cannot try
for all that at once. If we do, we're going
to lose the vote, you know. She she wanted to

(28:02):
hold back. But in the meantime, before that break, Victoria
did do something which was very and they were all
thrilled about. And that's how they even found out about her.
But she had met somebody and she got the idea.
She'd gone to the first conference, and this person was
talking about, we don't need a sixteenth Amendment, you know,

(28:24):
we only need you know, we had the thirteenth, fourteenth
fifteenth that gave African Americans and citizenship, gave them the
right to vote all that. Women didn't have that yet,
and they wanted a sixteenth Amendment to give women the
right to vote. They were fighting for it, and Victoria

(28:46):
heard somebody talking about, you don't need that. You've got it.
Says it in the fourteenth and fifteenth Amendments, that they
cannot deny the vote. You know that all citizens are
are allowed to vote. Well, as I said to blacks
were citizens, and it said all no, regardless of race
or class. But then people would say no, no, no.

(29:07):
In the second paragraph it says all male citizens. And
she would argue with senators that you would meet in
this one Senator Bingham, No, no, you're not a citizen,
you know, like that. So she's like, yes, we are.
So she took her argument to a congressional committee. She
was the first person to speak before the House Judiciary Committee,

(29:28):
and she delivered this thing about all we need is
a declaratory Act and then we will have the right
to vote. And everyone was excited about this because even
Susan B. Anthony's like, this is the new situation. She
went around and spoke for a year, this is a
new situation. We're going to get a declaratory act, We're
going to get the vote. And this is in eighteen

(29:49):
seventy one. They did not get it, and this had
to wait till nineteen twenty. You know, that's how hard
it was. So in the meantime, but going forward in time,
as Victoria then kept fighting for not only the vote,
but economic social freedom, and the freedom for individual sovereignty

(30:12):
and to love who you wanted, when you wanted, and
you know, no government or law could could infringe upon
that right. Well that was sounding a little radical, you
know at the time, because that would say, well, that
means you allow divorce, you know, And then they were worried,

(30:32):
you know, that'll upset the balance of the family, that
kind of thing. And she but she continued to fight
for this and as I said, Susan said, we can't
do it. We can't do it, and we're not going
to make it, and they and they split and Victoria
was kind of cut out of it by the time
the nineteen twenty when they and they were writing the
history of women's suffrage, they kind of just left her out.

(30:52):
It was too complicated. The same reason why Ken Burns
I heard that he left her out of his story
of the Suffragists Ourselves Alone. I think it's called on
TV his documentary, because she was just too complicated. Because

(31:15):
what happened was when she asked for the individual right,
you know, to love who you wanted when you wanted.
Then you know, she got this these two words free love.
She was a free lover attached to her. You know,
that's a whole nother story. That's one of the first

(31:35):
things people say about, Oh she was a free lover.
She believed you should have the freedom to love what
you want. She didn't mean it didn't mean licentiousness. Some
people were living in communes and they were trying that
out a very small minority of people, you know, and
they think, oh, they're all they all just want to
upset the apple cart. Victoria believed in monogamy. She believed
in loyalty and love. That was her you know, your

(31:58):
relationship should be built on love. But she wasn't afraid
to say it. And this is where she was ahead
of her time because she would say things like, if
you marry for money or you know, social status you
are you are prostituting yourself.

Speaker 1 (32:18):
You see.

Speaker 2 (32:19):
So those kind of those kind of things were very.

Speaker 1 (32:22):
You know, Oh, it's interesting because we think of the
expression free love associated with the sixties, Yes.

Speaker 2 (32:30):
You think of the sixties. To her, it was totally different.
But people people like to say, oh, she was a
free lover. She wanted. She wanted to love who. But
you know, she wanted to love who she wanted. But
when people said to her one time, are you a
free lover? She said, yes, I am, and I have
the right to love who I want, when I want,
and neither you nor any government or law has any
right to interfere. You see, she defined it right then

(32:53):
and there. Of course, to her free lovement much more
than that, but that was her answer. And then right
away they say, oh, well, you know, she just wants
to go and have sex all the time anytime she wants.

Speaker 1 (33:03):
You know, And that's what That's not what it was about.

Speaker 2 (33:06):
That's not what it was about at all.

