Early America

Histories of Sexuality and the Carceral State–Part 1

Moderated by Regina Kunzel Edited by Devin McGeehan Muchmore What can histories of sexuality and gender tell us about the carceral state? The United States’ incarceration rate has quadrupled since the 1970s, giving the U.S. the largest prison population in the world. According to Bureau of Justice Statistics, over 2.2 […]

Presidential Penis Politics: A Micro-History

By Rachel Hope Cleves March 5, 2016 Early America 2 comments

Rachel Hope Cleves Donald J. Trump’s penis, size unknown, has reared its head as a political issue. On Thursday night, during yet another GOP presidential primary debate, the party’s leading candidate debated the size of his penis with rival Marco Rubio before an audience of millions. Mainstream media channels such […]

Sex & Food in the Nineteenth-Century American Metropolis

By notcheseditor October 1, 2015 Early America, Food and Sexuality 0 comments

Scandal erupted in a Philadelphia marketplace one Saturday morning in August 1839.

Tempests and Teapots: Sexual Politics and Tea-Drinking in the Early Modern World

By notcheseditor September 22, 2015 Early America, Food and Sexuality 1 comment

The American Revolution is impossible to understand without food and sex at its center.

Women’s Experiences in Fornication and Paternity Suits in Massachusetts, 1740-1800

By Kelly Ryan September 8, 2015 Early America 0 comments

Kelly A. Ryan On January 11, 1779, Nabby Whitmore, a white single woman from Royalston, Massachusetts, confessed to Justice of the Peace Abel Wilder that she was pregnant with a child that “was likely to be born a bastard.” Whitmore told Wilder that the father of her child was William […]

Sex and the American Quest for a Relatable Past

By notcheseditor March 14, 2015 Early America 0 comments

Thomas Foster I’m sure our TRUNNELS look’d clean As if they ne’re up A—se had been; For when we use ‘em, we take care To wash ‘em well, and give ‘em Air, Then lock ‘em up in our own Chamber, Ready to TRUNNEL the next Member. In 1751 the Boston Evening-Post […]

Beyond the Binary: Trans* History in Early America

By Rachel Hope Cleves January 29, 2015 Dispatches, Early America 2 comments

Notches Dispatches are submissions from our readers that offer critical accounts of conferences, symposia, and workshops in the history of sexuality. This post by Rachel Hope Cleves is the first of a series of Dispatches from panels on the history of sexuality at the 2015 meeting of the American Historical Association. […]