The Scarlet Sisters: Sex, Suffrage, and Scandal in the Gilded Age Author: Myra MacPherson | Language: English | ISBN:
B00DTUHLGE | Format: EPUB
The Scarlet Sisters: Sex, Suffrage, and Scandal in the Gilded Age Description
A fresh look at the life and times of Victoria Woodhull and Tennie Claflin, two sisters whose radical views on sex, love, politics, and business threatened the white male power structure of the nineteenth century and shocked the world. Here award-winning author Myra MacPherson deconstructs and lays bare the manners and mores of Victorian America, remarkably illuminating the struggle for equality that women are still fighting today.
Victoria Woodhull and Tennessee "Tennie" Claflin-the most fascinating and scandalous sisters in American history-were unequaled for their vastly avant-garde crusade for women's fiscal, political, and sexual independence. They escaped a tawdry childhood to become rich and famous, achieving a stunning list of firsts. In 1870 they became the first women to open a brokerage firm, not to be repeated for nearly a century. Amid high gossip that he was Tennie's lover, the richest man in America, fabled tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt, bankrolled the sisters. As beautiful as they were audacious, the sisters drew a crowd of more than two thousand Wall Street bankers on opening day. A half century before women could vote, Victoria used her Wall Street fame to become the first woman to run for president, choosing former slave Frederick Douglass as her running mate. She was also the first woman to address a United States congressional committee. Tennie ran for Congress and shocked the world by becoming the honorary colonel of a black regiment.
They were the first female publishers of a radical weekly, and the first to print Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto in America. As free lovers they railed against Victorian hypocrisy and exposed the alleged adultery of Henry Ward Beecher, the most famous preacher in America, igniting the "Trial of the Century" that rivaled the Civil War for media coverage. Eventually banished from the women's movement while imprisoned for allegedly sending "obscenity" through the mail, the sisters sashayed to London and married two of the richest men in England, dining with royalty while pushing for women's rights well into the twentieth century. Vividly telling their story, Myra MacPherson brings these inspiring and outrageous sisters brilliantly to life.
- File Size: 5028 KB
- Print Length: 399 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0446570230
- Publisher: Twelve (March 4, 2014)
- Sold by: Hachette Book Group
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00DTUHLGE
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #33,069 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #11
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Parenting & Relationships > Family Relationships > Siblings - #13
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Business & Money > Women & Business - #20
in Books > Parenting & Relationships > Family Relationships > Siblings
- #11
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Parenting & Relationships > Family Relationships > Siblings - #13
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Business & Money > Women & Business - #20
in Books > Parenting & Relationships > Family Relationships > Siblings
Thiis book is a perfect combination of author and subject. Victoria Woodhull and Tennessee Claflin were swashbuckling figures in the years during and after the Civil War, preaching free love, seducing rich and famous men, raising their particular brand of hell, and all the time campaigning for women's suffrage and civil rights. Myra MacLaughlin, in her books and in her earlier brilliant newspaper career, has microscopically dissected both villains and heroes, and this time out she does it with great enthusiasm. On every page, it's clear that she loves her work, bringing to bubbly life two of the most outrageously fascinating women in American history. All biographies should be this infectious and readable.
By pat f.
This is a terrific history of some remarkable suffragists! I treasure how one reviewer coined "The Scarlet Sisters" Victoria Woodhull and Tennessee Claflin as the Hilary Clinton-Kardashians of the Gilded Age! They are that sort of enigma. This book is a total page-turner that follows them from Wall Street to the White House - I completely recommend it!
By Sondra McClendon
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