Speaker 1 (33:07):
You know.

Speaker 2 (33:08):
Somebody yesterday said, I looked up He said to me,
I was over at the playing tennis. Oh, I looked
up your book. You know, your publisher does you no
good saying she was a free lover. I'm saying, I
don't think my publisher said that. Well, you must have
said it. I said, no, it must be something you wrote.
Then I said, no, I didn't say that, because I'm

(33:29):
not going to say that until you read the book
and understand what she meant by free love. Like I'm
not just going to put those two words out there
because that's what everybody wants to jump on. So why
would I do that to myself? Well, I read it,
I said, you must have been reading that, you know.
It wasn't on my website. It wasn't on my publishers,
you know. And then I said to him, let me
ask you this. Do you believe that a woman has

(33:51):
the right to divorce if she's in an abusive situation
with her you know, with her husband? Well, well yeah,
and I said, oh no, I said, said, you're a
free lover.

Speaker 1 (34:01):
There you go, because because the free love that she
was fighting for was the right to marry who you chose,
the right to the force in a situation as you
just described, and not to be compelled by family or
anyone to marry someone you don't want to.

Speaker 2 (34:15):
Marry you don't want to, yes, And also not to
have sexual relations in situations where it was not advisable.
You know, she was she was very very strong on that.
She did feel that her but she didn't know and
explains in this book like that she you know, she
she really thought that that her her child was deformed

(34:38):
because she had cause. She says this in one of
her speeches. I surrendered her maternal functions to a drunken man. Yes,
so she was very careful about you know, don't just
be careful the situations for uh, for relations should be

(34:58):
based on love, not on lust or not on any
kind of drunkenness. They should be they should be pure
and loving, loving engagements, that's all, you know.

Speaker 1 (35:09):
And a couple a couple of other things that put
her ahead of her time. She and her sister Tennessee
Claflin were the first women to run a Wall Street
brokerage house.

Speaker 2 (35:19):
Yes, yeah, that was exciting. Yeah. The day they I
have this in the book too, the day they showed up.
But they went. They knew how to get attention, that's
for sure. So some people accused them of you know, sensationalism,
but they said, you know, let's do it. They arrived
in a carriage with white horses, you know, and they
were they always dressed alike, but they had the gold

(35:41):
pens behind the ear. They went into the office. They
were like thousands showed up that day to see this.
You know, you would think, oh, women couldn't do that,
but they did it so boldly. They stepped out so
boldly that everybody's like, I got to see this, you know,
and there were police, like I think they had one
hundred police, you know, keeping the crowds back and and
on the on the day of the opening, you know,

(36:03):
so they did.

Speaker 1 (36:05):
And you also, we talked about that. I didn't talk
about this yet, but they were the first among the
first women to found a newspaper in the United States,
Woodhull and Clafland's Weekly, which began publication in eighteen seventy.
How did they fare in that endeavor?

Speaker 2 (36:20):
They fared pretty well. They you know, they had advertising
and people were interested, and they said that this was
going to be you know, onward and upward and bringing
new information to you know, to to the new world,
and you know, and they did pretty well until one

(36:46):
issue that they decided to publish and they published some
information that they knew about a preacher and he didn't
like He didn't like that, and so they found a way.
There was also an article published about some you might

(37:07):
almost go as far as saying trafficking young women, but anyway,
a rape of a young girl at a French ball,
and Tennessee told the story of that and she used
the words they're actually biblical that he she talked about
the trophy of virginity and she put that in the

(37:30):
paper and they used that to arrest them for obscenity.
So yeah, in eighteen seventy two they called it the
scandal issue. Those papers were flying off the street. Usually
a paper costs, but you know, a dime people were paying.
The last people were somebody said forty dollars for a paper.

(37:50):
I'll take it. They wanted that paper. So they were
arrested and went to and put in jail, and they
were in jail for a month over this, and then
they got out got arrested again. That's my next volume,
which is called Shattered, which covers the next four years.
My first volume covered from like twenty years from the

(38:13):
time she was like say, you know, thirteen to thirty three.
This next volume is just four years, and it's about
being hounded by the people that want to continue to
try to bring her down. They knew she knew too
much and they wanted they didn't want her to talk
to try to silence her. It's not very similar to
what the problems we have today trying to be you know,

(38:35):
being silenced and how many times she's arrested. I have
like a total of maybe ten eleven times. I have to,
you know, look at my my notes there to see that.
But so this is the second volume is you know,
the dark Night of the soul. But then the third
volume will be Victorious. She comes out of it and

(38:55):
you know, manages. But it's exciting. I already wrote the
first paragraph the second volume.

