Will Kuby
Ph.D. Student
(ABD)
wkuby@sas.upenn.edu
Education
B.A., Wesleyan University (2004)
A.M., University of Pennsylvania (2007)
Fields
Nineteenth and Twentieth Century United States History; History of Gender and Sexuality; Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Cultural History; History of Marriage and the Family; LGBT History and Queer Studies; African American History; History of the American Life Cycle; Race, Gender, and Science
Dissertation Title
Conjugal Misconduct: Dubious Vows, Unlawful Wedlock, and the Margins of Marital Propriety in the United States, 1900-1940
Dissertation Topic
My dissertation investigates disreputable and legally ambiguous marital practices, as well as the efforts to contain them, in the early twentieth century United States. I seek to contribute to a growing body of scholarly work on marriage law and practice by examining behaviors not typically incorporated into discussions of matrimony, like common law marriage, out-of-state elopement, trial marriage, and non-marital cohabitation.
