On the eve of the American Revolution, the British army court-martialed a chaplain, Robert Newburgh, who had been accused of having intimate relations with a man. Newburgh’s enemies cited his flamboyant appearance, defiance of military authority, and seduction of soldiers as proof of his low character. Consumed by fears that the British Empire would soon be torn asunder, they claimed that crimes against nature were crimes against the king.

In this talk, historian John Gilbert McCurdy (Eastern Michigan University) uses the case of Robert Newburgh to glimpse inside eighteenth-century perceptions of queerness. By demanding to have his case heard, Newburgh invoked Enlightenment ideals of equality, arguing passionately that his style of dress and manner should not affect his place in the army or society. Newburgh thus made the case for sexual liberalism, an idea that was wholly consistent with the highest ideals of the American Revolution, and that anticipated a greater freedom for LBGTQ+ individuals in the nation that followed.

John Gilbert McCurdy is Professor of History at Eastern Michigan University. He is the author of three books including Vicious and Immoral: Homosexuality, the American Revolution, and the Trials of Robert Newburgh (Johns Hopkins, 2024). McCurdy is also the author of Quarters: The Accommodation of the British Army and the Coming of the American Revolution (Cornell, 2019), which was named 2019 Book of the Year by the Journal of the American Revolution.

McCurdy received his Ph.D. from Washington University in St. Louis in 2004. He also holds an M.A. from the University of Chicago and B.A. from Knox College. He has received held fellowships from the British Library, the Massachusetts Historical Society, and the University of Michigan.

McCurdy has taught at Eastern Michigan University since 2005, where he has been nominated for several teaching awards. He regularly teaches courses in colonial and Revolutionary America, as well as LGBTQ+ history.