Rachel Hope Cleves

Rachel Hope Cleves
Born	1975 (age 49–50) New York City
Occupation	Historian
Nationality	American-Canadian
Period	2010s–Present
Notable works	Charity and Sylvia: A Same-Sex Marriage in Early America

Rachel Hope Cleves (born 1975) is an American-Canadian historian, best known for her 2014 book Charity and Sylvia: A Same-Sex Marriage in Early America. ^[1] The book, a study of historical documents concerning the same-sex relationship of Charity Bryant and Sylvia Drake in the 19th century, was a shortlisted Lambda Literary Award nominee for LGBT Studies at the 27th Lambda Literary Awards. ^[2]

Born in New York City in 1975, Cleves studied at Columbia University and the University of California, Berkeley, and has been a professor at the University of Victoria in Victoria, British Columbia since 2009. ^[3] She is a specialist in early American history, with research areas including gender and sexuality, the American relationship with the French Revolution, and the War of 1812. ^[4] In Unspeakable: A Life beyond Sexual Morality, which is a biography of Norman Douglas that focuses on his pederasty and how attitudes toward it changed, she refers to herself as "a historian of sexuality". ^[5]

She has published four books, as well as articles in journals such as Early American Studies , Reviews in American History and the Journal of American History .

In 2019, she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. ^[6]

Books

• Rachel Hope Cleves (2009). The Reign of Terror in America: Visions of Violence from Anti-Jacobinism to Antislavery. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1107403987.
• Rachel Hope Cleves (2014). Charity and Sylvia: A Same-Sex Marriage in Early America . Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0190627317.
• Rachel Hope Cleves (2020). Unspeakable: A Life beyond Sexual Morality. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0226733531.
• Rachel Hope Cleves (2024). Lustful Appetites: An Intimate History of Good Food and Wicked Sex. Polity. ISBN 978-1509553631.

References

1. "The improbable, 200-year-old story of one of America's first same-sex 'marriages'". Washington Post , March 20, 2015.
2. "Seventeen Canadian authors nominated for Lambda Literary Awards". Quill & Quire , March 4, 2015.
3. "A surprising history of same-sex nuptials". Victoria Times-Colonist , April 26, 2015.
4. "Our interpretation of history is clouded by the fog of war". Victoria Times-Colonist , February 19, 2012.
5. Cleves, Unspeakable, p. 2.
6. "Royal Society of Canada elects four UVic researchers". uvic.ca. September 10, 2019. Retrieved November 13, 2019.

External links

• Rachel Hope Cleves