She feels that neither book gets its proper reward, although "Other Powers" has received raves from most critics. Gloria Steinem likes the book and Goldsmith has heard from other feminists and social historians, including those from Princeton and Yale, along with Arthur Schlesinger Jr., and other well-known authors.

Goldsmith first discovered Victoria Woodhull while researching her bestseller about America's "poor little rich girl." She discovered a quotation from Cornelius Vanderbilt. When the famous financier was asked the secret to becoming rich, he told a reporter, "Do as I do, consult the spirits. Mrs. Woodhull told me in a trance that the Central Pacific was bound to go up."

Goldsmith says she "had no idea who she was, never having heard the name." Woodhull, it turned out, started out as a mystic and fortune teller traveling with her father's medicine show in the early part of the 19th century. She was the first woman to speak before Congress, the first woman to run a financial office on Wall Street, and the first woman nominated for the presidency of the United States.

Goldsmith launched her research, but confesses that "It took me almost ten years to complete the book." She said one critic called her book a biography of Victoria Woodhull in the same way that "Gone With the Wind" was a biography of Scarlett O'Hara. "Other Powers" takes a detailed and fascinating journey through the times in which Woodhull lived, providing a stunning look at the plight of women. Ironically, the book demonstrates that many of the inequities faced by the women of a century ago continue unabated today.

"I started out thinking that perhaps Victoria would be the subject of the book, but she becomes an aberration unless you contrast the era in which she lived," Goldsmith said. "Women couldn't vote, husbands could beat them without fear of reprisal, they had to give their wages to their husbands, and if divorced couldn't hold on to their property. Women were bound to give sexual access to their husbands, too. When I began to understand that, I began to understand Victoria. And in understanding her, I understood that even the strongest women needed something to let them go forward."

Goldsmith believes that this gross imbalance in the relationships between the sexes led to the popularity of spiritualism, which women saw as empowering. "Those spirits, smart and strong, could tell women what they could do and say." Goldsmith said. "No one questioned Joan of Arc's hearing voices. When I read that spiritualism was a bogus fad, it annoys me, for it sustained women in times when they were really chatteled."

Goldsmith's travels researching the book were extensive and time-consuming. "I was going to write about Woodhull leaving the country in 1877, spending most of the rest of her life in England." The feminist leader, target of harsh criticism for her pioneering efforts on behalf of women in the U.S., tried to erase her notoriety in her new newly adopted country.

Goldsmith "found a lot of fraudulent material had been created through Woodhull's efforts to gentrify her name after she settled down in England. I knew much of this material was false, so I decided to more or less end the book when she leaves this country."

The writer explained that because she has spent her life as an investigative researcher, "When I see an archive that is faked, I run."

To Goldsmith, there's no question that the story of Victoria Woodhull applies to today's woman. "She wrote in 1870 that women should never agree to anything they find unfair, unkind or uncomfortable," Goldsmith said. "I know as a woman that when I find those things, I begin to think. Certain things never change. Human emotions, the idea that sex is one of the easiest ways to bring a politician down, that the entrenched church feels threatened by new views; these things have not changed, and they probably never will."