Victoria Woodhull ran for President in 1872, but was erased from history. Who exactly was this woman and why was she called Mrs. Satan?

Still Your Friend’s newest play, written and performed by the 9x festival award winning artist Adam Bailey delves into the life of Victoria Woodhull. But who exactly was this woman and why is she important today?

To start off Victoria Woodhull is the first woman to run for President of the United States. For over a century this accomplishment was asterisked as unserious, assuming Woodhull never had a chance to win the highest seat in government at a time when women couldn’t even vote. However, during the period after the Civil War anything seemed possible and Victoria not only had serious backers, including America’s richest man Cornelious Vanderbilt and Republican Party Founder Horace Greeley, her popularity stretched as far as Texas.

Unfortunately, she also had enemies, including within the women’s rights movement, and not just from the moderate side of the movement. Women like Susan B. Anthony, considered a radical by her peers, found the speed at which Woodhull pushed for reform dangerous, and would be chief amongst those who would try to keep Woodhull’s influence on her times erased from history. Not a small task considering Woodhull was also the first woman to open a brokerage in the United States, the first woman to speak before Congress, and the first person to publish the Communist Manifesto. None of which the reason for her public name: Mrs. Satan.

Victoria Woodhull has a Free Love activist, who believed in full freedom for how adults arranged their own person relationships and was against the persecution of sex-workers.  She famously compared marriage to prostitution, claiming to be unable to see the difference in the lives of most women. When it was revealed that she a caregiver for her ailing, and elderly, first husband, despite having a second husband, the “public” was outraged on both men’s behalf and dubbed Woodhull to be Mrs. Satan.

Victoria, however, wasn’t going to be taken down by slurs against her character, all of which she found hypocritical. Her time at the head of the women’s movement had allowed her to learn about the extramarital affairs of several public figures, and she resolved herself to give the ganders in her orbit a taste of what the goose had been given…

To learn more about Victoria Woodhull come see All Hail Mrs. Satan at the RED Sandcastle Theatre, 922 Queen Street East Toronto. October 8^th-13^th. Tickets are $10-$25 and can be purchased at https://www.ticketscene.ca/series/1292/.