Speaker 1 (39:02):
Yeah, my guest is Kate danaher her book Unstoppable, the
Victoria Woodhull Story. We'll be back with more after these
words on the Own Times Radio network.

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Speaker 1 (41:42):
Back on Vox Novus. My guest this week, Kate Dan
to her her new book, Unstoppable, The Victoria Woodhull Story. Kate,
do you think that Victoria could get elected today and
certainly not put in prison on election day?

Speaker 2 (42:00):
I know, can you believe? Yeah, they said that they
wanted to do that, put her in jail on election day,
just to show her. Yes, I think she could because
what she's saying is not at all. Back back when
she was talking, they'd say, oh, she wants this and
that and all such other radicalisms. Well, she was only
asking for you know, education for children, public education, free

(42:24):
public education, labor reform, land redistribution, which might sound radical,
but actually back then there were the government was in
the railroad. People were taking up you know, big chunks
of land for themselves and their railroads and not always
taking care of the homesteaders that wanted to go out
and buy themselves a few acres and things like that.

(42:45):
So and she wanted more freedom for women, more opportunities
for women. They shouldn't they shouldn't be forced to turn
to prostitution or anything like that to survive. There should
you know, So today she would sound very normal. She
wouldn't even be very she wouldn't be like horrible. She'd

(43:08):
be like what we'd consider a sort of center, you know,
because she was not that radical. I mean, she didn't
even like the idea of birth control. She thought, you know,
everything should be She liked the whole idea of natural
should have been a good Catholic, you know, in terms
of the birth control idea, do it abstinence and and

(43:29):
and timing, and yeah she was. She was didn't like
you know, uh, artificial means of birth control. So she
she's not that and she certainly wouldn't wouldn't like abortion.
And you know, she wanted to avoid all that. We
need to change all that so that women even don't
even have to think about that, that they have control
of their own their own bodies.

Speaker 1 (43:51):
So you believe her, you believe she was misunderstood.

Speaker 2 (43:53):
Then, Oh yeah, yes, mm hmm. I mean people were afraid.
Are you get you know, you understand and you can
understand what the fears would be. You know that, well,
it's going to upset the upset the the family dynamic
and men lose power. So you know they don't they
don't want that to happen. Uh, it would be you know,

(44:17):
I mean today they're even saying, oh, we women should
go back. Some are saying go back into the kitchen.
They don't need to vote. Their husbands can vote for them,
do you know. So loosening divorce laws, that's one thing,
and women's rights is overturning gender roles. So that that
was a fear that people had. And then the big
fear was of course the free love because it meant

(44:39):
you know, they thought that that that she meant sexual
license rather than what she you know, she what she meant,
which was just not to be trapped in abusive marriages didn't.

Speaker 1 (44:49):
Absolutely what's your favorite what's your favorite part of her story?

Speaker 2 (44:53):
My favorite part of her story? Oh, oh my goodness,
let's see. My favorite part of her story was I
don't know, god, I loved every part of her story.

Speaker 1 (45:11):
You know, perhaps her courage at a time when a
woman would have to be truly courageous to do what
she did.

Speaker 2 (45:16):
I know, yeah, yeah, she just went up there and
she said, oh well, she said, she did use this language.
People would say maybe she was a little extreme, because
but she, this woman who was many years her senior,
Abbie Kelly Foster, who was also fighting for women's rights

(45:38):
twenty thirty years before Victoria was, said we cannot be
merely mouthed when it comes to these men. We have
to use strong language. And so after a year of her,
you know, waiting and waiting nothing, you know, the government's
not coming through. They could easily have said declaratory act,
you know, no, no, but they didn't. And she she

(46:00):
about had it, you know, and she said, and she
did have this what somebody called her great Secession speech.
A friend of hers called it that I'm calling this year,
and that's been known as that where she said, if
we don't get what we're asking for, I'll give you
one year. If we don't get it, then you can
count on this. We mean, you know, we are going

