We're taking inspiration from this week's election and sharing a 1959 installment of 'The Ohio Story' featuring Victoria Claflin Woodhull, a stockbroker, newspaper editor, suffragist, and the first woman to announce her candidacy for President of the United States. This short biographical film covered Claflin Woodhull's early life, her marriages, the establishment of Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly with her sister, Tennessee Claflin, and her decision to run for President in 1872 as the Equal Rights Party candidate alongside the abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass.
'The Ohio Story' was a radio and television series sponsored by Ohio Bell Telephone between 1947 and 1961. Over its fifteen year run, it produced 1,309 radio episodes and 175 television episodes. The shows were written by Storycraft, Inc., a writing company based out of Cleveland. The television episodes were directed by the industrial film production house Cinecraft Productions, were the founder of Storycraft, Frank Siedel, also worked as a writer-director. The episodes were cast using actors from the Cleveland Play House and notable local celebrities.
This and other episodes of 'The Ohio Story' are part of Hagley Library's collection of Cinecraft Productions films (Accession 2019.227). To see them in full, click here to visit the collection's page in our Digital Archives. You can also learn more about Storycraft the 'The Ohio Story' in our digitized collections by clicking here to view digitized material from our collection of Frank Siedel papers (Accession 2022.215).
See you all at the polls! Don't forget to vote!