Other Powers: the Age of Suffrage, Spiritualism, and the Scandalous Victoria Woodhull
Barbara Goldsmith
Language: English
Pages: 560
ISBN: 0060953322
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Barbara Goldsmith's portrait of suffragette Victoria Woodhull and her times was hailed by George Plimpton as "a beautifully written biography of a remarkable woman" and by Gloria Steinem as "more memorable than a dozen histories."
A highly readable combination of history and biography, Other Powers interviews the stories of some of the most colorful social, political, and religious figures of America's Victorian era with the courageous and notorious life of Victoria Woodhull--psychic, suffragette, publisher, presidential candidate, and self-confessed practitioner of free love. It is set amid the battle for women's suffrage, the Spiritualist movement that swept across the nation in the age of Radical Reconstruction following the Civil War, and the bitter fight that pitted black men against white women in the struggle for the right to vote.
Peter Gay found Other Powers "Irresistible...this is a biography guaranteed to keep the reader reading." And Gloria Steinem called it "A real-life novel of how one charismatic woman...turned women's suffrage, the church, New York City, and much of the country on its ear."
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later, Mama Roxy appeared at the police station and lodged yet another complaint against Blood. When reporters arrived at the Thirty-eighth Street house, Mama Roxy was sitting on the stoop awaiting them. “You know what a hell-hound that Blood is,” she protested. At that moment Tennie walked up and surveyed the scene. “Come on, come on,” she said to the reporters with resignation, and beckoned them inside, where she sank into a chair and began a tirade of her own. “All these people,” she gestured
the point, Joe Howard asked all those opposed to the adoption of the report to rise. Frank Moulton rose to his feet and remained standing, looking calmly around the church while on every side the derisive noise and epithets erupted once again. As they reached a crescendo, Howard said, “The resolutions to accept this report will now be voted upon: All in favor say ‘Aye.’ ” “Aye” swept the church. “All opposed?” he asked. The lone voice of Frank Moulton rang out, “Nay.” “I wish to address the
documented in Doyle, pp. 114–142 (Chapters V and VI). “My Dear Frank:—I am indignant”: Henry Ward Beecher to Frank Moulton (March 25, 1874); Marshall, pp. 367–368. 19 “I believe that the infamous women” and ff.: Dr. Bacon’s speech and Tilton’s reply are to be found in Marshall, pp. 40–42, 43–63. 20 “In regard to the scandal”: Brooklyn Union (March 28, 1874), Thomas Shearman interview. Mr. Shearman was a founding partner of a law firm still in existence, Shearman and Stirling. Marshall, p. 48.
she was slow, self-occupied, and could not convince an audience that she was in touch with the spirit world. She was consigned to help her mother brew Buck’s “Life Elixir.” Utica was soon addicted to corn whiskey and opium. While Tennessee accepted her powers with a light heart, often resorting to generalities about love and money when no spirit inspired her, Victoria was intense and erratic. Buck, expecting only a performance, was dismayed when Vickie lost herself in deep trances. She would
these uncertain times. Gone were the Calvinist tenets of his father, Lyman Beecher. In their place was the warm, self-indulgent “Gospel of Love.” Beecher declared that to be truly religious, one must sin: “Christ can save you, because you are a sinner, not because you aren’t one.” He preached, “What is terribly and dangerously heterodox this year may be accepted as the very essence of orthodoxy next year. What is orthodoxy? Orthodoxy is my doxy and heterodoxy is your doxy, if your doxy is not