(46:21):
to revolt, and we mean secession, we mean revolution, you know.
So she used those words, but really she meant that
she I don't think we're going to take up arms
and actually secede from the union. But you know, it
was her strong language. But she was very you know, disappointed,

(46:43):
and she did say that she said this to Grant. Well,
I don't know she actually said it to Grant. She
did meet Grant, but she did. She did make it
clear that she was going to she was going to
Sue basically to say the election this is funny because
of it's not really funny, it's kind of sad, but

(47:05):
like just the same thing, we have election fraud. She
was going to say, there was election fraud basically because
half of the country has is disenfranchised and we deserve
the vote and we didn't get the vote. So uh
this I have a scene where she's that was the
funny where she says to Grant, just be prepared. You know,

(47:27):
I'm gonna I'm gonna chot. I'm gonna say your election
when you win, your election is is is illegitimate? And
he kind of laughs, and the scene I have yasas,
oh yes, but Victoria and then this part, according to
her notes which her daughter kept, Grant said to her, Victoria,

(47:47):
someday you will occupy this chair.

Speaker 3 (47:49):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (47:50):
Yes, yeah, that's in her notes.

Speaker 1 (47:52):
So wow, I didn't I didn't.

Speaker 2 (47:54):
Know that, wonder Yeah yeah yeah.

Speaker 1 (47:56):
So how many other how many other women have run
for president since eighteen seventy two?

Speaker 2 (48:03):
Oh my gosh that have tried? One count is like
over one hundred that have actually tried to run. Now
you have to count, like these are wonderful women that
have tried, like you know, Amy Klovichar and Elizabeth Warren
and Kameron, Hillary and you know, all the people that
I can remember that debate, you know, back then there

(48:24):
were so many women up there talking. I remember Mary
and Williamson even you know, trying to you know, trying.
So a lot a lot have tried. But it's interesting
that we I don't know if it's our country or
what why they can't. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (48:44):
Is there a commonality that they all share with Victoria?

Speaker 2 (48:50):
Well, I guess they would like to have a women's
a woman's voice in the you know, because they see
it as a different kind of voice and a different
kind of steadiness. I'd say that they that they probably want,
you know, I'd have to look through all those hundred names,
you know, and see. But they did follow certainly the
early ones followed in, you know, in her footsteps, wanting,

(49:13):
wanting that freedom.

Speaker 1 (49:14):
We're going to fight.

Speaker 2 (49:15):
We don't have it, we have to get it. You
have Belva Lockwood back then, and Victoria was at a
dinner with bell the Lockwood and you know, it's talking.
So they they carried on. And as I mentioned this,
Abby Kelly Foster, she said, you young people, you have
to carry it on. They were, they were really passing
the torch. You Victoria, you Velva, you have to do this.

(49:36):
So each I think that each one has kind of
passed the torch like the Olympic, you know. So, and
it still is. Well, I'm glad that they finally got
the boat because yeah, it's actually called quo warranto. It's
a you could she was going to file that, which is,
you know, by what right do you hold this office?
You didn't include half the country?

Speaker 1 (49:58):
Yeah? Do you think do you think that the US
will elect a woman as president one day? Soon?

Speaker 9 (50:05):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (50:07):
I would like to see it. I don't know. It
seems like we drag our feet on that. You look around,
you've got all you know, in Britain and India and
all kinds of women leaders. I would like to believe it,
but I don't know. I'm a little you know, I'm

(50:28):
feeling very.

Speaker 1 (50:33):
Curious what you and I are of the same generation. Basically,
I think within our lifetime that remains we will see
this happen.

Speaker 2 (50:42):
Oh that would be good. I would like to believe
that too, I really would. We're so close, you know,
so close to it, because you know, they're running. And
if we can just get a hold of talking about
misinformation that was thrown out about Victoria, this misinformation all
over people jumping on I you know, on soundbites and

(51:02):
drawing conclusions without the evidence. You know, Oh this, oh that,
Oh Hillary and her emails, and you know, let's you know,
look more deep, let's look at the issues. What do
we want here? What do we want out of our leaders?
And look more deeply and see more clearly. Oh there's
the Irish saying, you know, look within and see behind,

(51:26):
know the heart and read the mind. You know.

