Notorious Victoria: The Life of Victoria Woodhull, Uncensored

Rating:
Summary: The best biography I've read since Ambrose's "Eisenhower."
Review: I commend Mary Gabriel's "Notorious Victoria" to the attention of anyone who fancies biographies, history and/or feminism. It's the best biography I've read since S. Ambrose's "Eisenhower." Gabriel's research is tireless, her prose evocative and her sense of perspective canny. A must read!

Rating:
Summary: Gabriel is a talented writer
Review: Mary Gabriel (who I met last spring) has a way of bringing Victorial Claflin Woodhull to life and drawing the reader into the true story of a little known woman in history(even Women's History). Gabriel's extensive research and knowledge about the subject matter is truly impressive. Five stars for both of these remarkable women!

Rating:
Summary: Gabriel is a talented writer
Review: Mary Gabriel (who I met last spring) has a way of bringing Victorial Claflin Woodhull to life and drawing the reader into the true story of a little known woman in history(even Women's History). Gabriel's extensive research and knowledge about the subject matter is truly impressive. Five stars for both of these remarkable women!

Rating:
Summary: One of the Most Balanced of the Woodhull Bios
Review: Mary Gabriel handles her subject, Victoria Woodhull, without criticizing her as other authors like Irving Wallace and Emanie Sachs have done. She has the perspicacity to treat the accusations of prostitution as just that--accusations and gossip heaped on a woman who dared to stand out from the crowd. Gabriel does more to clear Woodhull's name than Woodhull's husband, Col. Blood, was able to do in his lifetime. As a descendant of Col. Blood's last wife, Isabell Blood, I recommend this book, if for no other reason than it continues the work he tried to accomplish--proving that Victoria Woodhull was a courageous, forward-thinking, and spiritual woman maligned by her contemporaries.

Rating:
Summary: One of the Most Balanced of the Woodhull Bios
Review: Mary Gabriel handles her subject, Victoria Woodhull, without criticizing her as other authors like Irving Wallace and Emanie Sachs have done. She has the perspicacity to treat the accusations of prostitution as just that--accusations and gossip heaped on a woman who dared to stand out from the crowd. Gabriel does more to clear Woodhull's name than Woodhull's husband, Col. Blood, was able to do in his lifetime. As a descendant of Col. Blood's last wife, Isabell Blood, I recommend this book, if for no other reason than it continues the work he tried to accomplish--proving that Victoria Woodhull was a courageous, forward-thinking, and spiritual woman maligned by her contemporaries.

Rating:
Summary: Superb page turner!
Review: Mary Gabriel will keep you entertained from cover to cover. This is a facinating book about a strong-willed, determined women living in the 1800s. I highly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Superb page turner!
Review: Mary Gabriel will keep you entertained from cover to cover. This is a facinating book about a strong-willed, determined women living in the 1800s. I highly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Difficult going
Review: My book group chose _Notorious Victoria_ as one of our monthly selections. To a woman, we all found it a very hard read, even those of us who much prefer nonfiction works. While the subject matter was certainly interesting, the writing style did not do it justice. A great source if you are doing research, but I wouldn't recommend it otherwise.

Rating:
Summary: The Life of a Colorful & Controversial 19th Century Reformer
Review: Victoria Woodhull was the first woman to operate a brokerage firm on Wall Street, the first woman to run for President, and the first woman to address Congress, to whom, in 1871, she declared that, pursuant to the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, women had the right to vote. Yet Victoria Woodhull has been all but excised from the popular political and social histories of the 19th century America. With "Notorious Victoria", author Mary Gabriel has written a meticulously researched biography which attempts to establish Victoria Woodhull's importance as a social reformer while presenting a balanced picture of this most controversial and outspoken feminist. Unlike her more respectable and more revered contemporaries, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Victoria Woodhull had roots in poverty and was intimately familiar with the plight of the average American woman of the day. It was her conviction that freedom and equality for women would only be achieved when women had equality in marriage and in economics, and that the right to vote, although inalienable, was somewhat immaterial. This set her apart from the mainstream feminists who chose to concentrate narrowly on the less controversial agenda of suffrage for women and who eventually rejected Victoria wholesale for her radical advocacy of free love, workers' rights, and her talent for attracting scandal. The platform on which Victoria ran for President, representing the People's Party, would be radical even today in its call to prohibit government from enacting any law that would interfere with any individual's freedom "to pursue happiness as they may choose". Victoria Woodhull was a fascinating, colorful, and flawed woman who lived in a time of social upheaval and media frenzy, which rightfully secured her a place in American history. My only criticism of Mary Gabriel's book is that it offers very little comment on Victoria Woodhull's startling change in attitude when she reached middle age. For twenty years she made a career out of exposing society's hypocrisies, and then suddenly she seemed to embrace hypocrisy with gusto. It is very possible that no one has any idea why Victoria so viciously turned against her former husband, Colonel Blood, and tried to rewrite her earlier life. But I found the absence of comment on this puzzling behavior conspicuous. Nevertheless, "Notorious Victoria" is a fascinating and sometimes scintillating account of one frank and gutsy 19th century social activist and the tumultuous society in which she lived. And since Victoria Woodhull was a passionate "free lover", not a dry spinster feminist, her story is sure to intrigue and entertain an audience well beyond feminist historians, including many men.

Rating:
Summary: The Life of a Colorful & Controversial 19th Century Reformer
Review: Victoria Woodhull was the first woman to operate a brokerage firm on Wall Street, the first woman to run for President, and the first woman to address Congress, to whom, in 1871, she declared that, pursuant to the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, women had the right to vote. Yet Victoria Woodhull has been all but excised from the popular political and social histories of the 19th century America. With "Notorious Victoria", author Mary Gabriel has written a meticulously researched biography which attempts to establish Victoria Woodhull's importance as a social reformer while presenting a balanced picture of this most controversial and outspoken feminist. Unlike her more respectable and more revered contemporaries, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Victoria Woodhull had roots in poverty and was intimately familiar with the plight of the average American woman of the day. It was her conviction that freedom and equality for women would only be achieved when women had equality in marriage and in economics, and that the right to vote, although inalienable, was somewhat immaterial. This set her apart from the mainstream feminists who chose to concentrate narrowly on the less controversial agenda of suffrage for women and who eventually rejected Victoria wholesale for her radical advocacy of free love, workers' rights, and her talent for attracting scandal. The platform on which Victoria ran for President, representing the People's Party, would be radical even today in its call to prohibit government from enacting any law that would interfere with any individual's freedom "to pursue happiness as they may choose". Victoria Woodhull was a fascinating, colorful, and flawed woman who lived in a time of social upheaval and media frenzy, which rightfully secured her a place in American history. My only criticism of Mary Gabriel's book is that it offers very little comment on Victoria Woodhull's startling change in attitude when she reached middle age. For twenty years she made a career out of exposing society's hypocrisies, and then suddenly she seemed to embrace hypocrisy with gusto. It is very possible that no one has any idea why Victoria so viciously turned against her former husband, Colonel Blood, and tried to rewrite her earlier life. But I found the absence of comment on this puzzling behavior conspicuous. Nevertheless, "Notorious Victoria" is a fascinating and sometimes scintillating account of one frank and gutsy 19th century social activist and the tumultuous society in which she lived. And since Victoria Woodhull was a passionate "free lover", not a dry spinster feminist, her story is sure to intrigue and entertain an audience well beyond feminist historians, including many men.