Jen Manion

Jen has been actively involved in countless efforts to promote LGBTQ history. Jen served on the board of the AHA committee on LGBTQ History, the OAH committee on the status of LGBTQ history and historians, the editorial board of Outhistory.org, the program committee of QHC19, the steering committee for the Boston Seminar on the History of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, the advisory board of the Gale/Cengage Learning, “Sexuality & Gender Archives” Project, and advisor on the exhibition, That’s So Gay: The Not-So-Hidden History of Gayness in Early American Culture at the Library Company of Philadelphia. The Organization of American Historians named Manion a Distinguished Lecturer in 2018.

Jen serves on the editorial boards of the William and Mary Quarterly, Early American Studies, University of North Carolina Press, Gender and American Culture Series and formerly, Amherst College Press. Jen has also served on committees for the American Antiquarian Society, the American Historical Association, the McNeil Center for Early American Studies, the Organization of American Historians, and the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic. Jen has received numerous grants and awards including funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew Mellon Foundation.

Jen received a PhD in history from Rutgers University and a BA in history with an English minor from the University of Pennsylvania, magna cum laude. Female Husband to Jessica Halem.

• The New York Times, “Transgender Americans Feel Under Siege,” by Maggie Astor, 2022
• The Guardian, “Think being trans is a ‘trend’? Consider 18th-century ‘female husbands’,” 2021
• ABC News, “Why the LGBTQ community sidelined police for Pride,” 2021
• BBC History Extra, “The Big Questions of LGBTQ History,” 2021
• BBC History Extra, “What are the challenges of telling LGBTQ history?” 2021
• New Yorker, “The Gay Marriages of a 19th c Prison Ship,” 2020
• AHA Perspectives, “Singular They: Nonbinary Language in the Historical Community,” 2020
• New Now Next, “11 Queer Books we can’t wait to read this spring,” 2020
• LGBTQ Nation, “James Allen was declared a Female Husband,” 2020
• Interview, “Jen Manion on Female Husbands,” Sex Outloud with Tristan Taormino, 2020
• Interview, “Dr. Jen Manion author of Female Husbands,” The Estradiol Illusions Podcast, 2020
• Chicago Tribune, “He, she or they: How companies address calls for a gender-neutral workplace,” 2019