Professional & Biographical Information

I support and advise students in both History and Sexuality, Women's & Gender Studies. I regularly offer the following courses: Introductory level - History of Sexuality; LGBTQ History in Popular Culture; U.S. Carceral Culture; Upper level seminars: Global Transgender Histories; Revolutionary America; Race, Gender, and Sexuality in U.S. History. In 2023-24, I will be offering three new courses: Intro to Queer/Trans Studies, American Medical Injustice, and Early American Debates. I also serve as an advisor for the Five Colleges Certficiate programs in Queer/ Trans/ Sexuality Studies and Reproductive Justice. In fall 2023, I will launch a new project and welcome student collaborators who are intersted in the Queer Media Lab, uniting the humanities, arts, and technology to address the most pressing questions of the day, with a focus on LGBTQ people and communities.

I am currently working on several book projects. The first is a two-volume reference work for the Cambridge Histories series published by Cambridge University Press, featuring nearly sixty original essays on the state of the field of the History of Sexuality in the U.S., along with co-editor Nicholas Syrett. The second project examines the legacy of medical injustice in the LGBTQ community, charting the role of "stigma" in justifying bias and discrimination in American medicine from the 19th century to the present, along with co-author Jessica Halem. Our goal is to provide an overarching narrative that links the major concerns of LGBTQ people and professional medicine including mental health, the HIV/AIDS epidemic, transgender medicine, and ongoing disparities in access and care. We will provide much needed context for contemporary debates over transgender medicine, its relationship to reproductive justice, and the relationship between medicine and the law. The third project draws on themes from my earlier work on policing and prisons, focusing on the history of LGBTQ resistance to policing from the American Revolution to the Transgender Revolution. While the story of gay liberation is one of resistance to policing at Cooper Do-nuts (1959) Compton's Cafeteria (1966) and the Stonewall Inn (1969), very little is known about the people who resisted harassment, arrest, violence, and imprisonment for transing gender and/or engaging in same-sex intimacies before this era. Given the rise in legislation to outlaw our existence in 21st century America, a deep understanding of this history is more important now than ever.

Amherst College Service

Degrees

Ph.D., Rutgers University 
B.A., University of Pennsylvania

Publications

Books

The Cambridge History of Sexuality in the United States, Vol. I: Early America and Vol. II: Modern America, eds., Jen Manion and Nicholas L. Syrett (Cambridge University Press, expected publication date 2024/5).

Female Husbands: A Trans History (Cambridge University Press, 2020). Winner, 2020 British Association for Victorian Studies Book Prize; Finalist, 2021 Lawrence W. Levine Award, Organization of American Historians

Liberty's Prisoners: Carceral Culture in Early America (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015). Winner, 2016 Mary Kelley Book Prize by the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic

Taking Back the Academy: History of Activism, History as Activism, eds., Jen Manion and Jim Downs (Routledge, 2004).

Honors

Elected Member of the American Antiquarian Society, 2020
Organization of American Historians, Distinguished Lecturer Program, 2018-21
Elected Fellow of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 2018
Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America Grant, Harvard University, 2017-18
Slavery, Abolition, and Resistance Fellowship, Gilder Lehrman Center, Yale University, 2017-18
New England Regional Fellowship Consortium, Research Grant, 2017-18
Amherst College Trustee Faculty Fellowship, 2017-18
National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, American Antiquarian Society, 2012-13
Andrew Mellon Foundation Fellowship, Massachusetts Historical Society, 2012-13
Top-25 Significant Queer Women of 2013 by Velvetpark Media, New York City
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Service Award, Connecticut College, January 2011
Library Company of Philadelphia / Historical Society of PA, Mellon Fellowship, 2005-06
Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission Scholars in Residence Fellowship, 2005-06
McNeil Center for Early American Studies, University of Pennsylvania, Fellowship, 2004-05
The Institute for Research on Women, Rutgers University, Seminar Fellow, 2003-04

Professional Activities

Advisory Board, OutHistory, 2023-present
Editorial Board, University of North Carolina Press, Gender and American Culture Series, 2022-present
Nominating Committee, Organization of American Historians, 2021-present
Editorial Board, Early American Studies, 2020-2023
Council Member, Omohundro Institute, Williamsburg, VA, 2019-2023
Editorial Board, The William and Mary Quarterly, Williamsburg, VA, 2019-2023
AHA Committee on LGBTQ History Nestle and Romesburg Prize Committees, chair, 2020-21
OAH John D’Emilio LGBTQ History Dissertation Award Committee, 2020-21
Committee on the Status of LGBTQ Historians and LGBTQ Histories, OAH, 2018-22, chair, 20-21
Steering Committee, The Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute / Massachusetts Historical Society Boston Seminar on the History of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, 2016-19

Professional Affiliations

American Antiquarian Society; American Historical Association; Berkshire Conference of Women Historians; Committee on LGBT History; Massachusetts Historical Society; McNeil Center for Early American Studies; Omohundro Institute; Organization of American Historians; Society for Historians of the Early American Republic

LGBTQ history resources are available at JenManion.com