In 1872, decades before women were legally allowed to vote, Victoria Woodhull made an audacious run for the White House. The press ridiculed her stance on 'free love' and she spent election night in jail. But she had put the first small crack in one of the thickest glass ceilings around. Twelve years later Belva Lockwood, the first woman to argue before the Supreme Court, took another swing at it.

We celebrate Election Day with a look back at some of the first women who dared to run for the highest office in the United States, including Sen. Margaret Chase Smith and Rep. Shirley Chisholm. They ran against long odds, but they had grit and they got the ball rolling.

With Smithsonian curator Lisa Kathleen Graddy, and journalism historian Teri Finneman.

See the portraits we discussed:

Victoria Woodhull, unidentified artist

Get Thee Behind Me, (Mrs.) Satin! by Thomas Nast

Belva Lockwood, by Nellie Mathes Horne

Margaret Chase Smith, by Ernest Hamlin Baker

Shirley Chisholm, unidentified artist

Further reading:

Press Portrayals of Women Politicians, 1870s - 2000s, by Teri Finneman

Belva Lockwood: The Woman Who Would Be President, by Jill Norgren

The Woman Who Ran for President: The Many Lives of Victoria Woodhull, by Lois Beachy Underhill

No Place For A Woman: A Life of Senator Margaret Chase Smith, by Janann Sherman

The Good Fight, by Shirley Chisholm

Shirley Chisholm: Champion of Black Feminist Power Politics, by Anastasia C. Curwood

With Election Day just around the corner, we go back in time to figure out how early presidential candidates got their message, and their image, in front of voters. It wasn't easy. Asking directly for people's vote was seen as undignified, so candidates mostly stayed home in the early 1800s. As a result, most Americans didn't know for sure what their candidates looked like, or sounded like.

Kim speaks with curator Claire Jerry, from the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, about the stream of new technologies-- from printing to photography to radio-- that transformed political advertising and gave candidates a more direct line of communication with the American people.

See the portraits and campaign materials we discussed:

William Henry Harrison campaign button

Abraham Lincoln, by Mathew Brady

Abraham Lincoln campaign button

Franklin D. Roosevelt at microphone

Ronald Reagan poster

We're back! Season six of PORTRAITS hits your feed Oct. 22 with a new slate of shows that use artwork to decode our world. Kim Sajet, director of the National Portrait Gallery, talks with guests about presidential campaigns, scientific discoveries and some of the currents running through today’s cultural landscape.