Chapter 7: Never to Marry 1800
18th c
LHMP entry
Chapter 5: So Many Friends 1799
Chapter 3: O the Example! 1787
Chapter 1: A Child of Melancholy 1777
Charity’s mother died of consumption shortly after Charity’s birth in 1777, in the middle of the Revolutionary War. She was the last of 10 children. Death haunted the family with three of Charity’s grandparents and her oldest brother also dying within the same 2-year period.
The book opens with a description of a pair of cut silhouettes, framed with a lock of hair and labeled with the names of the two women. There follows an overview of their lives (which are then covered in much more detail in the chapters). Both women had determined not to marry. Both came from large families, though of different character. They met in 1807 and set up a household together where the continued as an acknowledged couple for 44 years.
This article challenges the strict version of “social construction” of sexuality by reviewing the evidence that 18th century Americans had an extensive vocabulary for identifiable and categorizable variations in sexual behavior and gender presentation. At the same time, the author does not claim a multi-century continuity of certain gender/sexuality concepts, rather than certain concepts have recurred at different times. [Note: compare Valerie Traub’s “cycles of salience.”]
The novel Ormond by Charles Brockden Brown (1799) maybe the earliest American literary depiction of a passionate romantic relationship between women. Criticism of the work has tended to reflect the attitudes toward women’s same-sex relationships prevalent in the critic’s own era, rather than considering it within its own context.
Manion’s book Female Husbands: A Trans History came out in 2020. This is something of a “teaser” article in what appears to be a local history magazine (rather than an academic journal) presenting information from that research that is specific to Pennsylvania. See the Project’s coverage of the later book for a broader picture.
Introduction
The author points out that this is an inescapably political book and should be read in that context. He points out that the question of “who is queer” is not at all straight-forward [pun intentional] in a historic context, and that queer figures have been silently and invisibly embedded in US history far deeper than most people are aware.
Introduction: Who is the Lesbian?
For the purposes of this book, “British lesbian history” begins in the late 18th century. It was unclear to me if this was simply a chosen scope based on the source material they wanted to present, or if the authors believe there is no lesbian history prior to that date. They assert that “lesbian identity” is a late 20th century concept. “Women…did not necessarily have a language to describe themselves as lovers of women.” [Note: we can take it as given that I disagree with that position.]
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