Notes from my Knapsack 3-26-2026
Jeff Gill
Mrs. Martin, in her manor house thinking back
___
Victoria Claflin, child of Homer, Ohio, and honored woman in Granville as Victoria C. Woodhull, led an epic life literally from coast to coast of the United States, and in her last half-century all over Great Britain.
Her nearly fifty years a wealthy woman in the English countryside are a lesser known aspect of her story; they do play a role in why one of her all too few memorials is a marker behind the high altar of Tewkesbury Abbey, honoring her as "Victoria Woodhull Martin" as she was known in that neighborhood, whose good works went into the fabric of the massive church and to preserve the green lawns around it.
The monument includes crossed U.S. and British flags, and it hints at why her resting place is not there; she gave her daughter Zula instructions to have her body cremated after her death in 1927, to be scattered in the Atlantic midway between the two nations.
Mrs. Martin was not titled, but in her thirty years of widowhood, she lived among and entertained those who were, in London and on her Norton Park estate near Tewkesbury. Her banker husband sent many notes as he traveled for work and health before his death ended a twenty-year marriage, and almost all of them, well into their respective fifties, were signed "Your loving boy."
What clouds this last phase of her life is the passion she had for "stirpiculture," better known as human eugenics. Mrs. Martin on her estate continued to write and publish to advance this idea, that human happiness could be ensured by controlling who had children. The through line for this belief of hers is the first marriage she entered into having just turned 15 years old, and her first child, Byron, whose disabilities we do not fully understand today, but who was cognitively a child all his life, even to his death at 77.
Victoria believed that the trauma of her marriage, and her confused and unhappy relations with her husband (who by all accounts was a terrible person), were why her child had disabilities. That belief was at the heart of her "free love" declarations, rooted in the idea that happy marital relations result in happy children, and vice versa. In an era when germ theory, anesthetic in childbirth, & surgical hygiene was still all controversial, we can excuse her mistaken beliefs.
The tragedy is that this error led her further into the mistaken belief that social control of who can marry whom, and how many children each should have - including sterilization of "the unfit" - would result in contentment for all. Her arguments for eugenics are profoundly discomforting to read.
In four columns, I've barely touched on the range and scope of Victoria Woodhull's work. She deserved to be remembered for more than mistakes or the mischaracterizations of others, but living as she did in the middle of vast social tumult, her story gets caught up in many narratives. I appreciate the work of people like Mary L. Shearer in Illinois, a descendant of Victoria's second husband (whom I've barely mentioned!) who has worked hard to clear up accounts of their life together, and locally Dr. Judith Dann, a scholar of Victoria Woodhull's life, has done excellent work in print, and at public presentations.
I hope you are intrigued enough to read a bit on your own about our "Notorious Victoria," and draw your own conclusions.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's read more books about Victoria Woodhull than he can account for. Tell him what you found interesting at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on X.
Jeff Gill
Mrs. Martin, in her manor house thinking back
___
Victoria Claflin, child of Homer, Ohio, and honored woman in Granville as Victoria C. Woodhull, led an epic life literally from coast to coast of the United States, and in her last half-century all over Great Britain.
Her nearly fifty years a wealthy woman in the English countryside are a lesser known aspect of her story; they do play a role in why one of her all too few memorials is a marker behind the high altar of Tewkesbury Abbey, honoring her as "Victoria Woodhull Martin" as she was known in that neighborhood, whose good works went into the fabric of the massive church and to preserve the green lawns around it.
The monument includes crossed U.S. and British flags, and it hints at why her resting place is not there; she gave her daughter Zula instructions to have her body cremated after her death in 1927, to be scattered in the Atlantic midway between the two nations.
Mrs. Martin was not titled, but in her thirty years of widowhood, she lived among and entertained those who were, in London and on her Norton Park estate near Tewkesbury. Her banker husband sent many notes as he traveled for work and health before his death ended a twenty-year marriage, and almost all of them, well into their respective fifties, were signed "Your loving boy."
What clouds this last phase of her life is the passion she had for "stirpiculture," better known as human eugenics. Mrs. Martin on her estate continued to write and publish to advance this idea, that human happiness could be ensured by controlling who had children. The through line for this belief of hers is the first marriage she entered into having just turned 15 years old, and her first child, Byron, whose disabilities we do not fully understand today, but who was cognitively a child all his life, even to his death at 77.
Victoria believed that the trauma of her marriage, and her confused and unhappy relations with her husband (who by all accounts was a terrible person), were why her child had disabilities. That belief was at the heart of her "free love" declarations, rooted in the idea that happy marital relations result in happy children, and vice versa. In an era when germ theory, anesthetic in childbirth, & surgical hygiene was still all controversial, we can excuse her mistaken beliefs.
The tragedy is that this error led her further into the mistaken belief that social control of who can marry whom, and how many children each should have - including sterilization of "the unfit" - would result in contentment for all. Her arguments for eugenics are profoundly discomforting to read.
In four columns, I've barely touched on the range and scope of Victoria Woodhull's work. She deserved to be remembered for more than mistakes or the mischaracterizations of others, but living as she did in the middle of vast social tumult, her story gets caught up in many narratives. I appreciate the work of people like Mary L. Shearer in Illinois, a descendant of Victoria's second husband (whom I've barely mentioned!) who has worked hard to clear up accounts of their life together, and locally Dr. Judith Dann, a scholar of Victoria Woodhull's life, has done excellent work in print, and at public presentations.
I hope you are intrigued enough to read a bit on your own about our "Notorious Victoria," and draw your own conclusions.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's read more books about Victoria Woodhull than he can account for. Tell him what you found interesting at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on X.
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