DARWIN, M. F.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

One Moral Standard For All. First edition, first printing, of this biographical pamphlet celebrating the lives of the first women stockbrokers. Woodhull (1838-1927) and Claflin (1846-1923) were key figures in American first-wave feminism as advocates for women's education, employment, and free love. "Their history is really the history of women in America during the last half century" (Introduction).After making a living as clairvoyants and spiritual healers in the Midwest, the sisters moved to New York during the late 1860s. They opened their Wall Street brokerage firm, Woodhull, Claflin & Co., on 19 January 1870, to prove that "woman, no less than man, can qualify herself for the more onerous occupations of life" (Robb, p. 114). With some initial support from Claflin's lover Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794-1877) and the extensive publicity generated by a press fascinated with the "Queens of Finance", their firm was relatively profitable at first. They cornered a source of investment capital - the fortunes and business interests of women - which other brokerages had, either deliberately or otherwise, failed to tap. However, the sisters' energies soon drifted to other causes and, helped by the Panic of 1873, the brokerage house closed its doors the same year. "However brief, perfunctory, and ultimately unsuccessful Woodhull and Claflin's brokerage career proved to be, it remains an important watershed in women's history" (ibid., p. 121).Undeterred, Claflin and Woodhull continued t

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