The Henry Sheldon Museum presents a lecture by historian Rachel Hope Cleves on March 9, at 7 p.m., via Zoom. This is the sixth talk in the virtual series “Elephant in the Room: Exploring the Future of Museums” convened by the Stewart-Swift Research Center. In this talk, professor Cleves, from the University of Victoria, will discuss her experiences unearthing the histories of sex and gender in archives large and small, and how she turns those archival discoveries into award-winning articles and books.

Cleves is a Professor of History at University of Victoria, British Columbia. Best known for her 2014 book “Charity and Sylvia: A Same-Sex Marriage in Early America,” which she researched at the Henry Sheldon Museum, Cleves has also researched and written about a teenage female poet of the American Revolution, a gender-bending woman educator from 19th-century Illinois, a notorious British writer of the early 20th century, and further research that sheds new light on the history of sex and gender.

This series, funded by Vermont Humanities, is free and open to all. To learn more about the “Elephant in the Room” series and to register for the talk, visit henrysheldonmuseum.org/elephant-in-the-room.