It has been an historic week for women in politics, with Hillary Clinton becoming the first female presidential candidate from a major political party.
But she is far from the first woman to run for president.
The honor actually goes to a woman from Licking County who lived more than 150 years ago and whose story was nearly forgotten.
“She truly believed she was paving the way for future generations,” said Scott Claflin, a distant nephew.
The woman’s name was Victoria Claflin-Woodhull. Today there’s a marker in Homer, Ohio, where she was born.
Scott Claflin fought to put it there and his name is on it too.
None of it may have ever been noted, either, had it not been for the 1964 Republican National Convention.
Claflin was watching when announcers allegedly credited Margaret Chase Smith with being the first female presidential candidate.
“And my dad says, ‘No, no, no. Your relative Victoria was the first woman to run for President, and these clowns don’t know what they’re talking about!' ” he said.
The next day Claflin called NBC.
“And in fact, Chet Huntley and David Brinkley did correct it. They said, ‘We don’t know how this missed the history books, and there was a woman who ran for President in 1872,’ ” he said.
Woodhull was just 34 at the time she ran; a time when women could not even vote.
Campaigning under the banner of the “Equal Rights Party,” she was on the same ticket as Frederick Douglass, the escaped slave and famous abolitionist.
No stranger to firsts, she also become one of the country’s first female stockbrokers as well as the first woman to testify before congress.
And she did it all without a formal education.
Ultimately losing to Ulysses S. Grant, Woodhull eventually moved to England where she lived out her years.
Today, Scott Claflin is grateful that people are finally learning her story.
“It’s fascinating to have a history that just now is beginning to be realized,” he said.
He added that more than two dozen women have since tried to run for the nation’s highest office and notes many of them have fought for the same things Woodhull did.
For example, she tried bridging the gender gap by helping working mothers and fighting for equal pay — some of the very issues still at the heart of campaign platforms today.
