* * * N E W A C Q U I S I T I O N S * J U L Y 2 0 2 4 B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S 37 "THE FIRST WOMAN IN AMERICAN HISTORY TO SEEK THE PRESIDENCY": 1871 FIRST EDITION OF WOODHULL'S TENDENCIES AND PRINCIPLES OF GOVERNMENT, INSCRIBED 37. WOODHULL, Victoria. The Origin, Tendencies and Principles of Government: Or, A Review of the Rise and Fall of Nations from Early Historic Time to the Present: With Special Considerations Regarding the Future of the United States as the Representative Government of the World. New York, 1871. Octavo, original brown cloth. $9800 First edition of a pivotal collection of over ten key works in the history of woman’s suffrage, most appearing here in book form for the first time, presentation copy inscribed by Woodhull during her pioneering presidential campaign on the front flyleaf: “A.M. Fulton, Presented by Victoria C. Woodhull, New York, April, 1871.” This volume includes Woodhull’s bold 1870 declaration of her candidacy for the presidency and the Memorial she delivered before Congress, as well as the Address she delivered to a congressional committee and to the National Woman Suffrage Association, issued by her Woodhull Claflin publishing house, with engraved frontispiece, in original cloth. On April 2, 1870, when Woodhull’s First Pronunciamento appeared in the New York Herald, it astonished the nation. There, Woodhull declared: “I now announce myself as candidate for the Presidency.” With that, she became the first woman in American history to seek the office As part of her campaign, she planned “a series of essays about politics and government that would later be published as a book, Origin, Tendencies and Principles of Government” (Meade, Free Woman). That same year Woodhull and her sister, Tennesee Claflin, “broke the gender barrier to gain a seat on the New York Stock exchange… In the fall of 1870 Woodhull went to Washington and set herself up as a lobbyist for women’s rights,” and the sisters also established their Woodhull and Claflin’s Weekly. Their newspaper broke new ground by issuing “the first American printing of the English translation of Marx’s Communist Manifesto." Woodhull surmounted more barriers by becoming the first woman to address a House Committee of Congress. “The National Woman Suffrage Association… had Woodhull repeat her Address to the woman’s suffrage meeting” (Ware, Forgotten Heroes, 112-15). Woodhull’s notoriety led many to dismiss her importance to women’s history. It took 20th-century feminist scholarship to highlight her key role “as a major player in the struggle for women’s equality” (Frisken, Victoria Woodhull’s Sexual Revolution, 10-13). This landmark collection contains her seminal works, most in book form for the first time. Featured are the First Pronunciamento and Second Pronunciamento, the Memorial Woodhull presented to Congress in December 1870, petitioning for women’s right to vote, and the January 1871 Address she delivered to the House Committee. Issued in brown cloth (this copy), green cloth, and burgundy cloth: no priority established. Bookplate of Maine bookseller Gary Woolson. A lovely, near-fine copy.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDg3OTM=