Episode 414: John McCurdy: Robert Newburgh’s Trials: Queerness & Reputation in Revolutionary America

How do we uncover queer lives from the distant past, especially in an era when language and records often erased or obscured them?

What did queerness look like in early America, and how might it have intersected with power, religion, and empire on the eve of the American Revolution?

John McCurdy, a Professor of History and Philosophy at Eastern Michigan University and the author of Vicious and Immoral: Homosexuality, the American Revolution, and the Trials of Robert Newburgh, joins us to explore these questions through the remarkable story of British Army Chaplain Robert Newburgh.

About the Show

Ben Franklin’s World is a podcast about early American history.

It is a show for people who love history and for those who want to know more about the historical people and events that have impacted and shaped our present-day world.

Episode Summary

John McCurdy is a Professor of History and Philosophy at Eastern Michigan University. His research expertise is in the fields of Colonial and Revolutionary America, gender, and LGTBQ+ history. He is the author of three books, including Quarters: The Accommodation of the British Army and the Coming of the American Revolution, and, most recently, Vicious and Immoral: Homosexuality, the American Revolution, and the Trials of Robert Newburgh.

Drawing on court records, correspondence, and military archives, John helps us investigate how eighteenth-century Britons understood and policed same-sex behavior. Why Robert Newburgh’s sexuality and character became central to his military service. And, what Robert Newburgh’s story reveals about the British Empire’s treatment of queerness—and about the historical challenges of naming and recovering LGBTQIA+ lives in the past.