An Unsung Hero to Women’s Suffrage

Image Courtesy of: The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, The New York Public Library. "Victoria C. Woodhull, delivering her address on constitutional equality before the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives of the United States, Jan. 12, 1871" New York Public Library Digital Collections.

In January 1871, The National Women’s Suffrage Association convention was held in Washington, D.C. —

Victoria Woodhull had been planning to attend, and was communicating with Massachusetts congressman Benjamin Butler about the Sixteenth Amendment, which would’ve granted female suffrage. As one of the amendment’s few supporters, Butler offered Woodhull the change to address the House Judiciary Committee. (NPS, 2021)

Mrs. Woodhull asserting her right to vote.jpg

Image Courtesy of: The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, The New York Public Library. "Mrs. Woodhull asserting her right to vote" New York Public Library Digital Collections.

Woodhull became the first woman to directly address a congressional committee on January 11th, 1871. —

She argued that the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments already gave women the right to vote, and Congress should immediately take another vote on the proposed Sixteenth Amendment to fully guarantee women’s voting rights. Although this wasn’t successful, she impressed major suffrage leaders Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton with her passion and was propelled into a leadership position within the movement. (Greenspan for History.com, 2018)