Ben Franklin's World

🎧 Episode 193: Partisans: The Friendship and Rivalry of Adams & Jefferson

🎧 Episode 245: Celebrating the Fourth of July

🎧 Episode 415: The Many Declarations of Independence

🎧 Episode 439: When the Declaration of Independence Was News

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🎧 Episode 393: Politics and Political Culture in the Early American Republic

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BFW Revisited: A Declaration in Draft, 2026

Tue, 14 Jul 2026 05:00:00 -0400

Every American knows Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, but was he really its sole architect?

In this revisited episode, we sit down with three scholars to pull back the curtain on how the Declaration came to be written. Danielle Allen of Harvard University, Patrick Spero of the American Philosophical Society, and Peter Onuf of the University of Virginia reveal that the Declaration was never one man's work.

Together, they show how John Adams — not Jefferson — was the intellectual architect behind "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." How Benjamin Franklin changed the Declaration with just four or five surgical edits. And what the Second Continental Congress cut from Jefferson's original draft, including his striking grievance blaming King George III for the international slave trade.

Originally recorded in 2017 as part of Ben Franklin's World's Doing History to the Revolution series, this episode pairs with Episode 446 and Episode 447 to mark the Declaration's 250th anniversary.

Danielle’s Website | Book
Patrick's Website | Book
Peter's Website | Book
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/141

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 018: Our Declaration
🎧 Episode 440: Jefferson's Cut Grievance
🎧 Episode 443: How Independence Happend, Pt 1: The Lee Resolution, 1776
🎧 Episode 444: How Independence Happened, Pt 2: The Model Treaty
🎧 Episode 445: How Independence Happened, Pt 3: Articles of Confederation
🎧 Episode 446: The Declaration of Independence at 250
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446 The Declaration of Independence at 250

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 05:00:00 -0400

250 years after its signing, the Declaration of Independence remains an unfinished document. Its famous assertion "that all men are created equal" and endowed with unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness stands not as a settled truth, but as a call every generation of Americans must answer on its own terms.

What did the founders mean by "all men are created equal?" Who did they believe was eligible to pursue life, liberty, and happiness? And how are the generations living in the United States today thinking through their own answers?

Four historians join us to explore these questions. Robert Parkinson and Steve Sarson draw on their new books to help us understand what it meant in 1776. Anthea Hartig and Virginia Scharff show us how two 250th anniversary museum exhibitions use objects to make the Declaration's living legacy tangible, and to remind us that its promises have always been claimed not just in words, but in action.
Rob's Book | Steve's Book | Smithsonian Exhibit | Autry Exhibit
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/403

EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00 Introduction
00:00:44 Celebrating the Declaration of Independence
00:03:50 The Declaration As An Ongoing Experiment
00:04:14 Anthea Hartig on the National Museum of American History
00:05:30 Virginia Scharff on the Autry Museum of the American West
00:07:58 Robert Parkinson on Understanding the Declaration
00:19:17 Steve Sarson on the Declaration's Philosophical Argument
00:21:10 The Original Meaning of the Declaration
00:34:47 Conclusion
00:41:16 The Massachusetts Historical Society's Declaration Exhibit
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 018: Our Declaration
🎧 Episode 141: A Declaration in Draft
🎧 Episode 394: The Pursuit of Happiness
🎧 Episode 415: The Many Declarations of Independence
🎧 Episode 439: When the Declaration of Independence Was News in 1776
🎧 Episode 440: Jefferson's Cut Grievance
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445 How Independence Happened, Pt 3: The Articles of Confederation

Tue, 30 Jun 2026 05:00:00 -0400

The man Congress chose to draft the United States’ first constitution refused to vote for independence.

John Dickinson wrote a bold plan, one with a strong central government, religious liberty protections that included women, and a question in the margins about whether Congress should abolish slavery. Congress stripped out nearly all of these ideas and provisions. What replaced it sparked a debate over federal vs. state power that has never gone away.

This is the third episode in our How Independence Happened series. In Part 1, we explored Richard Henry Lee's Virginia Resolution of June 7, 1776. In Part 2, we examined the Model Treaty and how the new United States made foreign alliances. In this third part, we're joined by historians Jane Calvert and Jonathan Gienapp so we can investigate the Articles of Confederation, the third element of independence.

Jane's Website | Book
Jonathan's Website | Book
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/445

EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00 Introduction
00:03:34 The Articles of Confederation
00:08:29 Why A Confederation Was Important
00:12:49 Why the Second Continental Congress Create A Formal Union
00:21:44 Drafting the Articles of Confederation
00:22:38 John Dickinson's Role in Drafting the Articles
00:45:50 The Founding Generation's Ideas About Government
01:05:40 Viewing the Articles of Confederation in Context
01:13:07 The Unwritten Constitution of the People
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 179: Governance During the Critical Period
🎧 Episode 258: John Dickinson, Life, Religion, & Politics
🎧 Episode 323: American Expansion and the Political Economy of Plunder
🎧 Episode 366: James Wilson & the U.S. Constitution
🎧 Episode 443: How Independence Happened, Pt 1: The Lee Resolution
🎧 Episode 444: How Independence Happened, Pt 2: The Model Treaty
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444 How Independence Happened, Part 2: The Model Treaty

Tue, 23 Jun 2026 05:00:00 -0400

Declaring independence on July 2, 1776 was only the beginning. To actually become a nation, the United States needed something else: foreign allies, international recognition, and the credibility to negotiate as an equal among the world's great powers.

Five days after Richard Henry Lee introduced his famous Virginia Resolution, the Continental Congress appointed a committee of five — John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, John Dickinson, Robert Morris, and Benjamin Harrison — to figure out how to achieve international recognition. The result was the Model Treaty: a document we almost never discuss today, but one that Adams considered his most important contribution to Congress and the nation.

Historians Sara Georgini and Eliga Gould guide us through Adams's revolutionary blueprint for American foreign policy and how the founders understood that the United States would need to become a "treaty worthy" nation before France would take them seriously.

This is the second episode in a three-part series.

