When Hillary Clinton laid claim to the Democratic presidential nomination Tuesday night, she unleashed a torrent of “first woman” commentary. If challenger Bernie Sanders ever backs down, she will be crowned the first female presidential nominee of a major US political party. If she wins in November, she will be the first female president in this nation’s 240-year history.
But she stands on the sturdy shoulders of many more female political pioneers who also aspired to be the leader of the free world, but they were just a little before their time. Here are some of them.
Victoria Woodhull, 1872, ran under the banner of the Equal Rights party nearly half a century before women even had the right to vote. She was also the first woman to testify before Congress, arguing that the 14th and 15th amendments to the constitution – the ones granting equal protection under the law and giving black men the vote – also enfranchised women. We all know how that worked out.
Belva Lockwood, 1884, ran as the National Women’s Equal Rights party candidate for president. She was on ballots in nine states and said of her candidacy, “I cannot vote, but I can be voted for.”
Lockwood was the first woman admitted to the bar for the US supreme court and the first to argue a case there.
Margaret Chase Smith, 1964, a Republican from Maine who served in Congress for 34 years, was the first woman to run for a major party’s nomination. She received 227,007 votes in her party’s primary and lost to Barry Goldwater.
Shirley Chisholm, 1972, was on the primary ballot in 12 states, earned 152 delegates and used them at the Democratic convention as bargaining chips to have the rights of women, African Americans and the poor included in the party platform.
She was the first African American to run for the presidential nomination.
Ellen McCormack, 1976, was the first woman to qualify for matching funds when she ran for the Democratic nomination. She spent the money on television ads to fight against abortion rights and have Roe v Wade overturned.
Lenora Fulani, 1988 and 1992, was the presidential nominee for the New Alliance party, which no longer exists. During her 1988 run, Fulani was the first woman to appear on the ballot in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. At the time, she received 225,000 votes.
Which brings us back to Hillary Clinton, who was the first female candidate to win a presidential primary – New Hampshire, in 2008. She won 22 states that time around before conceding the nomination to then senator Barack Obama. On Tuesday, she made history again.
Source: National Women’s History Museum
