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Barbara Goldsmith
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Other Powers: the Age of Suffrage, Spiritualism, and the Scandalous Victoria Woodhull Paperback – March 24, 1999

by Barbara Goldsmith (Author)
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 78 ratings
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Barbara Goldsmith's portrait of suffragette Victoria Woodhull and her times was hailed by George Plimpton as "a beautifully written biography of a remarkable woman" and by Gloria Steinem as "more memorable than a dozen histories."

A highly readable combination of history and biography, Other Powers interviews the stories of some of the most colorful social, political, and religious figures of America's Victorian era with the courageous and notorious life of Victoria Woodhull--psychic, suffragette, publisher, presidential candidate, and self-confessed practitioner of free love. It is set amid the battle for women's suffrage, the Spiritualist movement that swept across the nation in the age of Radical Reconstruction following the Civil War, and the bitter fight that pitted black men against white women in the struggle for the right to vote.

Peter Gay found Other Powers "Irresistible...this is a biography guaranteed to keep the reader reading." And Gloria Steinem called it "A real-life novel of how one charismatic woman...turned women's suffrage, the church, New York City, and much of the country on its ear."

Previous page
  1. Reading age
    1 year and up
  2. Print length
    560 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Dimensions
    8.1 x 5.31 x 1.48 inches
  5. Publisher
    Harper Perennial
  6. Publication date
    March 24, 1999
  7. ISBN-10
    0060953322
  8. ISBN-13
    978-0060953324
  9. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

From The New Yorker

"An often brilliant, multi-tentacled exploration of Victorian sexual politics."

Review

"Ms. Goldsmith's absorbing, sweeping book is a portrait of an age, with the scandalous Victoria Woodhull' at its center. . . . [With] the richness of its narrative, the complex and morally nuanced portraits of its characters . . . you finish Ms. Goldsmith's extraordinary story nearly out of breath . . . astonished at the tragic heroism of the flawed character who tried to challenge the American establishment."-- Richard Bernstein, "New York Times""What a great cast of mountebanks, lechers, spiritualists, sexual revolutionaries, and scheming politicians populate Barbara Goldsmith's fine portrait of an era that resembles the 1990's in America."-- Jim Hoagland"Immensely readable . . . a masterly job."-- "San Francisco Chronicle"An often brilliant, multi-tentacled exploration of Victorian sexual politics."-- "The New Yorker""Goldsmith's research into Woodhull's milieu is prodigious, and the story she has to tell is never less than fascinating."-- "Boston Globe""[Goldsmith] is a master of quotation, smoothly extracting from one after another lengthy letter or transcript the nub that captures the human heart of the matter being addressed."-- "Los Angeles Times""A meticulously researched, marvelous rendering of an intriguing era and one of the women who helped make it so. . . . History is anything but boring when Victoria Woodhull is the topic."-- "Kirkus Reviews""History at its finest: vivid, inclusive, insightful."-- "Booklist""It's hard not to be swept away in [Goldsmith's] remarkable story."-- "Chicago Tribune

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harper Perennial; First Edition (March 24, 1999)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 560 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0060953322
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0060953324
  • Reading age ‏ : ‎ 1 year and up
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 15.7 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.1 x 5.31 x 1.48 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 78 ratings

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Barbara Goldsmith

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Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
78 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Brittany Christensen
5.0 out of 5 stars Engaging read
Reviewed in the United States on September 6, 2023
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I really loved this book just be prepared, the details of what life was like for women during these times is certainly not “light reading.” But if you don’t scare easy it’s really interesting!
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Alicia Crumpton
5.0 out of 5 stars Spiritualism, Suffrage, and Sex
Reviewed in the United States on October 18, 2013
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What more could you ask for than a story interlacing spiritualism, suffrage, and sex?! Goldsmith masterfully tells us the story of Victoria Woodhull. Gone is the need to present a pristine sugary view of a woman who lived from 1838 to 1927. I laughed at times thinking - wow! I bet this gal turned some people on their head! LOL Goldsmith is such a good writer, in her introduction she described some of the surprises she noticed as she researched this book. For example, "Perhaps the most startling discovery was the extent to which spiritualism and the inception of woman's rights were intertwined" (p. xiii).

In describing Woodhull, Goldsmith noted: "[she] pictured herself as 'the evangel' but she was, in fact, a woman before her time. Her views on marriage and divorce and the sexual equality she called 'free love' are relevant today" (p. xv). Later Woodhull was described as "She was. . . the spirituality, the 'high priestess' of free love, the crusading editor, the San Francisco actress and part time prostitute, the founder of the first stock brokerage firm for women, the disciple of Karl Marx, the blackmailer, the presidential candidate, the sinner, and the saint" (p. 7).

This book is the story of Virginia Woodhull - a woman who defined life by her own terms and lived it according to her moral compass. A wonderful biography!
8 people found this helpful
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Dallis Radamaker
4.0 out of 5 stars Great Read - Major Premise Not Convincing
Reviewed in the United States on March 22, 2006
I came to this book having read Emanie Sachs' 1927 Woodhull biography, which sharpened my appetite for a more completely researched version of the story. Barbara Goldsmith provides this, clearing up many points left obscure by the earlier work, in a well-organized, highly readable narrative.

The great weakness of the book, to my mind, is Goldsmith's eagerness to excuse and forgive her heroine's faults and to make her into more than she was. Woodhull's fascination has to do with her adventurous rise from a really sordid childhood as part of a frontier family of illiterate frauds and thieves to a position of national prominence -- lecturing on the leading social issues of the day; publishing a newspaper; running for President of the United States!; testifying before Congress on women's rights; running a Wall-Street brokerage firm; then losing it all and being thrown into jail; then miraculously recovering to establish a new life in a new country, finally dying peacefully in extreme old age, having lived for decades as a kind of rural Lady Bountiful as mistress of an English country estate.

