Historical fictionalized account of Victoria Woodhull's rise to presidential candidate and wealth, coming from poverty and abuse.
What compels a woman and her youngest sister to overcome abject poverty and violent abuse to grow up to defy convention and obliterate every barrier to become the first women to own and operate a Wall Street brokerage firm and publish their own newspaper?
How did Victoria Claflin Woodhull (1838 - 1927) become the first woman invited to speak to the United State Congress, and then the first female to run for president. What made Tennessee Celeste Claflin (1845 - 1923) so beguiling that the richest man in America, Cornelius Vanderbilt, fell completely in love with her?
What caused the sisters to live out their long lives as royalty and peerage in Europe. Victoria living as landed gentry outside of London, and Tennessee in a huge castle like a queen? Why aren't these empowered and independent women iconic in our culture?
Volume One of The Victoria Woodhull Saga tells the poignant, lascivious, and compelling inside story of how the sisters worked closely with Cornelius Vanderbilt, who at age 74 fell in love with the beguiling 24-year old Tennessee. Victoria provided the titan of industry "Inside Her Information" gathered through the soiled sisterhood, the ladies of the evening working at the top seven brothels servicing the rich and famous of New York City.
This relationship resulted in the great lion of industry having his last public roar as together they manipulated the financial markets and created the impending collapse of the U.S. economy in the gold scandal of 1869. To avert the crash, President Ulysses S. Grant provides the richest man in America insider information on the gold market and telegrams Vanderbilt that his railroad company is "Too Big To Fail!" Vanderbilt was proclaimed "The Savior of the American Economy" for intervening in a crisis he helped create.
View Victorian America through the eyes and thoughts of one of its leading heroines, Victoria Woodhull. Watch as the infighting and elitism of the earliest suffrage women denigrating, castigating, and denouncing other passionate suffrage rights women delayed woman suffrage and equal legal standing for five decades. Learn wonderful anecdotes of the origins of products and phrases used today. Learn the story of Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, the most popular man in America, who transformed Christianity from his father's fire and brimstone theology to one of a compassionate and loving Jesus, who will redeem all who turn to salvation with complete confession of their sins. The reverend's personal life did not imitate his lofty and popular theology of his weekly sermons at Plymouth Church. He was a notorious womanizer, often bedding, and sometimes impregnating the wives, sisters, and daughters of his most ardent trackers and deacons of the church.
Written in the first person from Victoria's viewpoint, Neal Katz weaves a compelling page-turning story that cleverly unfolds history while providing a wonderfully entertaining ride. Katz has pledged one half of book sale proceeds to charities dedicating to the empowerment and sustainable economic improvement of women, especially single mothers.
"Victoria Woodhull is one of the most fascinating but forgotten characters in American history. She deserves to be better known by anyone who cares about gender equality and the ongoing fight to make America a more tolerant and just country- kudos to Neal Katz for bringing her story to life for a new generation of readers." -Debby Applegate, Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher "I can't believe this is Neal's first book. Incredibly well written, this is an important work. I see a national bestseller and a long running series." -Victor Villasenor, National bestselling author of Rain of Gold, Three time Pulitzer Prize nominee, and author of Revenge of a Catholic Schoolboy "This is a very well written historical fiction novel that immediately draws you in with believable dialogue and a subject matter that makes you want to know more. Based on the lives of Victoria Woodhull and her sister, Tennessee, you quickly learn how rough life was for many women in the 1800s. The book takes you on an eye opening journey from forced prostitution to the women's rights movement to rubbing elbows with the Vanderbilts. Every step along the way, Katz does a wonderful job of making you feel like you were really there." -Thomas Lopinski, Author of The Art of Raising Hell "The book captures your heart and soul from the very first pages. What's truly remarkable is that you are given a glimpse of history in the making from a very intimate point of view." -Betse Bernstein, Holistic Health Practitioner "I am impressed with the personality profiles. Neal clearly grasps the long term, psychological impact of the fugue coping mechanism, or taking flight, the identity disappearing, or creating an alternate, safer reality in response to trauma. Well done." -Mojgan Jahan, Psy.D., Clinical Psychologist
