This Day in Wall Street History 1870: First female brokerage firm opens

In 1870, Victoria Woodhull and her sister Tennessee Claflin opened the doors of Woodhull, Claflin & Co., the nation's first brokerage firm run solely by women.

The firm, which represented an early victory for equal rights in the often-chauvinistic world of Wall Street, was in part a product of the sisters' friendship with rail baron Cornelius Vanderbilt.

All three were fiercely interested in spirituality -- as children, Tennessee and Victoria performed psychic demonstrations in a traveling medicine show -- and Vanderbilt willingly used his money and influence to help the sisters.

The firm proved to be a success, but Victoria and Tennessee's achievements were hardly restricted to Wall Street. In 1870, the sisters established a publication, Woodhull and Claflin's Weekly, which became a pulpit for their ardent beliefs in free love and women's suffrage and also served as the first venue for the English translation of the Communist Manifesto.

Though her rejection of the tenets of conventional marriage raised the ire of some suffragettes, Victoria became a leading light in the women's rights movement. In 1872, the Equal Rights Party, a dissident branch of the National Woman's Suffrage Association, even nominated Woodhull as their candidate for the president of the nation.

Despite her stated aversion to the principles of marriage, Victoria wedded several times; later in life she headed to England and married an affluent British merchant, as did her sister. Tennessee died in 1923, while Victoria passed away a few years later, in 1927.

Source: History.com