The amazing life of the first woman to run for US president

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Victoria Woodhull by Bradley & Rulofson

Wikimedia Commons

Victoria Woodhull by Bradley and Rulofson.

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US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is not the first woman to run for President.

As Janet Tavakoli at Tavakoli Structured Finance pointed out on Monday, the first female nominee was in fact over a century ago in 1872.

Victoria Woodhall, also the first woman to work on Wall Street, secured the third party nomination by the Equal Rights party in the 1872 election.

Her opponents were Horace Greeley for the Liberal Republican Party and incumbent President Ulysses S. Grant of the Radial Republican Party.

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Grant won, but Woodhall, along with her VP candidate Frederick Douglass, put up a good fight 48 years before women were even able to vote.

Her story is one of adversity and optimism - a rags to riches story of a woman from a small rural town in Ohio who made it to Wall Street and then the presidential race.

Scroll down to read more about Woodhall's incredible life:

Lucinda Shen contributed to an earlier version of this post.