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443 How Independence Happened, Part 1: The Lee Resolution

Tue, 16 Jun 2026 05:00:00 -0400

Declaring independence on July 2, 1776, was only the beginning.

To actually become a nation, the United States needed something else: foreign allies, international recognition, and the credibility to negotiate as an equal among the world's great powers.

Historians Sara Georgini and Eliga Gould guide us through Adams's revolutionary blueprint for American foreign policy and the founders' understanding that the United States would need to become a "treaty-worthy" nation before France would take it seriously.

This is the second episode in a three-part series.

Sara’s Website | Book

Lige's Website | Book
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/444

EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00 Introduction
00:00:21 Three Legs of Independence
00:01:17 The Second Continental Congress Votes Independence
00:02:58 The Second Leg of Independence: Foreign Alliances
00:03:28 The Model Treaty
00:07:12 Why the Virginia Resolution Included Foreign Alliances
00:19:00 Specifics of the Model Treaty
00:21:30 Founders' Goals for the Model Treaty
00:28:21 The Model Treaty Drafting Committee
00:41:20 The Model Treaty as a Document
00:39:15 The Story of Common Sense
00:50:07 Commercial Alliances
01:04:42 The Model Treaty's Place in the American Revolution
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 007: John Adams & the Adams Papers Documentary Project
🎧 Episode 128: American Revolutions: A Continental History
🎧 Episode 193: Partisans: The Friendship & Rivalry of Jefferson & Adams
🎧 Episode 432: How France & Spain Helped Save the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 433: Entangled Alliances: Haiti, France, & the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 443: How Independence Actually Happened, Pt 1: The Lee Resolution
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BFW Revisited: Reading the Declaration of Independence for Equality

Tue, 09 Jun 2026 05:00:00 -0400

On July 4th, 2026, the United States marks 250 years since the Declaration of Independence announced a new nation to the world. But how well do we actually know the document we're celebrating?

Most of us can recite "We hold these truths to be self-evident," but how many of us have read all 1,337 words, and traced the argument the Declaration actually makes?

Danielle Allen, the James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University and author of Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality, reveals how New Hampshire's desperate need for a functioning government set the Continental Congress on the path toward independence, why the Declaration was authored by many voices — not just Thomas Jefferson — and how a slow, careful reading of the document uncovers a powerful argument that freedom and equality are entwined. You cannot have one without the other.

This is the essential starting point for Ben Franklin's World's Independence at 250 series.

Danielle’s Website | Book |

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/018

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 119: The Heart of the Declartion
🎧 Episode 141: A Declaration in Draft
🎧 Episode 415: The Many Declarations of Independence
🎧 Episode 438: The American Revolution and the Fate of the World
🎧 Episode 439: When the Declartion of Independence War News in 1776
🎧 Episode 440: Jefferson's Cut Grievance and the British Monarchy's Role in Slavery
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442 Everyday Military Life in the American Revolution

Tue, 02 Jun 2026 05:00:00 -0400

When we picture the American Revolution, we picture battles. But for the men and women who actually lived and fought in it, the Revolution was also a job with mess rotations, night watches, short rations, and children underfoot.

Historians Eugene Procknow, Gabriel Neville, and Thomas Sobol pull back the curtain on everyday military life during the War for Independence. They discuss how the armies were structured, what soldiers actually ate, what camp followers endured, and how soldiers found humanity amid grinding hardship.

You'll hear about a Black Continental soldier who had eaten nothing but bread for eleven days, and was still writing letters home that went unanswered. A Georgia soldier who agreed to fight for the British just to escape a prison ship, then deserted and marched across two states to rejoin Nathanael Greene's army. And you'll discover why John Adams believed the most dangerous moment of the Revolution wasn't a battle at all.
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/403

EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00 Introduction
00:05:44 Structure of the British and Continental Armies
00:10:33 Militia, German Soldiers, and Indian Allies
00:20:43 Everyday Life in the American War for Independence
00:25:80 Camp Followers
00:33:10 Downtime in the Army
00:36:59 Soldiers' Letters
00:46:00 Food Procurement & Supply Chains
00:50:27 Supplementing Rations
00:55:34 War Mementoes & Plunder
00:58:36 Medical Care in the Army
01:08:07 The Revolution in Context
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 158: The Revolutionaries' Army
🎧 Episode 122: The Men Who Lost America
🎧 Episode 252: The Highland Soldier in North America
🎧 Episode 302: From Inoculation to Vaccination, Pt 2
🎧 Episode 348: Valley Forge
🎧 Episode 374: The Revolutionary War in the West
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BFW Revisited: Valley Forge

Tue, 26 May 2026 05:00:00 -0400

Most of us learned the same story: During the winter at Valley Forge, George Washington's army suffered and endured. Ragged soldiers huddled together in frozen huts and gnawed on shoe leather for food.

But what if that story is mostly myth?

Military historian Ricardo Herrera, author of Feeding Washington's Army: Surviving the Valley Forge Winter of 1778, reveals what was really happening during the winter of 1777–1778.

Valley Forge wasn't a place of frozen inactivity, it was a hub of military operations. The army's survival depended not on virtue and willpower alone, but on the armed foraging columns Washington sent into the Pennsylvania countryside to seize food, horses, and supplies from the civilians he was fighting to protect.

Rick’s Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/348

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 158: The Revolutionaries' Army
🎧 Episode 189: The Little Ice Age
🎧 Episode 301: Innoculation to Vaccination, Part 1
🎧 Episode 302: Innoculation to Vaccination, Part 2
🎧 Episode 332: Occupied Philadelphia
🎧 Episode 333: Occupied Yorktown
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441 The Escapes of David George

Tue, 19 May 2026 05:00:00 -0400

When David George lay sick with smallpox in Savannah during the Revolutionary War, he faced three possible outcomes: death, re-enslavement, or freedom.

Greg O'Malley, Professor of History at UC Santa Cruz, follows David George across six decades and three continents, from enslaved Virginia to the Muscogee Creek nation, and from British-occupied Georgia to Nova Scotia to Sierra Leone, in his new book, The Escapes of David George: An Odyssey of Slavery, Freedom, and the American Revolution. It's a story that will change how you think about what the Revolution actually delivered, and for whom.