Speaker 1 (51:29):
So, with all of the current efforts to disempower women
by the current administration in Congress, do you think that
Victoria's life and example can inspire a new movement? Oh?

Speaker 2 (51:42):
Absolutely, I think just if women would read this and
men too, because I've had men male readers and they
really like it because it's it's all set. I trickle
it with when I say, I sprinkle it with history,
but or I weave history in everything that happens to
Victoria happening during a time when this happened, or oh

(52:03):
yesterday was was the Gettysburg address? Or this or that?
All that is woven in, so you see her acting
within her time period, you know. And what was your question?
Here we go, I'm like.

Speaker 1 (52:16):
That's inspiring the new movement?

Speaker 2 (52:18):
I think so, yeah, men and women, I think yes,
it could. If you look at that that she she
she worked and she believed it. I think it definitely
can inspire people. She inspires me, you know, to do
to speak up and you know, make my voice heard
as much as I can in ways that I can.

(52:38):
I think she did it so I can do it,
and I should do it because our issues are the
issues that she's you know that she faced there still
with us, you know, I really do. And I think
that somebody asked me once, what do you think she
would say to you if she saw you today? And
I said, I think she'd say thank you.

Speaker 1 (52:56):
Kate here you go, what would you like read? What
would you like your readers to take away from Unstoppable
The Victoria Woodhull story.

Speaker 2 (53:05):
I would like them to take away a really good
experience that they enjoyed learning about her life. And so
far with my reviews, people seem to say that I
see that, and I'm thinking, thank God, because it's hard
to get perspective on your own work. But people say
it was an enjoyable read and an easy read, even
though it's a little bit on you know, longish book.

Speaker 1 (53:25):
It's not.

Speaker 2 (53:26):
It's just over four hundred, but it's it's not a
small print, and it's not dense. There's a lot of
white space and sections are small, so it's easy read.
You could do ten pages a night and say, oh, yeah,
you know, you don't have to like, oh the end
of the chapter. I just want to get to it.
So I think that they would take away a joyful experience.

(53:47):
And I say joyful because even though she struggles, she
continues to work and to fight for it. Even though
she's got all kinds of family issues, political issues, you know,
people that let her down, she's still she's still in Unstoppable,

(54:09):
She's still going on. I love I love the ending.
I love it what she did and that's all true,
what she did in her last speech. It's really exciting.

Speaker 1 (54:18):
My guest, Kate Danaher her new book, Unstoppable, The Victoria
Woodhall Story. Kate, one more time, please share with our
listeners where they can get your book and find out
more about you and your wonderful work.

Speaker 2 (54:30):
Oh thank you. Yes. My my website is Kate danaher
dot com and on there you can go. You can
you can find where to buy the books, and my
son in law is putting up a tab where you
can read and review. Right now, I have where you
can read the book, where you can buy it, but

(54:52):
I'm going to put in where you can review it
because I want to ask you this all. Anybody who
picks this book up, and I hope you tell all
your friends about it, please leave a review. Because I'm
a debut author and in my latter years of life,
I hope I have some more years because I have
the two more volumes to write. But do need reviews

(55:12):
to get awareness of Victoria's story, because if I only
have a few people say well, maybe it's not good.
But if a lot of people are reading it, then
they'll say, oh, it looks like other people are reading this,
I should read it. And then that brings awareness to
Victoria's story. She was the first woman to run for president.
She deserves a truer story to be told, and I
do have. I should plug myself here advance praise from

(55:35):
a Polster Prize finalist and Victoria Woodhall biography that says
that this is the true Victoria. You know, after a century,
it is and she is a revelation and an inspiration.
So that's said by a Victoria Woodhole biographer, and I'm
very happy about that. And I'm also very happy that
I'm that I've been invited to speak at the National

(55:59):
Women's Hall of Fame next year because people recognize that
her story needs to be heard. So please visit. Oh
and look up that there's a nice, a nice little
trailer like one minute video on Kate danaher dot com.
Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.
Have a wonderful day everyone.

Speaker 1 (56:17):
Kate, thank you so much for joining us and being
an inspiration to all of our listeners. I'm Victor the
Voice Furman. Have a wonderful week.

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Victoria Woodhull – Unstoppable

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