Dejana Vukadinović
Feature, BBC journalist
In a small student room, surrounded by piles of books and papers, I draw the last atoms of strength to finish my master's thesis.
It's November, 2016 - Americans are electing the 45th president in a few days.
There are two names on the ballot: Donald Trump, the controversial billionaire, and Hillary Clinton, former secretary of state and wife of former president Bill Clinton.
"Is Hillary Clinton the first woman to run for the highest office in America?", I ask myself as I rub my sleepy eyes.
After a quick search on the internet, I found out that the Americans had their first presidential candidate back in 1872 - Victoria Woodhull.
Her biography is like Hollywood movies, shrouded in mystery, leaving room for imagination and speculation.
As a child, she told fortunes, practiced spiritualism and healing, was active on the New York Stock Exchange, started a weekly newspaper with her sister, fought for equal rights and ran for president - and all this in the 19th century.
She was also attributed the role of a temptress, but there is no proven evidence.
A few years later, our paths cross again.
Almost everything is the same, the American elections are approaching: Donald Trump is chasing a second term, and his rival is again his wife - Kamala Harris.
Does the candidate of the Democratic Party know who paved the way for women and opened the door to politics?
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'Fearless and ambitious'
One of the first photos that appears when Victoria Woodhull's name is typed on the Internet is her portrait from the second half of the 19th century.
She is leaning on a wooden table, in a long skirt, with a hat and a bow tie, in an unbuttoned jacket with a white shirt peeking out from under it.
He poses, at that time, for one of the most famous American photographers, Matthew Brady.
There are only a couple of preserved photographs of Victoria Woodhall, but in each of them her gaze is penetrating and daring.
Such an image of her was acquired by Džakelin Kolosov, who heard about this, as she says, brave and unusual woman quite by chance.
"She was fearless and ambitious, she advocated for social justice, changes to divorce laws so that women could leave abusive husbands, and she fought for equal rights," says Kolosov, the author of the book. Victoria Woodhull, the first presidential candidate.
"I was fascinated by the story and wanted to write a book, because women like her should be talked about," she explains to the BBC.
'Child without childhood'
Victoria Woodhull's life story begins in the small town of Homer, in the American state of Ohio.
She grew up in a large family and was introduced to the world of spiritualism as a girl.
She finished only three grades of primary school, because her family moved often.
Her father sold medicinal herbs from place to place, presenting himself as a herbalist (vidar), and forced her and her sister Tennessee to conduct spiritual séances and act as prophetesses.
I imagine an unfolded tent where a girl with curly hair and closed eyes is sitting on a wooden chair, in a trance, while impatient people take turns in front of her, ready to give their last breath to get back in touch with the loved ones they lost.
Victoria later said that she was "a child without childhood", because their father abused them.
When she was only 15, she married a man almost twice her age, Dr. Kaning Woodhall.
It is not certain whether she was forced or whether she decided to marry and run away from her family, just as it is difficult to verify many details from her biography.
She had two children with the doctor, but not a happy marriage.
He physically abused her, spending all the money on alcohol, which is why she had to work several jobs to support the children.
As long as one day she did not decide to leave him and join her sister, who was working as a healer at the time.
"Petticoats among animals"
The turning point in her life was going to New York, where she joined her sister and returned to spiritualism and clairvoyance.
Among their clients was Cornelius Vanderbilt, a railroad magnate, and at that time one of the richest men in America.
He wanted the sisters to help him get in touch with his deceased wife.
Soon the business relationship will turn into a friendly one.
"Perhaps it is somewhat mystical and abstract today, but spiritualism in the 19th century was among the most powerful religious movements," points out Dzhakelin Kolosov.
Acquaintance with the Vanderbilt sisters will pave the way to the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street.
There are records that during 1869, Victoria Woodhull offered psychic services in front of the gold exchange, in order to buy shares with the money earned.