Greg’s Website | Book
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/403

EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:14 Welcome to Ben Franklin's World
00:02:31 Introducing Greg O'Malley and David George
00:05:43 David George's Odyssey Begins
00:08:12 The Rare Narrative of David George
00:11:07 Authenticating David George's Voice
00:13:39 David George's Multiple Escapes from Slavery
00:20:30 David George's Conversion to Christianity
00:24:53 Why Baptist? The Appeal of Evangelical Faith
00:29:52 David George's Family and Name
00:37:12 Life in Nova Scotia as a Refugee Preacher
00:42:03 Journey to Sierra Leone
00:54:44 Piecing Together David George's Later Years
00:59:49 Discovering the Silver Bluff Baptist Church
01:06:24 Time Warp: What If David George Stayed?
01:10:29 Reflections and Takeaways
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 008: Final Passages: The Intercolonial Slave Trade
🎧 Episode 322: Running from Bondage in Revolutionary America
🎧 Episode 424: Dunmore's Proclamation
🎧 Episode 434: The Frank Brothers: Freeborn Black Soldiers
🎧 Episode 440: Brooke Newman, Jefferson's Cut Grievance and the British Monarchy's Role in Slavery

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BFW Revisited: Running from Bondage in the American Revolution

Tue, 12 May 2026 05:00:00 -0400

She fled on horseback in the thick of war. Her six-year-old son rode with her. The white tailor at her side would pass, when anyone asked, as her husband.
Her name was Sarah. She was one of tens of thousands of enslaved people who self-emancipated during the American Revolution, and one of the many women earlier histories barely noticed.
In this Revisited episode, Karen Cook-Bell, author of Running from Bondage: Enslaved Women and the Remarkable Fight for Freedom in Revolutionary America, recovers their stories.
We learn how Lord Dunmore's 1775 proclamation reshaped the landscape of resistance, why motherhood drove women to flee rather than keeping them in place, and what creative, subversive strategies they used to slip out of bondage and into freedom.

This is the companion conversation to Ep. 440's exploration of Jefferson's cut grievance. If Brooke Newman gave us the view from the throne, Karen Cook-Bell gives us the view from the ground. And it changes what the proclamations look like.

Karen's Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/322
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 137: The Washingtons' Runaway Slave, Ona Judge
🎧 Episode 157: The Revolution's African American Soldiers
🎧 Episode 162: Dunmore's New World
🎧 Episode 312: The Domestic Slave Trade
🎧 Episode 424: Dunmore's Proclamation and the American Revolution in Virginia
🎧 Episode 440: Jefferson's Cut Grievances and the British Monarchy's Role in Slavery
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440 Jefferson's Cut Grievance and the British Monarchy's Role in Slavery

Tue, 05 May 2026 05:00:00 -0400

Thomas Jefferson's draft of the Declaration of Independence contained 28 grievances against King George III — not 27.

The final grievance, the one Congress cut before signing, accused the British king of waging cruel war against human nature by trafficking enslaved Africans across the Atlantic, forcing slavery onto unwilling American colonists, and then inciting those same enslaved people to rise up and kill their enslavers.

Did King George III and the British monarchy actually bear responsibility for slavery in the 13 colonies? Or was Jefferson's grievance a strategic sleight of hand — an attempt to pin a uniquely American system onto the crown he wanted to escape?

Historian Brooke Newman, author of The Crown's Silence: The Hidden History of the British Monarchy and Slavery, joins us to find out. She traces the British monarchy's involvement in the transatlantic slave trade from Queen Elizabeth I through King George III, examines what Jefferson got right and what he got wrong, and delivers her verdict on one of the most explosive what-ifs in United States history.

Brooke's Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/440

EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:24 Episode Welcome and Jefferson's Cut Grievance
00:03:15 Guest Introduction: Brooke Newman
00:04:58 Jefferson's Claim and Brooke's Research Origins
00:09:28 Timeline of Monarchies and Terminology
00:12:03 England Enters the Slave Trade under Elizabeth I
00:17:41 Crown Investments and Royal African Company
00:30:15 Colonies Structured for Slavery
00:37:02 Logistics of the Slave Trade by Revolution
00:47:01 King George III's Views on Slavery
00:52:20 Virginia's 1772 Slave Trade Ban and Royal Veto
00:57:35 Dunmore's Proclamation: Not a Royal Act
01:01:17 Was George III to Blame? Jefferson's Strategy
01:04:26 Time Warp: If George III Abolished Slavery
01:10:56 Conclusion
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 141: A Declaration in Draft
🎧 Episode 206: Christian Slavery
🎧 Episode 351: Wealth and Slavery in New Netherland
🎧 Episode 360: Slavery & Freedom in Massachusetts
🎧 Episode 394: The Pursuit of Happiness
🎧 Episode 438: The American Revolution and the Fate of the World
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BFW Revisited: Whose Fourth of July?

Tue, 28 Apr 2026 05:00:00 -0400

On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass stood before the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society and asked one of the most searing questions in American history: "What, to the slave, is the Fourth of July?"

To answer Douglass's question, we have to go back to the Revolution itself; to the choices Black Americans made in wartime, to the ways they read, used, and interrogated the Declaration of Independence, and to the alternative celebrations they created when the Fourth of July felt like someone else's holiday.

Historians Christopher Bonner and Martha S. Jones help us explore what the Fourth of July meant for African Americans in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and how their experiences with the Fourth contributed to the larger history of the nation's founding.

Christopher's Website | Book
Martha's Website | Book
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/277

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 157: The Revolution's African American Soldiers
🎧 Episode 166: Freedom and the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 245: Celebrating the Fourth of July
🎧 Episode 255: Birthright Citizens
🎧 Episode 434: The Frank Brothers, Freeborn Black Soldiers in the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 439: When the Declaration of Independence Was News
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439 When the Declaration of Independence Was News

Tue, 21 Apr 2026 05:00:00 -0400

The Second Continental Congress voted for independence on July 2, 1776, but it had absolutely no plan for telling the world about it.

