Saturday, March 25 at 2:00 p.m., John McIntire Library Auditorium, Zanesville
A Free, Public Presentation About the First Female Candidate for the U.S. Presidency
by Dr. Judith Dann of Columbus State Community College.
Sponsored by the Library and the Zanesville Branch of the American Association of University Women

Few know that Ohio was the birthplace of the first female candidate for President of the United States. The year was 1872. The 34 year-old candidate of the Equal Rights Party was Victoria Woodhull – a native of Homer, Ohio in Knox County. Woodhull only got a handful of votes. As a woman, she couldn’t vote for herself, and her running mate, Frederick Douglass, cast his ballot for someone else. Woodhull was a spiritual medium and also a stock broker. She was the first woman to found a newspaper in the U.S. She was called “Mrs. Satan” for her belief that women should be able to love who they wanted and divorce if they wanted. She was in jail on the day of the Presidential election after her paper published a story about the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher’s marital infidelities.

Dr. Judith Dann, who happens to live in Homer, Ohio and who may be a distant relative of Woodhull’s, has intensively researched Woodhull’s life. Dann teaches Ancient History in the Classics at Columbus State Community College and loves to share her knowledge of this very interesting nineteenth century champion of women’s rights.