by Marion Meade
Tennie greeted his announcement with suspicion. Why, she asked, would Commodore Vanderbilt want to meet them?
"Hell, he's a regular fella," roared Buck happily, as if Vanderbilt were already his buddy. "He'll see anybody, so long as they state their business and don't take up too much of his time."
Buck had told Vanderbilt's secretary that one of his daughters could cure any sickness and the other was the best fortune-teller in the world. But Vanderbilt didn't have to take Buck's word. He could see for himself. Buck had also said that his daughters were extremely beautiful.
The next afternoon, Tennie and Vicky carefully dressed in their best outfits. Escorted by a strutting Buck, they walked several blocks northwest to 10 Washington Place, Vanderbilt's red brick house just off Washington Square.
The silver-haired Commodore took a fancy to them immediately, especially to Tennie. "My little sparrow," he was soon calling her affectionately. She, in turn, called him "old boy." With her ivory complexion, cherubic blue eyes and round face wreathed by tawny curls, Tennie looked like an innocent china doll. But, in contrast, she had the kind of personality—irreverent and high-spirited—that her generation found unacceptable in a woman.
Tennie should have been born in the 1920s; she would have made a wonderful "flapper." Bold and impulsive in manner, brash in speech, she generally behaved as she pleased. She acted natural. Other women of her day did not. As a result, Tennie was always shocking people. Vanderbilt happened to be an exception. Probably because the two of them were very much alike, he found her delightful.
For Vicky, he felt admiration. While the irrepressible Tennie romped through his mansion, exclaiming over the expensive furnishings, Vicky sat rigid and dignified in a chair. Her quick intelligence, her grave melodic voice, and the delicate beauty of her slender face impressed him greatly. Very often he would ask her for psychic advice on the stock market.
As the visits became more frequent, the friendship between the "old boy" and the two young women grew warmer. Later, people would say that Tennie became his mistress. Probably this was true. In any case, several months after their first meeting, the lonely old man asked twenty-three-year-old Tennie if she would like to become Mrs. Vanderbilt. She refused.
Knowing better than to mention this incredible proposal to her parents, she confided only in her older sister. While Vicky understood the reasons behind Tennie's decision, she nevertheless asked her to consider the offer carefully.
But Tennie had already made up her mind. Not only did she feel that Vanderbilt was too old for her, she also reminded Vicky how much she cherished her freedom.
Neither mentioned the opportunity for financial security Tennie was passing up. It also probably occurred to them that the rejected Commodore might not wish to see them anymore. But the visits went on, and the Commodore continued to reward them generously for their services. In addition to cash, he offered something far better. Suggesting that they use their earnings to buy stock, he began giving them tips on which stocks he thought might do well. When stock prices rose or fell, he advised them on when to sell, when to buy more.
Before long, Vicky and Tennie had a full-time career playing the stock market. Since it was not customary for women to deal directly with brokers, each day James would set off for Wall Street to buy and sell shares for them. Their profits began to accumulate and accumulate.
Life at 17 Great Jones Street began to change dramatically. As the money rolled in, the inhabitants of the house suddenly realized they were wealthy. At least, they certainly acted as though they were. Maids and a cook were hired. A governess was engaged to care for Byron and Zulu Maud. Everyone bought fine new clothes. Roxanna, now a lady of leisure, ordered lace curtains for all the windows and elegant walking suits for herself. Utica filled her wardrobe with low-cut, ruffled gowns in shades of primrose yellow, apple green, and burnt orange. Overnight, Buck transformed himself into a dandy with a clipped beard and expensive leather boots. He began spending most of his time at the racetrack.
Vicky and Tennie seemed to be the only ones who didn't go completely overboard. Vicky's taste had always been conservative; Tennie imitated her. Even though their clothes weren't flashy, they spent a great deal on the finest imported broadcloth, cut and styled into fashionable suits.