She allegedly earned about 700.000 dollars at the time - today that sum would be more than 16 million - enough money to open a brokerage firm with her sister in 1870.
No woman before them had succeeded in this.
They were also called "enchanting brokers" and "queens of finance".
"Petticoats among animals," it read one of the newspaper headlines.
Victoria also joined the movement for women's rights, which became increasingly vocal in the second half of the 19th century.
He will write about the ideas of the movement in the weekly Woodhull and Claflin’s Weekly, which she started with her sister.
And in that, the first women were.
"They promoted progressive political reforms and published the first edition Communist Manifesto Karl Marx in English," says writer Kolosov.
A communist work about the class struggle in capitalist America - it sounds like an insert from a science fiction movie.
She made waves on the political scene addressing to the US House of Representatives, one of the two bodies of Congress, the highest administrative and legislative body of America, which until then was only allowed to men.
She waved papers in front of confused but angry men, surrounded by a few female congressmen, claiming that the 14th and 15th Amendments to the US Constitution already guaranteed women the right to vote.
However, women in America had to wait for that right until 1920.
Even today, it is not known who enabled her to speak in the House of Representatives.
'Election Day in a Prison Cell'
Victoria Woodhull is making history again with her presidential candidacy, which she officially announced in her weekly.
It was the first time that a woman ran for the highest position in the country.
She was nominated in 1872 by the newly founded Equal Rights Party, at a convention held in Manhattan, New York.
"The Party's choice for presidential candidate is Victoria Woodhull," was heard over the public address system, followed by five minutes of chanting.
In a black dress, decorated with a blue tie, Woodhall, then 34 years old, she accepted the nomination a small party that advocated for women's rights.
But the campaign did not go smoothly.
Her radical views on free love, yes everyone has a right to marry, divorce and give birth to children without interference from the government, they were not receptive to communism and spiritualism at that time.
A few days before the election New York police arrest her for publishing a story about the affair of influential Brooklyn priest Henry Ward Beecher with a married woman.
He will spend election day in a prison cell.
And if she was free, she wouldn't have been able to circle her own name on the ballot, because it's the 19th century and women still don't have the right to vote.
More than 150 years have passed, and America still hasn't had a female president, although many seasoned female politicians have fought for the nomination of one of the country's two major parties.
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'She had nothing, but she achieved a lot'
After his release from prison, Woodhull moved to Great Britain and dedicated himself to education reform and humanitarian work.
It will happen very soon join the British women's rights movement.
And in London, she gave speeches about free love, which according to writing New York Times, people listened en masse.
Among them was the banker John B. Martin, whom Victoria Woodhull would soon marry.
After his death, she moves to Brenton Norton, not far from London, where she will invest money in repairing the road, school and local church.
Another Victoria will walk the streets of Brenton Norton years later.
American Victoria Lian Wilson was filming the last sequences of a documentary film about her namesake, whom she happened to hear about, with a small team.
"Once you take a peek into the world of Victoria Woodhull, you are forever captivated by her personality.
"A fearless, attractive woman, who shook the society of the time with her attitudes and thoughts," says director Victoria Lian Wilson for the BBC.
During the filming, she met "an older man who also showed me where her house was", she tells me in a phone conversation that we have in the late hours due to the time difference.
He remembered the story of an unusual American woman who was said to be responsible for this English town having street lights, a post office and a telephone.
That information it is stated and in work Satan's Repentance: A New History by Victoria Woodhall, Alene R. Pirok at the University of Illinois.
Studying the life of Victoria Woodhull, Liane Wilson created a picture of an unstoppable personality.
"She had nothing, but she managed to achieve a lot," says the director.
On the first floor of the Robins Hunter Museum in the small town of Greenview in the US state of Ohio, a statue of a woman has stood under a golden bell for years and welcomes visitors.
The figure of a woman which left an indescribable mark on American history is engraved on the watch.
"They cannot stop the tide of reforms. The world moves", she spoke.
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