Dress The History of Fashion is a production of iHeartRadio.

For more 7 billion people in the world, we all have one thing in common.

Every day, we all get dressed.

Welcome to Dress The History of Fashion, a podcast where we explore the who-what-wint-of-why-wee-where.

This is Cassidy Zachary, fashion historian, and your host for today's and future episodes,

as it is now April's turn, my co-host, to take a well-deserved break.

She will be back in the coming weeks.

And as our regular listeners know, I have been on maternity leave for the past six weeks.

This is my first episode back in well over a month.

So thank you all for various sweet messages about my little Leo.

Welcome to this world in May.

It's been quite the adventure already.

But I am beyond happy to be back doing what I love,

like talking to other historians about their captivating work.

And that includes today's guest, Dr. Rachel Hope Cleves, who wrote a book that documents

the most remarkable love story of two 19th century tailors,

Charity Bryant and Sylvia Drake.

But what's so extraordinary about Charity and Sylvia's 44-year-old relationship,

as Dr. Cleves shows us, is how apparently on extraordinary it was.

With same-sex marriage only being legalized in the United States in 2015,

it's incredible to consider that Charity and Sylvia's marriage was not only recognized,

so this is a marriage between two women, but they were respected by their small,

...