Today In History: Victoria Woodhull Nominated For President Pre-19th Amendment; Republicans Divided On Trump

May 10, 2017, is the 130th day of the year, with 235 days remaining. The moon is in a full moon phase, with illumination at 100 percent.

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Victoria Woodhull: the first woman nominated for presidency

Hillary Clinton made headlines and history as the first woman to come close to winning an American presidential election. But she wasn’t the first woman to run (she also wasn’t the first female candidate to make history). In fact, the first woman to run and be nominated for president in the United States was Victoria Woodhull in 1872 — 136 years before Clinton made her first run in 2008.

And she did so 50 years before the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920 gave women the right to vote, which means that, on Election Day, Woodhull couldn’t even vote for herself.

Her running mate? Frederick Douglass.

Woodhull ran under the banner of the Equal Rights Party, formerly the People’s Party, which supported equal rights for women and women’s suffrage. The party nominated her to run against incumbent Republican Ulysses S. Grant and Democrat Horace Greeley.

Support for Donald Trump: Republicans remain divided

As Donald Trump seized control of the Republican Party, winning the Indiana primary and squeezing his last rivals, Sen. Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, out of the race, House Speaker Paul Ryan said he was “just not ready” to endorse Trump, citing concerns about Trump’s tone and values.

Toward the second week of May in 2016, a number of notable Republicans were still vague about where they stood in terms of Trump, including Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse, who had penned an open letter on Facebook to “majority America.”

“If you are one of those rare souls who genuinely believe Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are honorable people – if they are the role models you want for your kids – then this letter is not for you,” Sasse introduced his Facebook plea.

“Instead, this letter is for the majority of Americans who wonder why the nation that put a man on the moon can’t find a healthy leader who can take us forward together.”

For more American history, Patch has you covered.

Photo credit: Harvard Art Museum/Fogg Museum