The Scarlet Sisters: Sex, Suffrage, and Scandal in the Gilded Age - Hardcover

"Myra McPherson's THE SCARLET SISTERS vividly and entertainingly brings to life a long lost chapter of American history that will surprise anyone who thinks that feminism is a twentieth century invention. It's both a great tale, and a great read."--Jane Mayer, staff writer for the "New Yorker" and author of "The Dark Side" "[A] sweeping, engaging new biography." ""Boston Globe""" "Woodhull and Claflin deserve credit for crashing the glass front doors of Wall Street, Washington, and bedrooms across the country a century and a half ago. These too long neglected amazing pioneers of the Gilded Age are brought to life in Myra MacPherson's energetic, well researched, and enthralling book."--Kenneth D. Ackerman, author of The Gold Ring: Jim Fisk, Jay Gould, and Black Friday, 1869 "Myra MacPherson is a treasure among American historians. In [her] riveting, often uproarious chronicle, the Sisters' crusades against benighted convention were but the onset of a righteous firestorm that continues to arc into our times."--Ron Powers, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, novelist, and author of Mark Twain: A Life "Read the epilogue first, to understand immediately why THE SCARLET SISTERS resonates so richly in today's political world. Myra MacPherson's rich understanding of the threads connecting these colorful pioneers to our contentious twenty-first century issues is wonderfully instructive."--Lynn Sherr, author of Failure Is Impossible: Susan B. Anthony in Her Own Words and the forthcoming Sally Ride: America's First Woman in Space "Ordinarily, one would look to the fiction of Twain or Dickens to find a nineteenth-century tale to match the real-life saga of the sisters Claflin-Woodhull. Happily, Myra MacPherson has rediscovered these proto-feminists. Their rebellion against Victorian sexual enslavement and the power of white males captivated and infuriated their contemporaries for good reason, and left a mark that resonates today."--Carl Bernstein, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, author of A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton, and coauthor of All the President's Men (with Bob Woodward) "As someone who reads everything that is published about American women's history, I give THE SCARLET SISTERS my seal of approval. In fact, I think I'm going to read it again! It is that good."--Bookreporter "Sensational...MacPherson gives a detailed portrait of the roller-coaster, rags-to-riches lives of two backwoods country girls, who, seeking to better their own situation, hoped to do the same for women everywhere..."--Booklist "'MacPherson crusades' for 19th century feminists."--Vanity Fair "If the subject of Gilded Age women brings to mind buccaneers in gently rustling hoop skirts rather than feminist firebrands, Myra MacPherson's fascinating dual biography...may go a long way in changing that."--Vogue.com "Myra MacPherson's THE SCARLET SISTERS vividly and entertainingly brings to life a long lost chapter of American history that will surprise anyone who thinks that feminism is a twentieth century invention. It's both a great tale, and a great read."--Jane Mayer, staff writer for the New Yorker and author of The Dark Side "If the Scarlet Sisters hadn't existed, feminism would have had to invent them. Myra MacPherson writes the story of these fearless and path-breaking nineteenth-century radicals with her trademark energy and wit. This sisterhood is indeed powerful."--Ellen Goodman, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and coauthor of I Know Just What You Mean: The Power of Friendship in Women's Lives (with Patricia O'Brien) "THE SCARLET SISTERS has everything--from history and intrigue, to sex and money. Myra MacPherson has written this book with the care and professionalism of the great reporter she is but also with the wit, wisdom, and flair of the great novelist she definitely could be. A fabulous delight of a read."--Jim Lehrer, former host of PBS NewsHour, playwright, and author of Top Down: A Novel of the Kennedy Assassination "Victoria Woodhull is one of the great unsung characters of American history--a beauty, a radical activist, a con artist, and a true revolutionary who pushed every boundary and every button that the century offered. THE SCARLET SISTERS is a roller-coaster ride though American history that will amaze and delight readers."--Debby Applegate, Pulitzer Prize winner for The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher "MacPherson aims her wit and very sharp pen at a side of the suffrage movement rarely seen in history books, epitomized by these two real sisters...she takes us on a raucous romp through secret trysts, their self-published weekly advocating free speech and free love, sensational trials, fortune-telling, Spiritualism and brushes with the most powerful capitalists and revolutionaries of the time. Along the way the sisters set the suffrage movement on fire--albeit briefly--with their modern ideas, fiery rhetoric and passion for women's rights."--Los Angeles Daily Journal "MacPherson, an award-winning journalist, takes a theatrical approach to these radical proceedings. She provides a cast of characters and unfolds the sisters' story over the course of five irresistible 'acts.' This is a grand tale presented on a grand scale."--Bookpage "A lively account of the unlikely lives of the two most symbiotic and scandalous sisters in American History."--The New Yorker "[In] MacPherson's enchanting dual biography...the epilogue hammers home that even in 2014 men use women's bodies as political bargaining chips."--The Washington Post "In this sweeping, engaging new biography, Myra MacPherson chronicles lives that intersected with nearly all of the era's great themes and famous figures."--Boston Globe

Victoria Claflin Woodhull and Tennessee 'Tennie' Claflin were true American originals. These vastly forward-thinking sisters' push for women's fiscal, political, and sexual independence placed them among the most fascinating, flamboyant, and scandalous women of the 19th century. In just a few decades, they achieved a stunning list of firsts: half a century before women could vote, Victoria became the first woman to run for president, choosing former slave Frederick Douglass as her running mate; Tennie ran for congress and shocked the world by becoming the honorary colonel of a black regiment. Together, they opened the first brokerage house run by women, not only surviving 1869's infamous Black Friday, but actually making money, and were bankrolled by legendary tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt amid high gossip that he was Tennie's lover. They were the first female publishers of a radical weekly newspaper, leaders in the Spiritualist movement, and heroines among the liberal wing of Suffragettes for revealing Victorian hypocrisy in their speeches and in Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly. In exposing Henry Ward Beecher's alleged adulterous affair they took on the most famous preacher in America and starred in the 'Trial of the Century' that rivaled the Civil War for media coverage. Telling their story with vivid and engaging detail, award-winning historian Myra MacPherson brings these inspiring and outrageous sisters brilliantly to life, and in doing so deconstructs the manners and mores of Victorian America.