Congress sent just one copy of the Declaration to France. It was lost at sea. Printers ran the text however they liked. And the first formal acknowledgment of American independence came not from a European court, but from a Native American chief responding to a verbal translation of the Declaration in the middle of a treaty negotiation.

Historian and Declaration expert Emily Sneff joins us to explore what the Declaration of Independence looked like when it was just news — urgent, imperfect, and far beyond anyone's control.

Emily’s Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/439

EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00 Introduction
00:04:07 The Declaration as a Congressional Product
00:06:28 Jefferson's humble signature
00:11:10 Congress Has No Plans for Circulation
00:16:22 News of the Declaration Breaks
00:24:36 Pubilc Readings of the Declaration
00:27:27 Ministers Spread News of the Declaration
00:32:57 German-American Translation of the Declaration
00:42:04 French Translation Failures
00:46:42 Verbal Translations of the Declaration
00:51:52 No Official Copy Sent to King George III
00:58:43 The Declaration of Independence as News
01:02:17 Time Warp
01:07:48 Upcoming 250th Exhibitions
01:11:24 Conclusion
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 018: Our Declaration
🎧 Episode 119: The Heart of the Declaration
🎧 Episode 141: A Declaration in Draft
🎧 Episode 388: John Hancock
🎧 Episode 415: The Many Declarations of Independence
🎧 Episode 431: Thomas Paine's Common Sense at 250
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BFW Revisited: Age of Revolutions

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 05:00:00 -0400

Between 1763 and 1848, revolutions swept across four continents. We tend to remember three of them — the American, the French, and the Haitian Revolutions. But what about all the rest? And what connected them to each other?

In this episode, we're bringing back our conversation with Janet Polasky, Presidential Professor of History Emerita at the University of New Hampshire and author of Revolutions Without Borders: The Call to Liberty in the Atlantic World, and Paul Mapp, Associate Professor of History at William & Mary, who helps us understand why historians are increasingly looking at the American Revolution through an international lens.
Together, they reveal why the Age of Revolutions happened when it did, how the American Revolution fit within this larger Atlantic-wide moment of upheaval, and how revolutionary ideas traveled across borders through people, print, and rumor.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/165

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 161: Smuggling and the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 428: Canal Dreamers
🎧 Episode 432: How France & Spain Helped Win American Independence
🎧 Episode 433: Haiti, France, and the American War for Independence
🎧 Episode 438: The American Revolution and the Fate of the World
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438 The American Revolution & the Fate of the World

Tue, 07 Apr 2026 05:00:00 -0400

What if the American Revolution didn't just create the United States, but also created Australia?

Most of us learned about the Revolution as a story of thirteen North American colonies pushing back against a distant king. But this episode reveals something far wilder: a genuinely global war whose consequences rippled across every inhabited continent — reshaping empires, forcing migrations, and planting the seeds of more than a hundred declarations of independence that would follow over the next two and a half centuries.

Joseph Adelman joins historian Richard Bell to explore the American Revolution as a world war. They discuss:

Why the Declaration of Independence was really a Declaration of Interdependence
How Hyder Ali, the Muslim ruler of Mysore in southern India, became George Washington's ally by the logic of wartime coalitions
How Spain's campaign to recapture Florida tied down thousands of British troops
How Britain's convict crisis, caused by losing access to Maryland and Virginia, led to the founding of Australia at Botany Bay.

Rick's Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/438

EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00 Introduction
00:06:28 Differences in Perception of the American Revolution
00:09:00 Reframing the Declaration of Independence
00:17:32 Molly Brandt and Haudenosaunee Diplomacy
00:24:38 Baron von Steuben: A Mercenary's Tale
00:29:15 The American Revolution: Myth vs. Reality
00:35:02 The American Revolution and Florida
00:43:39 The American Revolution's Impact on India
00:50:24 The Connection Between the American Revolution and Australia
00:56:50 Themes of the American Revolution
00:59:16 The Time Warp
00:62:00 Conclusion

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 141: A Declaration in Draft
🎧 Episode 163: The American Revolution in North America
🎧 Episode 238: Benedict Arnold
🎧 Episode 348: Valley Forge
🎧 Episode 325: Everyday People of the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 437: The Home Front
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BFW Revisited: British-Occupied Philadelphia, 1777–1778

Tue, 31 Mar 2026 05:00:00 -0400

In September 1777, just fourteen months after declaring independence, Philadelphia fell to the British Army. For nearly nine months, the new nation's capital was occupied territory.

But what did that actually mean for the people who lived there?

Not the generals, not the Congress: ordinary Philadelphians who had to decide whether to flee or stay, share their homes with British officers, watch their fences get chopped up for firewood, and figure out which neighbors to trust when it was all over.

In this episode, Aaron Sullivan, a professor of History at Rider University, George Boudreau, a public historian and Executive Director of the Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion Museum in Germantown, PA, and historical interpreter Kalela Williams, now the Director of the Virginia Center for the Book, take us inside occupied Philadelphia.

Together, they reveal how a city that was never fully committed to independence experienced nine months of British rule, and what the occupation cost everyone who lived through it: Quaker women negotiating with soldiers at their back gates, merchants whose fortunes rose on British hard currency while their neighbors went hungry, and Black Philadelphians who looked at the upheaval and asked whether it might open a door to freedom.

