Tennessee Celeste Claflin - Career

Career

“On February 5, 1870, Woodhull, Claflin & Co. formally opened its doors to the public, sending the perfumed scent of a new breed of broker wafting through the halls of finance then dominated by the masculine odors of cigars and champagne. In a front-page story, the New York Sun sounded the warning that change had come to Wall Street with the headline ‘Petticoats Among The Bovine and Ursine Animals.’

At the stock and gold exchanges, the news of a brokerage firm operated by women was greeted with a frenzy of speculation. The presence on Wall Street of Victoria C. Woodhull and her sister Tennessee Claflin created a commotion only slightly less dramatic than a crash. From early morning until the close of business, men and boys crowded the sidewalk outside their office at 44 Broad Street, peering through the windows and doors to get a look at this new creature, the female stockbroker. Jostling for a view they shouted to each other: ‘They know a thing or two.’ ‘When will this end?’ ‘Two thousand visitors for two ladies within eight hours.’ ‘Stocks will go sky high.’ Inside, shielded from the crowds by a doorkeeper and a sign that read Gentlemen Will State Their Business And Then Retire At Once, the sisters were busy making history. It would be another century before a woman would hold a seat in her own name on the New York Stock Exchange, and possibly never again would a pair of female financiers cause such a stir… The remarkable sisters had arrived in New York City two years earlier, after amassing a small fortune traveling caravan-style through the fallow fields and ruined towns of the Civil War, offering their services as clairvoyants and spiritualist healers. Their path to Wall Street was made easier by the legendary tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt, who, at seventy-three, had been one of the sisters’ ‘patients’ before becoming young Tennessee’s lover and patron. But while Vanderbilt’s assistance was helpful, it was the sisters’ own ingenuity that won them praise and publicity,” earning them the nicknames, The Bewitching Brokers and The Queens of Finance.

Historians disagree on whether or not Woodhull, Claflin & Company was a legitimate business. TJ Stiles, author of The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt, writes on his The Biographer’s Blog on August 2, 2009, that Vanderbilt denied that he supported their brokerage firm. Stiles found evidence that the sisters were not trading stock at all. “They were sued for losing all the money that old ladies invested with them. Rather, it seems to have been a publicity stunt, used to propel their radical weekly (which Vanderbilt did not support) and their bid to lead the women’s rights movement. Woodhull and Claflin, the daughters of grifters, were in part con artists themselves.”

“So far the house has done little or nothing. The expenses are heavy, and funds must come from some source. The street look on with suspicion. It is believed that the women have been sent into the street, by interested parties, for a purpose which will develop itself by and by. The ladies denounce these rumors and suspicions as the fruits of jealousy on the part of the men. On the first of May, they affirm that they will have a banking capital of a quarter of a million, that they have the promise of deposits that will make other Banking Houses turn pale. It was currently reported when they first came on the street, that Vanderbilt was to back them for any amount. Vanderbilt denies this, but reputable gentlemen, who have called on him in regard to business transactions, in which these ladies were concerned, have received his assurance, that it is all right… when they first appeared on the street, they deposited in the bank Vanderbilt’s check for seven thousand five hundred dollars… Beside their brokerage business, they practice in New York as clairvoyants. Whether they buy and sell stocks on that system is not known. Their principal customers so far, have been ladies, who take their pin money, and make a venture with it on the street.