How “historic” is this election?

It seems like every time I read or see something about the upcoming presidential election, I’m being told how “historic” it is, what with this being the first election with both an African-American man and a woman running for president. The way Hillary is often described, you’d think she was the first woman ever to run for the office – though sometimes you will hear the weak qualifier “the first viable woman candidate,” leaving the question of just what “viable” means. Even Donna Brazile, in this season’s issue of Ms. Magazine, erroneously assumed she was the first woman to run for president.

Counting Hillary, there have been anywhere from 31, to 66, to 100 female presidential candidates in U.S. history (depending on the standards used to determine candidacy). The first woman to run was Victoria Claflin Woodhull, who ran as an Equal Rights Party candidate in 1872, and again in 1892, well before women could even vote in federal elections. Her platform included ending the death penalty, banning monopolies, direct taxation, uniform wages, public works programs, and free trade. However, she was best known for her radical ideas about family life; she advocated women’s suffrage, access to birth control, and free love – the idea that people should be able to move into and out of intimate relationships as they choose, instead of being enslaved by custom and law to one partner their entire lives.

Obviously, these types of ideas were loudly condemned by the conservative forces, including Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. In answer, Woodhull exposed the reverend’s illicit affair in her Woodhull & Claflin’s Weekly. Beecher retaliated by unleashing the wrath of Anthony Comstock on her. Comstock had her arrested on obscenity charges; Woodhull spent election day in a jail cell – and still got several thousand votes. She eventually prevailed in her case and resumed her lucrative speaking career.

Since then, we’ve had a lot more firsts from women on the campaign trail. Though many would point to Shirley Chisholm’s 1972 run as the first for African-American women, it is actually Charlene Mitchell, running as a Communist Party candidate in 1968, that has that honor. In 1976, Ellen McCormack, a Democrat, was the first woman to receive federal matching funds for her campaign. Leonora Fulani, with the now-defunct New Alliance Party, was the first African-American woman to appear on the ballot in all 50 states; that was in 1988 (she ran again in 1992).

This millennium started on a hopeful note – more women ran for president in 2000 then ever before (or since, so far). Including Elizabeth Dole (who withdrew before the party convention), 17 women ran, including four other Republicans, 11 Independents and third-party candidates, and one Democrat.

Believe it or not, Hillary Clinton is not the only woman running for president this year. Gloria La Riva, with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, is a veteran campaigner; she also ran for president in 1992 and for vice president in 1984, 1988, 1996, and 2000. Cynthia McKinney and Kat Swift are both running with the Green Party, and Colleen Stevens Martin is running unaffiliated.

It diminishes us, as a nation, when so many historic struggles and accomplishments are ignored or forgotten. We don’t need bookfires to erase our history when the gatekeepers of the media can simply dismiss it and create it anew whenever they wish. It pays to remind them – and ourselves – that Hillary is not the first and only, but simply one daughter of a long lineage.

*If you count Gracie Allen’s 1940 run, which was really more of a publicity stunt, that number is 67.

[edited to reflect current presidential candidates]