Plus: the most extravagant party thrown in eighteenth-century America, staged while the city's almshouses overflowed.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/332
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 050: Betsy Ross & the Making of America
🎧 Episode 306: The Horse's Tail
🎧 Episode 325: Everyday People of the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 333: Life in Occupied Yorktown
🎧 Episode 380: The Tory's Wife
🎧 Episode 437: Civilian Life in America's Occupied Cities
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437 Civilian Life in America's Occupied Cities

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 05:00:00 -0400

The British Army is at your door. They need a room. What do you do?
For thousands of civilians living in cities occupied during the American War for Independence — Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Newport, Charleston, Savannah — this wasn't a hypothetical. It was a reality that upended daily life and revealed a side of the revolution we rarely talk about.
Lauren Duval, author of The Home Front: Revolutionary Households, Military Occupations, and the Making of American Independence, joins us to explore what the War for Independence actually looked like from inside the household. Women who negotiated quartering terms and held their ground. Men who came to blows over who controlled the parlor. Enslaved people who used the chaos of occupation to reunite families and reach British lines.
The revolution didn't just happen on battlefields. It happened at kitchen tables, in back gardens, and on doorsteps.
Lauren's Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/403

EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:38 The Home Front of the American Revolution
00:05:24 The Gensis of the Revolutionary Household
00:10:49 Why Focus on Urban Port Cities
00:19:46 The British Occupation's Impact on City Life
00:25:55 Quartering a British Officer: The Drinker Household
00:33:38. Quartering Experiences in Male-Headed Households
00:39:22 Lower-Class Experiences During British Occupation
00:40:55 The Impact of British Hard Currency on Urban Labor Markets
00:44:21 Black Experiences During British Occupation
00:51:21 The Overall American Experience of the War for Independence
00:54:01. The Time Warp
00:59:47 Conculsion
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 050: Betsy Ross & the Making of America
🎧 Episode 175: The War in Ben Franklin's House
🎧 Episode 306: The Horse's Tail
🎧 Episode 332: Experiences of Revolution: Occupied Philadelphia
🎧 Episode 333: Experiences of Revolution: Occupied Yorktown
🎧 Episode 380: The Tory's Wife
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BFW Revisited: Longfellow House-Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site

Tue, 17 Mar 2026 05:00:00 -0400

250 years ago, the British evacuated Boston: driven out by cannon that had traveled 300 miles from Fort Ticonderoga. But where did the plan for those cannons take shape?
In this Revisited episode, we return to our conversation with Garrett Cloer, now Program Manager for Interpretation and Visitor Experience at Saratoga National Historical Park, to explore the Longfellow House–Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
This Georgian mansion served as George Washington's home and headquarters for nearly nine months during the Siege of Boston. In this house, Washington forged the Continental Army and plotted the moves that liberated the city. Garrett reveals the house's Loyalist origins, life inside during the siege, and how poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow later transformed it into a literary landmark.
A companion to Episode 436 on Henry Knox's Noble Train of Artillery.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/194
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 112: The Tea Crisis of 1773
🎧 Episode 228: The Boston Massacre
🎧 Episode 296: The Boston Massacre: A Family History
🎧 Episode 409: The Battles of Lexington & Concord
🎧 Episode 413: Dr. Joseph Warren & the Battle of Bunker Hill
🎧 Episode 436: Fort Ticonderoga & Henry Knox's Noble Train of Artillery
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436 Fort Ticonderoga & Henry Knox's Noble Train of Artillery

Tue, 10 Mar 2026 05:00:00 -0400

On March 17, 1776, the British evacuated Boston, driven out by cannon hauled 300 miles through winter wilderness from a crumbling fort in upstate New York.

Join Matthew Keagle, Curator at Fort Ticonderoga, as we trace the fort's dramatic history from its French origins in the Seven Years' War, its chaotic capture by Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold in May 1775, and Henry Knox's legendary expedition to move nearly 60 tons of artillery to George Washington's army. Discover the logistics, rivalries, and resourcefulness behind one of the Revolution's most remarkable feats.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/436

EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00 Introduction
00:06:26 British Withdrawl from Boston
00:07:55 Fort Ticonderoga's Origins
00:25:05 British Capture of Fort Ticonderoga, 1756
00:28:04 British Improvements to Fort Ticonderoga
00:32:44 American Capture of Fort Ticonderoga, 1775
00:49:06 Henry Knox's Expedition
01:04:46 Cannon on Dorchester Heights
01:10:36 British Evacuation of Boston
01:13:43 Legacy of Knox's Noble Train of Artillery
01:17:36 Visiting Fort Ticonderoga
01:24:65 Conclusion
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 130: Paul Revere's Ride Through History
🎧 Episode 194: Longfellow House-Washington's Headquarters, NHS
🎧 Episode 238: Benedict Arnold
🎧 Episode 296: The Boston Massacre: A Family History
🎧 Episode 409: The Battles of Lexington & Concord
🎧 Episode 413: Dr. Joseph Warren & the Battle of Bunker Hill
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435 Common Sense at 250: The Unfinished Work of Democracy, A Live Conversation

Tue, 03 Mar 2026 06:00:00 -0400

In January 1776, Thomas Paine told the American colonies to break free from their king. But what was supposed to come next? 250 years later, that question still doesn't have a good answer.
To mark the anniversary of *Common Sense*, we traveled to Lewes, England, the town where Paine lived before he ever set foot in America, and recorded our first-ever LIVE episode inside Bull House, the building where Paine honed his ideas about citizens and their government.

Joseph Adelman chairs a panel with scholars Leanne O'Boyle, Nicole Mahoney, and Jeanne Sheehan Zaino as they dig into the legacy of *Common Sense*: democracy's "day two problem," the women Paine wrote out of his own story, why "the law is king" keeps showing up on protest signs, and what a 15th-century building in a small English town can teach us about where democratic ideas actually take root.
Recorded live in partnership with the Institute for Thomas Paine Studies at Iona University.
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/435

EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:06 What Happened After the Revolution?
00:02:59 Live from the Bull House in Lewes, England
00:04:49 A Template for Common Sense and Civic Life
00:07:12 Thomas Paine's Legacy in Lewes, England
00:10:24 Thomas Paine's Legacy in New Rochelle, New York
00:16:04 Democracy's "Day Two Problem"
00:22:50 Local Civic Engagement in Lewes
00:27:46 Women and Common Sense
00:34:54 Paine's Family Life in Lewes
00:35:31 Reconstituting Government
00:42:44 Violence and Change
00:49:31 "No Kings" Protest and 'The Law is King'
00:56:29 Thomas Paine's Legacy
00:58:10 Audience Q&A
01:18:20 Episode Wrap-Up
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 144: The Common Cause of the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 156: The Power of the Press in the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 243: Revolutionary Print Networks
🎧 Episode 287: Elections in Early America: Presidential Elections & the Electoral College
🎧 Episode 431: Thomas Paine's Common Sense at 250
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434 Freeborn Black Soldiers in the American Revolution

Tue, 24 Feb 2026 06:00:00 -0400

What would you fight for if you were free but still not equal? In 1777, brothers William and Benjamin Frank answered that question by enlisting in the Second Rhode Island Regiment of the Continental Army. Freeborn men of color, they gambled that military service would earn them what freedom alone had not: equality, land, and a better future.

