This Day…

1919 – The U.S. Congress enacted the Volstead Act, also known as the National Prohibition Act. Prohibition was repealed in 1933 with the passing of the 21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

This Day…

1838 – Sep 23, Victoria Chaflin Woodhull (d.1927), American presidential candidate (1872), was born into a family of charlatans in Ohio. Woodhull, a militant suffragist, advocated free love and was Wall Street’s first female broker after attracting Cornelius Vanderbilt. She was the first woman to address Congress. Her story is documented in “The Woman Who Ran for President: The Many Lives of Victoria Woodhull” by Lois Beachy Underhill. In 1998 Mary Gabriel published “Notorious Victoria: The Life of Victoria Woodhull, Uncensored. In 1998 Barbara Goldsmith published “Other Powers–The Age of Suffrage, Spiritualism and the Scandalous Victoria Woodhull.”