Person

French, Kara M.

Dr. French is a scholar of gender, sexuality, and religion in the early American republic. Her book, Against Sex: Identities of Sexual Restraint in Early America examines celibacy and chastity as practiced by Shakers, Catholic religious orders, and Protestant sexual reformers. Her newest project, Democratic Queen, is a biography of Harriet Lane Johnston, the niece of President James Buchanan, believed to have been the first woman to have been termed "first lady" of the United States.