Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies

Join us virtually as Ben Bascom speaks on his new book Feeling Singular: Queer Masculinities in the Early United States (2024), which looks at the paradoxical nature of masculine self-promotion and individuality in the early United States. Much of U.S.

Madame Restell (1811-1878) was the most famous abortion provider and female physician in nineteenth-century America, so much so that "Restellism" became a synonym for abortion.  Nicholas Syrett, author of The Trials of Madame Restell: Nineteenth-Century America's Most Infamous Female Physician and the Campaign to Make Abortion a Crime (2023), reflects on Restell's life, placing it alongside the history of the criminalization of abortion in the United States.

DTA virtually merges disparate archival collections, digital materials, and independent projects with a single search engine. 

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This virtual forum features Jean Lutes, Denise Burgher, Trinity Rogers, and Brigitte Fielder of Taught by Literature, a collaborative digital humanities project that re-centers Black women writers, beginning with the work of African American author and activist Alice Dunbar-Nelson.

During LGBTQ History Month, we are pleased to host scholars Jen Manion and KJ Rawson at AAS for a conversation about the history of gender and sexuality. Manion and Rawson will discuss the Digital Transgender Archive (DTA), an online hub for digitized historical materials, born-digital materials, and information on archival holdings throughout the world.

This online exhibition explores images, roles, activities, and social expectations of men in the U. S. in the first half of the 19th century.

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In this lecture based upon her latest book, The Muse of the Revolution: The Secret Pen Of Mercy Otis Warren and the Founding of a Nation (Beacon, 2008), Nancy Rubin Stuart will illuminate the life and times of America's first woman playwright and historian. Mercy Otis Warren was also the fiery wife of Massachusetts patriot James Warren, the mother of five sons, and friend and close colleague to John and Abigail Adams.

Legend has it that Betsy Ross created the first American flag. The truth is far less certain and far more interesting. In this program Marla Miller, author of the recently published Betsy Ross and the Making of America, describes how she came to research and write the first scholarly biography of Ross. The story she uncovers is a richly textured study of Ross's long and remarkable life, which included three marriages, seven children, and a successful career as a seamstress and upholsterer.

Ever wonder why the rights of women are still endangered today? Or how marriage can change the destiny of those who marry powerful men? Award-winning author Nancy Rubin Stuart’s presentation from her double biography, Defiant Brides: The Untold Story of Two Revolutionary-Era Women Who Married Political Radicals illustrates how two teenage brides managed long, happy marriages to famous Revolutionary-era men. Their husbands were the handsome traitor Benedict Arnold and the patriotic General Henry Knox.

For as long as women have battled for equitable political representation in America, those battles have been defined by images.