Vicky's favorite colors were the purples. The rich shades of plum, violet, lavender, lilac, and mauve accented her pale skin and lustrous blue eyes. She wore no jewelry but would fasten a single white rose on the bodice of her gown or in her hair. Altogether, she cut an impressive figure.
News of the family's sudden affluence soon traveled back to the Midwest. Who should arrive on their doorstep but the two oldest Claflin daughters, Margaret Ann and Polly? Both were divorced, but Polly had remarried. Naturally they brought their entire families with them. The brownstone, which had seemed so spacious a short while ago, now began to shrink. It never occurred to Vicky to send them away. As uneasy as her family made her at times, she always remained loyal.
To support all these relatives in the style to which they were quickly becoming accustomed required a considerable amount of money. But now Vicky and Tennie had it.
Life was not all work. Once a lonely outsider, Vicky began to make new friends who gave her a sense of belonging. At first, it was James who sought out the city's radicals. When he met interesting people, he'd bring them home. Visionaries, idealists, and reformers soon began to appear at 17 Great Jones Street. The talk was stimulating and lively. Vicky's guests had plenty to say, particularly about politics, government corruption, and the double standard which made one set of rules for women and another for men. Many of the visitors were women—writers, teachers, nurses, lecturers, all of them cultured females.
Vicky's home quickly became a salon, a place where thinking people gathered to discuss the latest ideas and issues. Part of the attraction was the ravishing Vicky herself. Her infectious energy vitalized those who met her. They viewed her as a woman of flaming intelligence, one whose strength of character and personality made her opinions doubly worth hearing. Some people were attracted by her beauty and powers of clairvoyance. Nearly everyone remarked on her musical voice. It sounded like a flute. In everyday conversation, her speech could be fairly ordinary. But when fired to speak on a subject which moved her, her voice seemed to rise from the bottom of her soul.
One evening a new face appeared in her parlor, a tall bearded man named Stephen Pearl Andrews. Vicky worshiped learning, and the sixty-year-old Andrews was the most brilliant person she had ever met. He knew more than James. In fact, the immensity of his knowledge staggered most of his contemporaries.
Andrews spoke thirty languages, including Chinese, and he was trying to develop a universal language which he called "Alwato." An authority on history and government, he had devised a system of world government, a sort of United Nations, which he named the "Pantarchy." A radical committed to social revolution, he believed in socialism, "free love," and feminism. He enjoyed the company of bright women. When his wife, Esther, had studied medicine, Andrews attended classes with her.
It is not surprising that Vicky should have been deeply impressed by his learning. As for Andrews, he felt an immediate attraction to this woman whose revolutionary ideas paralleled his own. He saw nothing extraordinary about her ambition to be President. Besides, he was shrewd enough to notice that Vicky was rich, very rich. And that she earned the money herself, something few other wealthy women could claim.
If Vicky was smart enough to make a fortune on Wall Street, thought Andrews, she should have no trouble handling the Presidency.
Today, most politicians have their "brain trusts," a small group of valued advisers. In Vicky's day, the idea was not quite so common. Nevertheless, she saw the wisdom in collecting dedicated friends who would work for her cause. James, her first mentor, had been the beginning of her brain trust. Now she added Andrews.
In some ways, Demosthenes had proved correct. In New York City, Vicky became wealthy. Still, much of t
he prophecy had not happened. She had achieved no fame or even made a start toward her political ambitions. For that matter, outside of her circle of friends, nobody knew she existed. "People won't vote for a nobody," she fretted to herself. Perhaps this feeling that her progress had come to a standstill accounts for what happened next.
One evening, shortly before Christmas, she was entertaining a parlor full of guests. The discussion had turned to women and how they were effectively shut out of the business world. Even two aggressive women like Vicky and Tennie made their financial transactions through James. It had never occurred to them to break tradition by appearing on Wall Street themselves.
"Vicky," somebody called out jokingly, "you and Tennie should start your own brokerage house. Then the men on Wall Street will have to deal with women whether they like it or not."