Historian Shirley Green, author of Revolutionary Blacks: Freeborn Men of Color, Soldiers of Independence, joins us to tell their story. Drawing on genealogical research rooted in her own family history, Green reveals what daily life looked like for free Black families in Revolutionary Rhode Island, how the Frank Brothers fought at the Battles of Red Bank, Monmouth, and Rhode Island, and how the Revolution ultimately divided them—one brother serving through Yorktown, the other crossing to the British side and resettling in Nova Scotia as a Black Loyalist.

Their story is a window into the full range of Black experiences during the Revolution, and a reminder that for men like William and Benjamin Frank, choosing a side was never simple. It was a calculated gamble, shaped by promises made—and promises broken.

Shirley’s Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/434

EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:19 The Frank Brothers' Revolutionary Choices
00:05:14 Discovering the Frank Brothers Through Family Oral History
00:09:01 Blending Genalogy and Microhistory
00:15:22 Life for Free Black Families in Early Rhode Island
00:20:50 Why Free Black Men Joined the Continental Army
00:24:00 Motivations: Land, Pay, and Equality
00:29:15 The Gamble of Military Service Amid Policy Shifts
00:41:13 Daily Life and Combat in the Integrated Regiments
00:44:46 Ben Frank's Desertion
00:52:51 The Book of Negroes
01:00:02 Postwar Outcomes: Did Promises of Land, Pay, and Equality Hold?
01:02:47 Lessons from Black Soldiers' Experiences
01:07:26 Conclusion
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 118: The Business of Slavery in Rhode Island
🎧 Episode 157: African American Soldiers in the Continental Army
🎧 Episode 301: From Inoculation to Vaccination, Part 1
🎧 Episode 333: Disruptions in Yorktown
🎧 Episode 348: Valley Forge
🎧 Episode 413: Dr. Joseph Warren & the Battle of Bunker Hill
🎧 Episode 424: Dunmore's Proclamation & the American Revolution in Virginia
🎧 Episode 427: How States Are Planning the 250th of the American Revolution
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BFW Revisited: The American Revolution's African American Soldiers

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 06:00:00 -0400

More than 6,000 Black men—free and enslaved—served in the Continental Army during the American Revolution. Yet their stories remain some of the least told of the war.
In this revisited episode, we rejoin Judith Van Buskirk, Professor Emerita of History at SUNY Cortland and author of Standing in Their Own Light: African American Patriots in the American Revolution, to explore what motivated African American men to fight for the Revolutionary cause, how the Continental Army's policies toward Black enlistment shifted over the course of the war, and what life and service looked like in units like the First Rhode Island Regiment.
Judy's Book
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/403
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 016: The Internal Enemy
🎧 Episode 118: The Business of Slavery in Rhode Island
🎧 Episode 123: Revolutionary Allegiances
🎧 Episode 433: Haiti, France, and the American War for Independence

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433 Entangled Revolutions: Haiti, France, and the American Revolution

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 06:00:00 -0400

What if the American Revolution was never just an American story?

Historian Ronald Angelo Johnson helps us uncover the deep connections between the American and Haitian Revolutions to reveal how both revolutions emerged from the same Atlantic imperial struggle for empire, racialized power, and war.

Using details from his book Entangled Alliances, Ron will guide us from the Treaty of Paris in 1763 to the Siege of Savannah in 1779, where hundreds of Black soldiers from French Saint Domingue landed on Georgia’s shores—not as enslaved laborers, but as uniformed volunteers ready to fight for American Independence.

Ron's Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/433

EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:08 Episode Overview
00:04:50 The Treaty of Paris 1763 and its Impact
00:09:09 Consequences of the Seven Years' War for Saint Domingue
00:18:39 Saint Domingue Society Post-Seven Years' War
00:24:32 French Imperial Reaction vs. Local Resentment
00:28:36 Circulation of News Between British North America & Saint Domingue
00:39:22 France's Strategy to Assist American Revolutionaries
00:50:42 Reception of the Chasseurs Volontaires Regiment in Georgia
00:54:42 Re-evaluating the American Revolution
00:57:32 Time Warp
01:05:38 Conclusion
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 052: Diplomacy in Black and White
🎧 Episode 151: Defining the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 228: The Boston Massacre (King Street Riot)
🎧 Episode 325: The Everyday People of the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 361: The Fourth of July in 2026
🎧 Episode 421: Loyalism & Revolution in Georgia
🎧 Episode 432: How France & Spain Helped Win the American Revolution
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BFW Revisited: The Marquis de Lafayette

Tue, 03 Feb 2026 06:00:00 -0400

What does it take to become a revolutionary in more than one revolution? In this revisited conversation with Mike Duncan, we explore the life of the Marquis de Lafayette—an ambitious young Frenchman who crossed the Atlantic to fight for the American cause and later carried those lessons into the political storms of France. From early idealism to a complicated role in two upheavals, Lafayette’s story reveals how ideas, alliances, and personal relationships shaped the Age of Revolutions.

You’ll hear how Lafayette became close to George Washington, what he learned in America, and why his legacy makes the most sense when you follow him across borders.

Mike’s Instagram | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/313
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Bonus: The Marquis de Lafayette & the Hermione
🎧 Episode 071: Saratoga & Hubbardton, 1777
🎧 Episode 203: Alexander Hamilton
🎧 Episode 363: Ste. Genévieve National Historical Park
🎧 Episode 365: 300 Years of French Settlment at Île Sait-Jean
🎧 Episode 432: How France & Spain Helped Win the American Revolution
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432 How France and Spain Helped Win the American Revolution

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 06:00:00 -0400

The American Revolution wasn’t just a colonial rebellion; it was a global conflict shaped by European rivalries and high-stakes diplomacy. Without the help of foreign allies like France and Spain, the United States might never have won its independence.

