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On July 3, 1807, Sylvia Bryant became Charity Drake's help-meet and companion. In the words of the day, this meant Sylvia and Charity had entered into a marriage.

As opportunities for women to become teachers expanded after the American Revolution, Charity and Sylvia took full advantage. They both taught young children and relished the independence it gave them. Most importantly, it opened avenues for a different life outside of the conventions of marrying men and bearing children.

Charity moved from place to place as a teacher, subjected to fierce gossip because of her "mannish" appearance and intense romantic friendships with other women. She learned the tailoring trade while living with a family member and used that to sustain a life away from familial surveillance.

Sylvia grew up in rural isolation, also moving from place to place because of her family's financial instability. She loved learning, using schooling to avoid courtship with men. When she moved in with her sister Polly in 1807, she was dodging questions about when she'd get married.

On a cold February day in 1807, Charity and Sylvia met for the first time. They spent the next 44 years together until Charity's death in 1851. The women are immortalized today in a silhouette portrait donated to the Henry Sheldon Museum by Sylvia's descendants.

Come along as we explore queer identity, romantic poetry, and gender roles in Early America through history and astrology to celebrate Pride!

This episode contains discussion of sexual content.

Sources

Articles:

• “About Charity and Sylvia (the people)” by Vermont Humanities (https://www.vermonthumanities.org/programs/book-a-program/vermont-reads/vermont-reads-2026/about-the-people/)
• “Charity Bryant and the Queer Affordances of the Early American Acrostic” by Jennifer Putzi (https://www.jstor.org/stable/27235251)
• “New roadside marker in Weybridge commemorates 1800s same-sex couple” by Mary Williams Engisch (https://www.vermontpublic.org/local-news/2025-06-20/roadside-marker-weybridge-commemorates-1800s-same-sex-couple)
• “Read the Revolution: Charity and Sylvia” (https://www.amrevmuseum.org/read-the-revolution/charity-and-sylvia)

Digital Media:

• Charity and Sylvia (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4nVNb0d-2Y)
• Drawing on the Archive: Tillie Walden's Charity and Sylvia (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqlfs3R2lbI)
• 013: Rachel Hope Cleves, Charity & Sylvia: Same-Sex Marriage in Early America (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D82ogbip-Ac)
• U6L3: Charity Bryant and Sylvia Drake (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6pt7fUyJWI)

Books:

• Charity and Sylvia: A Same-Sex Marriage in Early America by Rachel Hope Cleves

Websites:

• Charity Bryant (1777-1851) (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/112580287/charity-bryant)
• Charity and Sylvia (https://www.charityandsylvia.com/)
• “Charity and Sylvia: A Weybridge Couple” (https://www.henrysheldonmuseum.org/charity-and-sylvia)
• Sylvia Drake (1784-1868) (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/112580393/sylvia-drake)

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Forcibly removed to the Jerome War Relocation Center following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Yuri Kochiyama was deeply involved in her community. During high school she volunteered and taught skills, all while seeing America through "American Eyes." She was Nisei, the first generation born to Japanese immigrants, and had citizenship while her parents could never obtain it. While assembling in Santa Anita, California, she assisted Japanese junior high girls in writing letters to some 1,300 Nisei service members.

After the war, she moved to New York City after her husband was released from the Army. In 1951, she and her husband founded the Nisei Service Organization, leading to weekly open houses in their home. There she launched into activism, attending demonstrations for integrated schools and against US imperialism. In 1963, she met Malcom X and learned about the parallels of Asian and Black issues.

In the 1980s, she helped earn redress for forcibly interned Japanese Americans. In 1988 the Civil Liberties Act authorized $20,000 in reparations to each internment camp survivor. By the end of her life, Yuri was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize and was granted an honorary doctorate.

Come along with us as we explore Yuri's enduring spirit, widespread activism, and legacy through history and astrology.

Sources

Articles:

• “The Passionate Harlem Activist Yuri Kochiyama, New York, 1921-2004”
• “Yuri Kochiyama, Activist and Former World War II Internee, Dies at 93” by Hansi Lo Wang
• “Yuri Kochiyama: Timeline”
• “Yuri, Tupac, and a Harlem House” by Taiyo Na

Books:

• Heartbeat of Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Yuri Kochiyama by Diane C. Fujino
• Infamy: The Shocking Story of Japanese American Internment During World War II by Richard Reeves
• Passing It On: A Memoir by Yuri Kochiyama
• Strangers From a Different Shore by Ronald Takaki

Digital Media:

• "Japanese Internment Camp Survivors Speak Out"
• "The Revolutionary Impact of Yuri Kochiyama"
• "Yuri & Bill Kochiyama: on the road in Mississippi"

Primary Sources:

• “Civil Rights Activist Yuri Kochiyama on Her Internment in a WWII Japanese American Detention Camp” by Democracy Now
• Executive Order 9066
• Japanese Relocation government film (1943)

Websites:

• Jerome - Densho
• Jerome - Exploring America's Concentration Camps
• Rising Above in Arkansas

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Patreon: patreon.com/MakingMythPodcast
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