Stories about Victoria Woodhull and Tennessee Claflin claimed more newspaper space than any other event at the time except the Civil War. And if two women did today what they did then, it would still make headlines. They wrote and lectured about free love, socialism, labor struggles, mysticism and especially, women's rights. Given how little the world has changed on these issues, this selection of their writings very much relates to our contemporary struggles. And Arlene's biographical sketches indicate that Woodhull and Claflin also lived their politics, struggling for a meaningful way to live in a hostile world while trying to change it--as 100 years later, we do now.

Tales Behind the Tombstones tells the stories behind the deaths (or supposed deaths) and burials of the Old West's most nefarious outlaws, notorious women, and celebrated lawmen. Readers will learn the story behind Calamity Jane's wish to be buried next to Wild Bill Hickok, discover how and where the Earp brothers came to be buried, and visit the sites of tombs long forgotten while legends have lived on.

A biography of the first woman to address Congress, operate a Wall Street brokerage firm, and run for president provides an intimate portrait of Victoria Woodhull's life

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.

From the author of Little Gloria . . . Happy at Last, a stunning combination of history and biography that interweaves the stories of some of the most important social, political, and religious figures of America's Victorian era with the courageous and notorious life of Victoria Woodhull, to tell the story of her astonishing rise and fall and rise again. This is history at its most vivid, set amid the battle for woman suffrage, the Spiritualist movement that swept across the nation (10 million strong by midcentury) in the age of Radical Reconstruction following the Civil War, and the bitter fight that pitted black men against white women in the struggle to win the right to vote.

"A rip-roaring account of Victoria Claflin Woodhull, America's most outrageous suffragette"--Google Books description.

Counterculture, while commonly used to describe youth-oriented movements during the 1960s, refers to any attempt to challenge or change conventional values and practices or the dominant lifestyles of the day. This fascinating three-volume set explores these movements in America from colonial times to the present in colorful detail. "American Countercultures" is the first reference work to examine the impact of countercultural movements on American social history. It highlights the writings, recordings, and visual works produced by these movements to educate, inspire, and incite action in all eras of the nation's history. A-Z entries provide a wealth of information on personalities, places, events, concepts, beliefs, groups, and practices. The set includes numerous illustrations, a topic finder, primary source documents, a bibliography and a filmography, and an index.

“...the starting point for anyone concerned with the antecedents of libertarianism in the United States...” MEN AGAINST THE STATE first appeared in the spring of 1953. Within a matter of months it had received nearly fifty highly commendatory reviews in thirteen countries in seven languages. Few products of American scholarly research in our time have gained more widespread international respect in such a short time. This book brought back into view a tradition which almost disappeared between the beginning of the First World War and the end of the Second, the philosophy and deeds of anti-statist libertarian voluntarism in the United States during the three generations which flourished between 1825 and 1910, in a style which a London commentator described as “a model of readable scholarship.” In the 1950s, the era of the “organization man” and almost unparalleled political passivity, MEN AGAINST THE STATE may have been a premature book, as some have observed, despite being reprinted two more times later in the decade. This quiet and unsensational circulation continued to further its reputation, nevertheless. In the last ten years however it has been recognized by many as the starting point for anyone concerned with the antecedents of libertarianism in the United States. The spread of interest in such thinking among a new generation has prompted the reissuance of this book, in a conventionally-printed popularly priced edition for the first time.

Irving Wallace herein presents the stories of “some Americans who dared to be different”— crackpots, perhaps, all of them, but also exceedingly diverting people to meet, know, and watch as they pursue their peculiar activities. This picturesque and wacky crew is brilliantly dealt with in these nine chapters: In Defense of the Square Peg Wherein we meet Wilbur Glenn Voliva, who believed the Earth was flat, and wherein we learn the need for encouraging individualism and nonconformity. The King of Thirty-Sixth Street Wherein we meet Baron James A. Harden-Hickey, American ruler of Trinidad, who became an authority on the art of suicide. The Man Who Was Phileas Fogg Wherein we meet George Francis Train, millionaire member of the Commune, who was the first man to travel around the world in eighty days. The Free Lover Who Ran for President Wherein we meet Victoria Woodhull, stockbroker, spiritualist, and prostitute, who competed with Ulysses S. Grant for tenancy of the White House. The Forty-Niner Who Abolished Congress Wherein we meet Joshua Norton, self-appointed Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico, who issued orders to Abraham Lincoln. The Lady Who Moved Shakespeare’s Bones Wherein we meet Delia Bacon, schoolteacher frustrated in love, who became the implacable enemy of the Bard of Avon. The Explorer of the Hollow Earth Wherein we meet John Cleves Symmes, hero of the War of 1812, who planned an expedition into the interior world through holes in the North and South poles. The Editor Who Was a Common Scold Wherein we meet Anne Royall, widow and author, who interviewed a Chief Executive while he was in the nude. The First in the East Wherein we meet Timothy Dexter, merchant prince and foe of grammar, who sent coals to Newcastle and published a book without punctuation.