Shirley Chisholm: "Unbought and Unbossed"

Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm (born 30 November 1924)

In 1972, Shirley Chisolm became the first African-American woman representing a major political party to run for the office of President of the United States. (Three women sought to become the Democratic party's candidate for president that year: Bella Abzug, Patsy Mink, and Chisolm.)

Shirley Chisholm in 1972,
the year she ran for President
of the United States

Shirley Anita St. Hill was daughter of Caribbean immigrants, her father, Charles St. Hill, born in British Guiana, her mother, Ruby Seale, in Barbados. The couple immigrated to the United States in 1923, their daughter born in Brooklyn the next year. 

Her parents sent Shirley Anita St. Hill to Barbados when she was three so that she could receive the best possible education--as she noted, "Years later I would know what an important gift my parents had given me by seeing to it that I had my early education in the strict, traditional, British-style schools of Barbados. If I speak and write easily now, that early education is the main reason." 

She returned to the United States in May 1934, to Bedford-Stuyvesant, where her parents had settled and where she would attend the prestigious Girls' High School. After graduating from Brooklyn College in 1946, she began her professional life as a nursery school teacher while she was enrolled in the M.A. program at Columbia.

In 1949, she married Conrad Chisholm, earned her Columbia M.A. in 1952, and worked for New York City's Division of Day Care until 1964, when her life changed.

In 1964, Chisholm ran for state office and went to Albany, where she became the second African-American woman to become a state member of the New York state legislature. After a court-ordered redistricting, Chisolm ran for a seat in the U.S. House of Representative in 1968--her campaign slogan was "unbought and unbossed." 

Only two African Americans were elected to Ninety-First Congress (1969-1971), bringing the total of African Americans in the House to nine. Shirley Chisholm was the first African-American woman elected to the U.S. House--where she would serve for seven terms. 

A 1972 campaign button.

Chisholm had a long and influential role in the House, where she served until 1983, and I will link you here to here to the U.S. House of Representatives History, Art & Archives page for her official biography, details of her committee assignments, and a detailed bibliography (see the update, below).

But I thought that what might be fun to do today, on the anniversary of Chisolm's birth, is to add a list of women who preceded her in running for the office of president:

• Victoria Woodhull, as we have seen, ran in 1872 as a member of the Equal Rights Party; she ran again in as a member of the Humanitarian Party in 1892;
• Belva Ann Bennett Lockwood also ran for president twice, in 1884 and in 1888, both times as a member of the National Equal Rights Party; 
• Margaret Chase Smith ran for president in 1964 as a member of the Republican Party, the first woman to have her name placed in nomination at a national nominating convention (she had received primary votes in New Hampshire, Illinois, Massachusetts, Texas, and Oregon, among others, and she gained twenty-seven first ballot votes at the Republican National Convention--after the first ballot, she withdrew her name from consideration); 
• Charlene Mitchell was the Communist Party candidate in 1968, thus becoming the first African-American woman nominated for the office of President (she was on the ballot in only two states, winning fewer than 1,000 votes);
• And then, as noted above, there was 1972: Bella Abzug, Shirley Chisolm, and Patsy Mink, all running as Democrats. In that same year, Linda Jenness was the nominee for the Socialist Workers Party. 

Chisolm died on 1 January 2005. There are a number of biographies, but why not read her autobiography, recently published in a fortieth-anniversary edition: its title is taken from her original campaign slogan, Unbought and Unbossed.

Update, 7 July 2019: A number of commemorations are planned for the fiftieth-anniversary of Shirley Chisholm's service in the U.S. Congress--a feature film, a TV series, a public monument, among other things. You may want to check out Jennifer Steinhauer's "2019 Belongs to Shirley Chisholm," published in the New York Times. There are lots of great photos too!

Update, 30 November 2025: I have been unable to load Chisolm’s House of Representatives page—lord knows what fuckery the Trump White House has been up to. I have linked you here to the page as preserved by the Internet Archive. 

Victoria Woodhull: First Female Candidate for President

Victoria California Claflin Woodhull (born 23 September 1838)

Victoria California Claflin Woodhull Blood Martin lived an extraordinary life--spiritual medium and fortuneteller, supporter of free love, advocate for women's rights, stockbroker, founder and editor of a newspaper, and the first woman to run for president, the 1872 nominee of the Equal Rights Party.

Victoria Claflin Woodhull, 1870,
photo by Matthrew Brady

But she had an inauspicious start in what became an extraordinary life--she was one of ten children born to Reuben Buckman Claflin, a one-eyed conman accused of theft, counterfeiting, and arson, a man who "could see more deviltry to do with that one eye than any two men with their four eyes." Her mother, Roxanna Hummel Claflin, was illiterate, a "religious zealot" given to praying--and cursing--loudly. 

While Victoria had almost no formal education, she was successful in her father's most lucrative business--she acted as a medium, sold various elixirs, told fortunes, and helped to "cure" all kinds of ailments. (Her sister Tennessee was once indicted for manslaughter after her patient died!)

Victoria Claflin married Canning Woodhull when she was fourteen, had two children with him, and divorced him eleven years later. She then married James Harvey Blood, probably about 1866--she would be divorced from him in 1876. Beginning in 1872, she had a long-term relationship with Benjamin Tucker, a proponent of anarchism and free love, a social movement that rejected traditional notions of marriage as a kind of slavery.

In the mean time, Victoria Woodhull and her sister, Tennessee Claflin, opened a successful brokerage firm on Wall Street, Woodhull, Claflin & Co., becoming the first female stockbrokers. Then they founded a newspaper, Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly. Victoria Woodhull became involved with the suffrage movement in 1869; on 11 January 1871 she became the first woman to testify before a Congressional committee--she addressed the House Judiciary Committee, arguing that women had already won the right to vote with the passage of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.

On 10 May 1872, Victoria Woodhull was nominated by the Equal Rights Party at their convention held in Apollo Hall, New York. (Frederick Douglass was nominated as vice president, but he did not attend the convention or acknowledge the nomination.) Woodhull would run again for president in 1892.

Later, however, Woodhull would lose the support of suffrage activists like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton--her personal and professional life had just become too scandalous. After she divorced her second husband, Victoria Woodhull left for England.

Once in England, she continued lecturing. She married John Biddulph Martin in 1883 and turned again to publishing. Under the name of Victoria Woodhull Martin, she produced The Humanitarian, a magazine that included features about literature, politics, spirituality, and science--especially eugenics--a publication that continued from 1892 until 1901.

Woodhull retired in 1901, after her third husband's death. She died in England on 27 June 1927.

There are many biographies--but, as a place to start, I'll link you here (oops—see below) to the National Women's History Museum website, where you'll find a biography, bibliography, and links to other online resources. 

Update, 23 September 2017: Two years after writing this entry, I checked the links again, only to discover that Woodhull has been disappeared from the National Women's History Museum website! I thought that was worth noting . . . For once I'll suggest looking at the entry for Woodhull in Wikipedia--it's quite good! An excellent place to head for all of the biographical and bibliographical details, with links to primary source material.

Update, 23 September 2022: She's back! Mariana Brandman's biography of Victoria Woodhull was posted to the National Women's History Museum website this year. To access it, click here.

Update, 13 September 2025: Eden Collinsworth has just published a new biography of Woodhull, The Improbable Victoria Woodhull: Suffrage, Free Love, and the First Woman to Run for President (click here).