A fresh look at the life and times of Victoria Woodhull and Tennie Claflin, two sisters whose radical views on sex, love, politics, and business threatened the white male power structure of the nineteenth century and shocked the world. Here award-winning author Myra MacPherson deconstructs and lays bare the manners and mores of Victorian America, remarkably illuminating the struggle for equality that women are still fighting today.Victoria Woodhull and Tennessee "Tennie" Claflin-the most fascinating and scandalous sisters in American history-were unequaled for their vastly avant-garde crusade for women's fiscal, political, and sexual independence. They escaped a tawdry childhood to become rich and famous, achieving a stunning list of firsts. In 1870 they became the first women to open a brokerage firm, not to be repeated for nearly a century. Amid high gossip that he was Tennie's lover, the richest man in America, fabled tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt, bankrolled the sisters. As beautiful as they were audacious, the sisters drew a crowd of more than two thousand Wall Street bankers on opening day. A half century before women could vote, Victoria used her Wall Street fame to become the first woman to run for president, choosing former slave Frederick Douglass as her running mate. She was also the first woman to address a United States congressional committee. Tennie ran for Congress and shocked the world by becoming the honorary colonel of a black regiment.They were the first female publishers of a radical weekly, and the first to print Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto in America. As free lovers they railed against Victorian hypocrisy and exposed the alleged adultery of Henry Ward Beecher, the most famous preacher in America, igniting the "Trial of the Century" that rivaled the Civil War for media coverage. Eventually banished from the women's movement while imprisoned for allegedly sending "obscenity" through the mail, the sisters sashayed to London and married two of the richest men in England, dining with royalty while pushing for women's rights well into the twentieth century. Vividly telling their story, Myra MacPherson brings these inspiring and outrageous sisters brilliantly to life.

A portrait of the twentieth-century independent journalist offers insight into his outspoken, five-decade pursuit of truthful, anti-establishment journalism, in an account that includes coverage of his denouncements of Cold War policies, McCarthyism, andthe Vietnam Gulf of Tonkin incident.

Product Description: Praise for the original edition:""A haunting chorus of voices, a moving deeply disturbing evocation of an era."" -- San Francisco Chronicle""Myra MacPherson's book belongs with the best of the works on Vietnam, and there has been no better body of war literature that I know of...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

An award-winning journalist, inspired by her own losses, closely observed one woman's two-year struggle with breast cancer; illustrates how Anna's friends, family, and caregivers have dealt with her illness and death; and offers inspiration to readers dealing with their own grief. 40,000 first printing. (view table of contents)