What is glossed over in Goldsmith's narrative is the extent to which all her story revolves around two big pots of money Woodhull got by immense good luck -- both from Commodore Vanderbilt.

She arrived in New York in 1870, hoping to earn a living there from prostitution, from holding seances where people could communicate for a fee with departed family members, and from other vulgar schemes she had practiced with her family all her life. Right away, she managed to press herself on the immensely wealthy Commodore Vanderbilt, who had recently lost his mother and was eager to communicate with her beyond the grave. Then, Victoria obtained inside knowledge from a prostitute who had become the mistress of the famous financier and stock exchange manipulator, Jim Fisk, of a plan to run a railroad stock up to a pre-arranged price, before letting it fall. Woodhull was able to pass this information to Vanderbilt, who invested heavily in the shares in question and sold out at the planned price, just before the stock collapsed. Vanderbilt paid Woodhull half his earnings from this scam, which came to about $700,000, transforming her in one fell sweep from a pauper to one of the wealthiest women in America.

All the rest of what she did was based on the combination of this money and her need for attention -- the stock brokerage was a mere front for the Vanderbilt interests and never made her any money; the presidential candidacy and newspaper were publicity stunts undertaken to promote the ideas of suffragists and social reformers of all kinds who were drawn to her by the magnet of her cash, and flattered her. Practically every word she spoke in her lectures and every word she wrote in her newspaper was actually written by these other people. These same people all helped her run through her unexpected fortune pretty quickly. When the money was gone she tried to get more by using her newspaper to blackmail public figures with threats to write about their sex lives, but got thrown into jail instead. Broke and near dispair she proved how much the gods loved her by suddenly and even more unexpectedly acquiring a new pot of money. Commodore Vanderbilt died, leaving a will which gave small annuities to nine of his children and the rest of his immense fortune to one favored son. Some of the disfavored children challenged the will, claiming their father had been mentally incompetent, and that the proof of it was his association with spiritualists and similar crackpots. Fearing that Victoria's testimony would endanger the will on which his fortune depended, the Vanderbilt heir bought her a house in London; opened a bank account there in her name with a large balance and asked her kindly to go there and never come back. Which she did.

All the great achievements of her life -- First woman presidential candidate! First woman stockbroker! Fiery advocate of women's rights and marriage reform! have to be seen in the light of these facts. When seen in that light, there is very little left of them, making it perfectly understandable why Victoria Woodhull was so eagerly forgotten by the womens' movement and by progressives generally after her race was run.

Doesn't make her life story any less fun though. Wow!!

Dallis
6 people found this helpful
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Tom Smith
5.0 out of 5 stars A compelling and eye opening look at early American Feminism
Reviewed in the United States on August 22, 2021
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If you are looking for a book that deifies the mothers of American suffrage keep looking. This poignant history of 'the cause' shows just how niece and bitchy the real women were. Political manipulation,adultery,back stabbing, and treachery were the order of the day ... But so was commitment, sisterhood, and bravery. These were real people, not icons. They were determined and, in the end, denied. Above all they were/are fascinating.

A wonderful read with a true feel for the era.
5 people found this helpful
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Sandra Glidewell
5.0 out of 5 stars Great condition
Reviewed in the United States on March 5, 2022
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Great condition. I am reading this book now but I am very impressed with the way it arrived. It was packaged so well. I got this used but it is in really good condition and the seller went above and beyond with the packaging of this book.
One person found this helpful
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musicforever
5.0 out of 5 stars History Came Alive For Me
Reviewed in the United States on June 7, 2013
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I never particularly like American History as it was taught when I was growing up (memorizing lots of names of men, battles, and dates) - it was boring and didn't make a lot of sense to me. But this book brought that whole period of the 1800s alive because it's dealing with what drives history - the kind of spirituality and inquiry that flooded the country then, with women's lives and their push for equality, as well as nitty gritty information on the intertwining of the lives of power players at that time. Who knew there were so many politicians consulting mediums, or the degree of sexual and utopian-living experimentation going on. It's clear to me that the 1960s-70s were a resonant echo of what was begun then. So well written.
6 people found this helpful
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Love a good Book
5.0 out of 5 stars FASCINATING portal into Victorian America and the plight of women.
Reviewed in the United States on June 18, 2015
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Barbara Goldsmith opens the portal to transform you into the Nineteenth century and exposes in entertaining detail the plight of women in Victorian America. This book impressed me so much that I found myself writing an fictionalized account of Victoria Woodhull's life. Ms. Goldsmith, you kindled a fire that has grown into a roaring flame. I had to buy a second hardback edition of your book, as my paperback was so marked up and torn apart, I have to keep a rubber band around it! Thank you for your inspiration.
5 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

D Nelson
5.0 out of 5 stars Not showing in Kindle
Reviewed in Canada on February 12, 2020
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I ordered the Kindle version of this book and it does not show in the library. I am having to read it on Kindle Cloud.
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Kate2tech
5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome Seller 😀
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 2, 2016
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This book is a great historical piece of work that covers an era many people are unaware of. Five stars for the seller - great service and quick despatch, thank you very much indeed
One person found this helpful
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Tim Smith
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 8, 2018
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very promising ideas
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Terry Ames
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in Canada on September 17, 2016
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An excellent biography, fascinating description of a period now passed.
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