Honestly, if you ask the average person who the first female president candidate was, they’ll probably guess Hillary Clinton or maybe Shirley Chisholm if they know their history. But the real answer is way weirder. It’s Victoria Woodhull.
She ran in 1872.
Think about that for a second. In 1872, women couldn't even vote. They were basically legal property in many states. Yet here was this woman—a former magnetic healer, spiritualist, and Wall Street broker—telling the world she should lead it. It wasn't just a "protest" run either. She was serious. Or as serious as one could be while the world was literally trying to throw her in jail.
Why Victoria Woodhull was the first female president candidate
Most people think of the suffrage movement as this very buttoned-up, polite group of ladies in tea rooms. Woodhull was the opposite. She was radical. She was loud. She believed in "free love," which back then didn't mean what it did in the 60s; it basically meant women should have the right to leave abusive husbands and control their own bodies.
On May 10, 1872, the Equal Rights Party nominated her at Apollo Hall in New York City. She even tapped Frederick Douglass as her running mate. Imagine that ticket in 1872: a woman and a formerly enslaved Black man. It was enough to make the Victorian establishment's heads explode.
But there was a catch. Actually, there were several.
- She was only 34 on Election Day. The Constitution says you have to be 35.
- Women weren't legally allowed to vote, so how could they hold office?
- She spent Election Day in a jail cell.
Yeah, you read that right. She was arrested for "obscenity" because her newspaper exposed a massive sex scandal involving a famous preacher named Henry Ward Beecher. The government used the Comstock Laws to shut her up. She didn't get a single electoral vote, and we don't even know how many popular votes she got because many were likely tossed in the trash.
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The candidates who actually made the ballot
While Woodhull was the first to run, she wasn't the first to really "exist" on the ballot in a way that counted. That honor often goes to Belva Lockwood.
Lockwood ran in 1884 and 1888. She was a powerhouse lawyer who actually petitioned President Ulysses S. Grant to get her law diploma because the school wouldn't give it to her. She was the first woman to argue before the Supreme Court. Unlike Woodhull, Lockwood's name actually appeared on ballots in several states. She pulled in about 4,149 votes in 1884.
It's a small number, sure. But it proved a point. She famously said, "I cannot vote, but I can be voted for."
The shift to major parties
For a long time, women only ran on "third party" tickets that had zero chance of winning. It took nearly a century after Woodhull for a woman to crack the major party ceiling.
- Margaret Chase Smith (1964): She was the first woman to be put up for nomination at a major party convention (Republican). She was a sitting Senator from Maine and a total badass who stood up to Joseph McCarthy when everyone else was terrified of him.
- Shirley Chisholm (1972): "Unbought and Unbossed." She was the first Black woman in Congress and the first to run for the Democratic nomination. She faced incredible racism and sexism, even from her own colleagues.
- Sonia Johnson (1984): Ran on the Citizens Party ticket after being excommunicated from the Mormon church for supporting the Equal Rights Amendment.
Chisholm is the one who really shifted the vibe. She wasn't just running to make a point; she was building a "Chisholm Trail" for everyone who felt ignored by the system. She got 152 delegates at the convention. That's a huge deal. It proved that a woman—and specifically a Black woman—could command a national stage.
Common misconceptions about the first female president candidate
There's this weird idea that the first female president candidate must have been a saint. If you look at Woodhull, she was messy. She was a spiritualist who claimed to talk to spirits. She had three husbands. She was broke half the time and a millionaire the other half.
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Historians love to argue about her. Was she a hero or a con artist?
The truth is probably both. You had to be a little "out there" to think you could be President in a world that wouldn't let you open a bank account.
Another big mistake people make is thinking that once the 19th Amendment passed in 1920, women started running for President immediately. They didn't. There was a massive gap. It took decades of local and state-level wins before women felt they had the "permission" to aim for the White House again.
What we can learn from the "losers"
We tend to only remember the winners in American politics. But the story of the first female president candidate isn't about winning an election; it's about changing the definition of what is "possible."
Every time a woman ran and "failed," she was actually stress-testing the system. Woodhull tested the age requirement and the definition of citizenship. Lockwood tested the legal right to appear on a ballot. Smith tested the "stamina" myth. Chisholm tested the "electability" of a Black woman.
Without those "failures," we wouldn't have had the 2016 or 2020 or 2024 cycles look the way they did.
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Actionable Insights for History Buffs and Voters
If you want to actually understand this history rather than just reading a Wikipedia summary, here is what you should do:
Read the primary sources. Go find the "Steinway Speech" by Victoria Woodhull. It is wild. She basically tells the government that if they don't give women the vote, they will start a new government. It's much more aggressive than the history books let on.
Look at the "Equal Rights Party" platform. It wasn't just about women. They wanted an 8-hour workday, a graduated income tax, and social welfare. Most of the stuff we take for granted now was considered "insane" when the first woman ran for president.
Track the "Firsts" beyond the presidency. To understand why a woman hasn't won yet, look at the governors. We currently have a record number of female governors, and that is usually the "pipeline" for the presidency.
The story of the first female president candidate is still being written. We're just in the middle chapters. Woodhull, Lockwood, Smith, and Chisholm didn't lose; they just started a very long game that hasn't reached the final whistle yet.
If you’re interested in the legal side of this, look into the Belva Lockwood Case and how she forced Congress to change the law so she could practice in the Supreme Court. It’s a masterclass in lobbying.
Stop thinking of 1872 as ancient history. The arguments Woodhull was making about bodily autonomy and equal pay are the exact same ones being shouted on cable news tonight. History doesn't repeat, but it definitely rhymes, and Victoria Woodhull was the one who wrote the first verse.
Next steps to deepen your knowledge:
- Research the Comstock Act of 1873 to see how the government used "decency" laws to suppress political rivals.
- Visit the National Women's History Museum online archives to see original campaign posters from the 1884 Lockwood run.
- Compare the 1972 Democratic Convention speeches to modern-day keynote addresses to see how the language of "electability" has evolved.