Victoria Woodhull: Feminist, Spiritualist, “Mrs. Satan”
A lecture by author John Strausbaugh

Greenwich Village resident Victoria Woodhull was one of the most fascinating and controversial women in 19th-century New York. Born on the frontier in 1838, daughter of a confidence man, she performed as a spirit medium and faith healer as a little girl. In 1868 she came to New York City, where she started the first woman-run brokerage on Wall Street. She also started her own newspaper, was the first woman to address a Congressional committee in Washington, and the first woman to run for President, on a platform that combined feminism, spiritualism, socialism, and most controversially, “free love.” Denounced as “Mrs. Satan” and “the Terrible Siren,” she lashed out by accusing Reverend Henry Ward Beecher of adultery, inciting the sex scandal of the century. Author John Strausbaugh discusses this extraordinary woman’s life and times.

John Strausbaugh’s history of Greenwich Village, The Village: 400 Years of Beats and Bohemians, Radicals and Rogues, was one of Kirkus Review’s Best Books of 2013. He has written about New York City history and culture for New York Press, the New York Times and The Chiseler.