Another guest took up the theme. "Sure, and they'll have to take off their hats when your carriage drives up!"
Everyone roared with delight at the idea.
Vicky didn't laugh. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more sense it made. Her brain began to click away. She felt positive that the Commodore would help them get started. He was certainly not a feminist, but the idea of backing two women would appeal to his sense of humor.
Of course, the brokerage business was hardly her life's ambition. But it was a beginning. People would notice her. How could they help but take note of the first women brokers in the history of Wall Street?
The next few weeks were busy ones. Vicky and Tennie rented a suite of two rooms on the ground floor of the Hoffman House, a first-class hotel in the Wall Street area. Above all, they wanted to give the impression of being ultra-respectable ladies. This probably accounts for the elaborate way they decorated the suite. There were sofas and easy chairs, oil paintings and sculpture, even a piano.
On the wall, Vicky hung a framed religious motto: Simply to Thy Cross I Cling. Tennie, irreverent as always, decided she'd rather trust in someone she considered more reliable than God. Next to the religious slogan she hung a picture of Commodore Vanderbilt.
Each of them ordered engraved business cards. Vicky's read Mrs. Victoria C. Woodhull. Tennie, deciding at the last minute to give herself both a middle initial and a "respectable" married name, called herself Mrs. Tennie C. Claflin.
On January 19, 1870, they opened for business. Attention, which Vicky wanted, was immediately forthcoming. Even better, it appeared to be serious, respectful attention. The very next day, a brief article appeared in the New York Herald: "The general routine of business in Wall Street was somewhat varied today by the mingling in its scenes of two fashionably dressed ladies as speculators." The item went on to note that nobody seemed to know who the women were or where they had obtained their knowledge of stocks.
Vicky leaped at the opportunity to remedy the situation. She promptly sent off a dignified letter to the Herald, coolly implying that their venture was not extraordinary. "We were not a little surprised at seeing our appearance in Wall Street noticed in your columns of yesterday," she wrote. Then, with a superb sense of public relations, she invited the Herald to send a reporter around.
As might be expected, the reporter spent most of his column describing the office decor and the sisters' physical appearance. Vicky, he wrote, wore a plain but stylish dress and a rose in her hair. Tennie, who apparently smiled throughout the interview, was pictured as "the photograph of a business woman—keen, shrewd, wholesouled."
No questions were asked about how they had acquired their financial expertise or why they had taken the unprecedented step of opening a brokerage office. If Vicky and Tennie felt excited about attracting the attention of the press, they hid it beautifully. "Cool" was the only word for them.
In the same issue, the Herald ran a long editorial titled "Women in Wall Street." It was duly noted that Vicky and Tennie were the first women to invade the all-male sanctuary of the Stock Exchange. Also that their daring action reflected the American woman's growing interest in getting out of the house. After explaining the sociological significance of "the lady brokers," the editorial gallantly concluded by wishing them luck.
In the privacy of their office, Vicky and Tennie could barely contain their rapture. Such enthusiastic words were far more than they had ever hoped for.
As they read the editorial aloud, Vicky stopped at the phrase "lady brokers."
"Do you think that's a way of confessing that male brokers are not always gentlemen?" she giggled.
In every way, their reception was far better than they had anticipated. Tennie went straight out and purchased a scrapbook in which to paste the newspaper clippings. It was to be the first of many clippings and many scrapbooks.
Three weeks later, they moved to more businesslike quarters at 44 Broad Street. This time they launched their new office with a gala opening-day reception. Every newspaper sent reporters. Every brokerage house in the city sent a representative. Businesses in the area closed their doors and hurried over to see what was going on. Even Commodore Vanderbilt put in an appearance.
Before the day was over, four thousand people had thronged through the offices of, as one paper dubbed them, "the Queens of Finance." In fact, the press outdid itself to dream up colorful names—"the Bewitching Brokers," "the She-brokers," "the Female Sovereigns of Wall Street."
