While preparing a lecture about a historical figure, I stumbled across a fact about his sexual orientation that some might feel was unnecessary to share with my students, but I included it. My choice was deeply impactful for one student and my approach to teaching.
For context, the lecture was about Valley Forge in 1778, portrayed by historians as the nadir of the American Revolution for George Washington’s army and the pivotal moment when the fledgling military got its act together.
Friedrich “Baron” Von Steuben is credited with shaping the ragtag troops into a lean, mean fighting machine by the end of the brutal winter. I wanted to figure out why this Prussian military officer was interested in the American Revolution. In reading about his life, among other things, I learned that he was gay.
At the time, my lectures and primary sources heavily featured an uninterrupted series of straight, white men. I was making some inroads in featuring more women and Black men in other places in the curriculum, but there was not a single mention of people’s sexuality. I debated whether to mention Von Steuben’s sexuality, not wanting to tokenize him or have my students roll their eyes at a clunky effort at diversity.
I ultimately thought it could be of value as a formidable military man was far from the stereotype that students might have believed about gay men.
My identification of von Steuben’s sexuality was a fleeting reference, but it became a staple of my lecture that I shared matter-of-factly, with no emphasis or unpacking. Four years ago, I became aware of how crucial that decision was when Ryan, a student of mine, shared with me, "It remains the only mention of LGBTQ+ people I’ve heard in any history class to date.”
Coincidentally, that was also the same school year where I implemented a capstone project where students in my U.S. History I class (which ends chronologically in 1877) would research the impact of the 14th Amendment on a subject of their choosing from the post-Reconstruction period. Ryan opted to research the Lavender Scare, an offshoot of the 1950s Red Scare that targeted the LBGTQ+ community.
Ryan’s paper won a major prize from the New Jersey Council for Social Studies, which was wonderful, but something even more powerful occurred. In her own words, Ryan wrote: “This project has enhanced my understanding of 14th Amendment issues and LGBTQ+ rights, in addition to the historical context for them. And perhaps more importantly, it has shown me that LGBTQ+ people have a vibrant history of not just victimhood but resistance.”
When I think back on my early depictions of marginalized people in American history—Native Americans, Blacks, and women, in particular—I’m horrified by how much emphasis I put on victimhood.
I was so focused on cajoling an emotional response from my students that I lost sight of the message I was sending—these groups and individuals were nothing more than victims.
It’s what my educators taught me, and nothing changed when I received pedagogical training. Subsequently, I’ve sought to correct this approach, examining the atrocities committed and how people heroically found ways to resist.
For example, when I teach about the institution of slavery—a subject we examine throughout the course, not at one fixed moment in time—the class considers no less than eight forms of resistance: armed rebellions (recently covered in a Freedom Friday episode), self-liberation, sabotage, work slowdowns, feigned illness, negotiations, creation of stand-alone cultures, and self-harm. No student leaves my class wondering why enslaved people didn’t resist because it is clear that they did every single day.
In 2019, New Jersey passed a law requiring the accurate portrayal of “political, economic, and social contributions of persons with disabilities and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people.”
Although I have a lot more work to do for early American history, I’ve included the stories of individuals like Albert D.J. Cashier, a transgender man who served in the Civil War, temperance reformer and suffragist Frances Willard, who appeared gender fluid, and transcendentalist writer Walt Whitman who was likely gay or bisexual.
This work is a hallmark of culturally responsive education, where educators foster a sense of belonging to ensure that all students feel respected and represented. We must ensure that students see themselves in our curricular materials, not just the “mainstream” groups that get disproportionate attention.
It is nearly as important that those who belong to the dominant culture recognize and understand the participation, struggle, and contributions of groups that have endured marginalization. We cannot tell everyone’s story, but by sharing and acknowledging other voices, we can make our teaching and study of history multi-dimensional.