Historian John Ferling joins us to explore the international dimensions of the Revolutionary War. Drawing from his new book Shots Heard Round the World, Ferling reveals how secret aid, political gambles, and naval power from Europe (especially France) influenced the outcome of the war, and nearly derailed it.

John’s Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/432

EPISODE OUTLINE
00:01:06 Introduction
00:01:52 Why European Powers Intervened
00:08:02 International Interest in the American Revolution
00:14:20 French Reaction to the Outbreak of War
00:19:28 Initiation of Foreign Aid
00:23:46 British Expectations of a Quick Victory
00:25:35 Saratoga as a Turning Point
00:31:46 French Naval and Military Support
00:37:36 Spain's Ambitions and Entry into the War
00:42:55 Britain's War Fatigue and Missed Opportunities
00:51:31 Outcomes for France and Spain
00:54:53 Time Warp
00:59:20 Conclusion
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 046: The American Revolution and the War that Won It
🎧 Episode 112: The Tea Crisis of 1773
🎧 Episode 122: The Men Who Lost America
🎧 Episode 208: Turning Points of the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 313: The Marquis de Lafayette
🎧 Episode 421: Loyalism & Revolution in Georgia
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BFW Revisited: The Common Cause

Tue, 20 Jan 2026 06:00:00 -0400

Before Common Sense could ignite a revolution, colonists had to be convinced they shared a cause worth fighting for. So how did Revolutionary leaders turn thirteen very different colonies into “Americans”—and what stories did they tell to make that unity feel real?

In this Ben Franklin’s World Revisited episode, historian Robert Parkinson returns to explore how newspapers and wartime messaging helped forge the Revolution’s “common cause”—and how that campaign leaned on fear, race, and exclusion to build a new national identity.

Rob’s Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/144

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 016: The Internal Enemy
🎧 Episode 122: The Men Who Lost America
🎧 Episode 141: A Declaration in Draft
🎧 Episode 243: Revolutionary Print Networks
🎧 Episode 375: Misinformation Nation: Fake News in Early America
🎧 Episode 431: Common Sense at 250: The Pamphlet That Sparked A Revolution
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431 Common Sense at 250: The Pamphlet That Sparked a Revolution

Tue, 13 Jan 2026 06:00:00 -0400

Thomas Paine’s Common Sense turned a colonial rebellion into a full-blown revolution. But how did one pamphlet move so many minds in 1776—and why does it still matter 250 years later?

To commemorate the 250th anniversary of Common Sense, historian and Director of the Institute for Thomas Paine Studies at Iona University, Nora Slonimsky, joins us to explore Paine’s life, the pamphlet’s explosive impact, and what this revolutionary text still teaches us about democracy, communication, and civic life.

ITPS Website
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/403

EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:06 Thomas Pain's Early Life and Influences
00:05:53 The Institute for Thomas Paine Studies
00:07:51 Thomas Paine as an English Excise Man
00:13:34 Paine's Ideas for Reform of the British Government
00:19:27 Reception of Paine's First Pamphlet
00:21:48 Paine's Intellectual Life in England
00:27:30 Thomas Paine and Benjamin Franklin
00:31:44 Paine's Migration to Philadelphia
00:35:55 Paine's View of the American Revolution
00:39:15 The Story of Common Sense
00:50:34 Measuring the Reach of Common Sense
00:59:34 The Legacy of Common Sense and Thomas Paine
01:02:54 Time Warp
01:05:02 Commemorating the 250th Anniversary of Common Sense
01:08:17 Conclusion
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 127: American Enlightenments
🎧 Episode 141: A Declaration in Draft
🎧 Episode 144: The Common Cause
🎧 Episode 156: The Power of the Press in the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 243: Revolutionary Print Networks
🎧 Episode 394: The Pursuit of Happiness
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BFW Revisited: The Power of the Press in the American Revolution

Tue, 06 Jan 2026 06:00:00 -0400

Common Sense didn’t just make an argument for independence—it moved through a world of newspapers, pamphlets, and personal networks that carried revolutionary ideas from one doorstep to the next. So how did political news travel in 1776, and what made print such a powerful engine of persuasion?

As we approach the 250th anniversary of Common Sense, Ben Franklin’s World Revisited returns to Episode 156 to explore how early Americans shared, debated, and embraced revolutionary ideas. You’ll discover how print and networks spread the Revolution, what made Common Sense a publishing phenomenon, and how media shaped political debate and public opinion.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/156
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 091: Rumors, Legends, and Hoaxes in Early America
🎧 Episode 153: Committees and Congresses: Governments of the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 144: The Common Cause
🎧 Episode 243: Revolutionary Print Networks
🎧 Episode 375: Misinformation Nation: Fake News in Early America
🎧 Episode 428: America's Forgotten Quest to Link Two Oceans
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430 The Founding Father of American Medicine: Benjamin Rush

Tue, 30 Dec 2025 06:00:00 -0400

Benjamin Rush was one of early America’s most fascinating figures. He was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, a leading Philadelphia physician, and a thinker who believed that a healthy body was the foundation of a healthy republic.
In this episode, historian Sarah Naramore, author of Benjamin Rush, Civic Health and Human Illness in the Early American Republic, introduces us to Rush as both doctor and political philosopher.

We’ll explore:

How Rush developed an “American system” of medicine
His groundbreaking ideas on mental health and addiction
And why he believed the human body modeled the ideal form of government.

Rush may be what Sarah calls a “B-list Founding Father,” but his influence on early American science, politics, and public health was anything but minor.

