Who was the first woman to run for president? A history lesson
One of my students, B.L., recently commented about Sen. Clinton, “I do give her kudos for stepping up to the plate and being the first woman to run for president.”
Please understand that I am not saying to B.L. “oh, you are so wrong,” so please don’t take it as that, but many people now make this same mistake about Ms. Clinton being the first woman to run for president.
Actually, the first woman to run for the nomination of a major political party for president of the US was an African-American woman born of immigrant parents, Shirley Chisolm (this statement is incorrect–see my comment). I think she may have even been the first African-American to run for president for a major political party, running well before Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Alan Keyes and Burak Obama.
Ms. Chisolm began her campaign for president in 1972 running as a Democrat, not as a fringe party candidate. She was also the first African-American Congresswoman (back then, women made up only 3% of Congress, compared to 16% today). In addition, she was one of the founders of the influential Congressional Black Caucus. Two other women ran for president in 1972, but I don’t remember what party they ran for–they also started their campaigns after Congresswoman Chisolm. That was the year that Nixon easily won re-election. Congresswoman Chisolm won 152 delegates in the first balloting of the Democratic Convention, which made her the 4th place candidate at the convention, but she still had less than 10% of the delegates of front-runner, George McGovern, and less than half the delegates of 3rd place segregationist, Alabama Gov. George Wallace. For more information on her, look at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_Chisholm
But, the first woman to run for president of the US was Victoria Woodhull who ran 100 years before Congresswoman Chisolm, securing the nomination of the Equal Rights Party. This was almost 50 years before women were guaranteed the vote with the 19th amendment which was not ratified until 1920. And women could not vote at all in 1872.
What makes any of this have anything to do with economics? This is an economics blog, after all. Well, examining gender and racial differences in activities, like labor force participation, educational attainment, occupational choice are all a major part of labor economics. This week, Dr. Turner and I were at the Southern Economic Association meeting, where we presented our research with Gokhan Karahan (recently of Nicholls, but now at Delta State) and Tom Dalton, at University of Arizona, and also a former member of the Nicholls faculty. That work looks at barriers to entry in politics and opportunity cost differences for women and certain occupations.
-MC
November 27th, 2007 at 11:15 pm
Like B.L., I thought Sen. Hillary Clinton was the first woman to run for president of the United States as well. I am familiar with Ms.Shirley Chisolm, but not Victoria Woodhull. Ms. Chisolm was not only in the minority of being an African-American, but also a woman. Greeting society’s problems with the face of these two minorities may have been very challenging.
November 27th, 2007 at 11:27 pm
I thought like B.L., that Senator Hillary Clinton was the first woman to run for the seat of President of the United States. Ms. Shirley Chisolm was a double minority candidate, of which I am sure that greeting society’s problems would have been more than challenging than normal, just because of her descent. Victoria Woodhull, is a name that I am not familiar with.
November 28th, 2007 at 12:52 am
Zelma,
Ms. Woodhull was a “suffrugette.” She worked for women’s rights and ran for the Equal Rights Party in 1872. The party tried to get Frederick Douglass to run as their Vice President, but from what I can gather, he did not acknowledge his nomination and never campaigned either for nor with Ms. Woodhull.
November 28th, 2007 at 9:46 pm
I didn’t know any information about Ms Woodhull but i know that there was 1 African-American ran for president before H.Clinton. As if she were selected as the president, i think everything would have had a big change: from the society ( the way a woman run must be different from a man), education, military,government…etc. however, I don’t think the fact that she’s a minor or an African American would make a difference from a white person rule.she might face some challenge from the people thou.
November 28th, 2007 at 11:46 pm
It’s amazing how long minorities have been trying to gain the title of president. How is it that the United States has only had a caucasion male leaders? Even mostly muslim counties (Pakistan, Indonesia, Turkey), a religion that stresses male dominance, have elected female leaders. Ireland has had at least two and Golda Meir was Israels first PM. In South Africa, a country that was famous for its aparthaid segregational system, Nelson Mandela was elected. How can the United States bare to confront other nations who have issues with civil rights, when theses same nations are making the greatest strides? With our 200+ year history of innovation and freedom, shouldn’t we be in ranks of nations with the ingenuity to do something different?
January 31st, 2008 at 10:35 am
A student wandered by my office while I was in class to make a correction to this post. The student correctly pointed out that Shirley Chisolm was NOT the first woman to run for the nomination of a major US party. Chisolm ran in 1972, but 8 years earlier, in 1964, Maine Republican, Sen. Margaret Chase Smith, ran for the Republican Party nomination. I stand corrected.
-MC