When I found I had given birth to a human wreckage, to a child that was an imbecile, my heart was broken.

A personal account from a friend of Colonel Blood's suggests that Woodhull's sister Tennie was held against her will in a brothel until Woodhull rescued her but this story remains unconfirmed. As adults they collaborated in founding a stock brokerage and newspaper n New York City. Woodhull's campaign was also notable for the nomination of Frederick Douglass although he did not take part in it.

She was the first woman to start a weekly newspaper; an activist for women's rights and labor reforms. In 1872 Victoria Woodhull was the first female candidate for President of the United States. Her arrest on obscenity charges a few days before the election for publishing an account of the alleged adulterous affair between the prominent minister Henry Ward Beecher and Elizabeth Tilton added to the sensational coverage of her candidacy.