There was no doubt that the press adored them. Not only were they a novelty but they also made good copy. Every report commented on the fact that they were very attractive women.
But the papers also were fair enough to describe them as serious businesswomen. Wrote the Herald: "Their extraordinary coolness and self-possession, and evident knowledge of the difficult role they have undertaken, is far more remarkable than their personal beauty and graces of manner, and these are considerable."
Initially, the press took them at face value as refined ladies. No reporter asked Vicky, for example, if she was married or where she had been for thirty-two years. Eventually, of course, a few enterprising newspapermen did get around to investigating her background and private life. It is to Vicky's credit that she answered honestly, at least most of the time. The information she did supply had a predictable effect.
Most people were scandalized by her divorce. Her clairvoyance and the tale about Demosthenes brought titters and shakes of the head. Her belief in "free love," only whispered about at this point, also caused offense.
But Vicky paid no attention. She was famous now. Her name—and Tennie's—appeared almost every day in the nation's newspapers. It was all very exciting.
At 44 Broad Street, Vicky looked at her surroundings with deep satisfaction. What a magnificent office, she thought proudly. There were walnut desks covered with green felt and Marvin safes of the highest quality. A sign hung near the front door to discourage the curious who just wanted a peek at the sisters. It read, All gentlemen will state their business and retire at once. Outside on the street stood a carriage and driver, always waiting to drive Vicky or Tennie to their appointments.
What a contrast with the life Vicky had led just a year or two ago. Sometimes, sitting at her desk, her thoughts would slip backward—to the darkened parlors where she had told fortunes; to the police pounding on their door with another complaint; to hustling out of Ottawa, Illinois, after Tennie had been indicted for manslaughter when a patient died at Buck's "cancer" clinic. But such grim reminiscing never lasted long. More and more, she banged the lid down hard on her early memories. She preferred to forget. Sometimes, it seemed like those days had never existed.
Vicky enjoyed her work. Although recently James had begun to handle much of the paper work, she sat at her desk in the front office. Brisk and businesslike, she talked to customers, most of them men. Some people on the Street said that she and Tennie were only there for show, that there must be a man behind the scenes doing all the real work. One man tried to give them a forged check, but Vicky immediately spotted the deception and saved the firm a loss of nearly $66,000.
When no cust
omers appeared, Vicky could relax. Lounging behind her desk, she might eat early strawberries and thick fresh cream sent by some friend on the Street. Or she chatted with Buck, who visited nearly every day. Or she cut articles from newspapers and magazines and pasted them into a scrapbook. In those days, a mention in the newspaper supposedly disgraced any woman who wasn't an actress or an agitator. But Vicky loved the press because they were kind to her.
Newspaper articles were a way in which she could measure her success. Seeing her name in print gave her a strange satisfaction. Besides, both she and Tennie enjoyed being interviewed. And the papers loved them because they always had something interesting to say.
One afternoon Vicky told a reporter, "All this talk about women's rights is moonshine!"
He looked surprised. Vicky wasn't finished, though.
"Women have every right," she explained. "All they need to do is exercise them. That's what we're doing. We are doing more for women's rights, by being here on Wall Street, than all the speeches will do in ten years."
If Vicky's statements to the press usually tended to be serious, the reporters knew they could count on Tennie to say something outrageous.
"Miss Tennie," she was asked, "don't you find it embarrassing to work on Wall Street where you are the only woman? People talk about you, you know."
Tennie flung up her arms in disgust. "If I cared about public opinion, I wouldn't leave my house," she retorted defiantly. "The people who gossip about me are powdered dandies and silly crybaby girls. I despise them." Tennie never minced words.
For sentimental reasons, Vicky was attached to the house on Great Jones Street. But with so many freeloading Claflins living there, it had become cramped. Now she could truly afford to live in a mansion and that is precisely what she decided to do. She found an elegant house just off Fifth Avenue in the Murray Hill section of the city. It was even more impressive than Commodore Vanderbilt's house.