Sarah’s Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/430

EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:06 Episode Introduction
00:04:48 Who Was Benjamin Rush
00:13:52 Benjamin Rush's Medical Practice
00:17:01 The American System of Medicine
00:22:30 Rush's Ideas about Civic Health
00:29:07 Rush's Approach to Mental Health
00:33:53 Rush's Views on Addiction
00:48:00 Rush's Legacy
00:52:13 Time Warp
00:55:00 Conclusion
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 174: Yellow Fever in the Early American Republic
🎧 Episode 193: Partisans: The Friendship & Rivalry of Adams & Jefferson
🎧 Episode 263: The Medical Imagination
🎧 Episode 279: Benjamin Rush, Founding Father
🎧 Episode 301: From Inoculation to Vaccination, Part 1
🎧 Episode 302: From Inoculation to Vaccination, Part 2
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BFW Revisited: Smuggling and the American Revolution

Tue, 23 Dec 2025 06:00:00 -0400

British officials had a problem: Their American colonists wouldn't stop smuggling. Even after Parliament slashed tea prices and passed laws to make legal imports cheaper, colonists kept buying Dutch and French goods on the black market.
So what was really going on? If it wasn't just about saving money, what drove thousands of merchants and consumers to risk fines, seizure, and worse?
In this revisited episode, we follow the illicit trade networks that connected colonial port cities to the "Golden Rock,” Sint Eustatius, a tiny Dutch island that became the Atlantic World's busiest smuggling hub.
You'll discover why American merchants risked everything to trade there, how these underground networks shaped revolutionary resistance, and what Britain's crackdown on smuggling reveals about the deeper economic and political tensions that ignited the Revolution.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/161

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 021: Smuggling in Colonial America & Living History
🎧 Episode 112: The Tea Crisis of 1773
🎧 Episode 121: The Dutch Moment in the 17th-Century Atlantic World
🎧 Episode 159: Dangerous Economies
🎧 Episode 160: The Politics of Tea
🎧 Episode 288: Smugglers & Pirates in the 18th-Century Atlantic World
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429 Coffee in Early America: Why Americans Really Drink Coffee

Tue, 16 Dec 2025 06:00:00 -0400

Think the Boston Tea Party made America a coffee-drinking nation? Historian Michelle McDonald reveals the truth: colonists were already choosing coffee over tea because it was cheaper.

Michelle Craig McDonald, the Librarian/Director of the Library & Museum at the American Philosophical Society and author of Coffee Nation: How One Commodity Transformed the Early United States, explains how coffee shaped American identity long before the Revolution.

You'll hear about Revolutionary-era women storming a Boston warehouse to seize hoarded coffee and sell it at regulated prices. You'll discover why Parliament protected coffee while taxing tea. And you'll learn how enslaved Caribbean laborers made America's favorite beverage possible.

From colonial coffee houses to debates about caffeine addiction in the early republic, discover how one imported commodity became distinctly American.

Michelle's Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/429

EPISODE OUTLINE

00:00:00 Introduction
00:03:20 Meet our Guest
00:04:35 Coffee vs. Tea in Early America
00:06:50 Coffeehouses and How Coffee Was Served
00:08:04 Medical Concerns About Coffee
00:09:12 Coffee Production
00:12:35 Attempts to Grow Coffee in North America
00:14:04 The Use of Enslaved Labor in Coffee Cultivation
00:19:50 The Early American Market for Coffee
00:22:21 Early American Coffee Connoisseurs
00:29:57 Early American Coffeehouses
00:34:48 Coffee and the American Revolution
00:36:40 The Boston Coffee Riot, 1777
00:42:48 Coffee in the Early Republic
00:45:00 Coffee and the Haitian Revolution
00:47:53 Early Republic Attempts to Grow Coffee
00:50:55 Early Republic Coffee Culture
00:53:56 Time Warp
00:58:31 Conclusion

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428 America's Forgotten Quest to Link Two Oceans

Tue, 09 Dec 2025 06:00:00 -0400

In the 1820s, American entrepreneurs, engineers, and politicians dared to dream big. They believed they could cut a canal, not through Panama, but through the wild, rain-soaked terrain of Nicaragua. Their goal: To link the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and transform global trade forever.

But what inspired these ambitious "canal dreamers?” And why did they believe Nicaragua held the key to controlling the future of commerce?

Jessica Lepler, Associate Professor of History at the University of New Hampshire and author of Canal Dreamers: The Epic Quest to Connect the Atlantic and Pacific in the Age of Revolutions, joins us to explore this nearly forgotten story of innovation, illusion, and international ambition in early American history.

Jessica’s Website | Book
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/428

EPISODE OUTLINE
00:01:00 Introduction
00:04:05 Desire to Build a Canal Across Central America
00:08:01 Political Landscape of Central America During the 1820s
00:09:55 Creating a Stable Central American Government
00:11:55 Geography of the Nicaraguan Canal Route
00:16:03 Economic Opportunities of an Interoceanic Canal
00:17:57 Individual vs. State Interest in a Nicaraguan Canal
00:21:58 Why Americans Sought A Private Canal Contract
00:26:44 Information Canal Dreamers Relied On to Build a Canal
00:33:12 Competitive Advantages of American Canal Dreamers
00:35:40 American Surveys of a Central American Canal Route
00:39:12 Influence of the Erie Canal
00:42:32 Why the Nicaraguan Canal Failed
00:44:50 What Canal Dreamers Reveal About the Early United States

0046:40 Overview of the Panama Canal
00:49:50 Time Warp
00:56:00 Conclusion
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 028: Building the Erie Canal
🎧 Episode 090: The Age of American Revolutions
🎧 Episode 113: Building the Empire State
🎧 Episode 165: The Age of Revolutions
🎧 Episode 186: The New Map of Empire
🎧 Episode 329: Freemasonry in Early America
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427 How States Are Planning the 250th: Commemorating the American Revolution in 2026

Tue, 02 Dec 2025 06:00:00 -0400

As we look ahead to the 250th anniversary—the semiquincentennial—of the Declaration of Independence in 2026, communities and commissions across the United States are asking big questions:
How should we commemorate this historic milestone? What’s the right balance between celebration and education? And how can this moment bring people together across political divides, generational gaps, and complex histories?
To explore these questions, I’ve invited my friend, colleague, and Clio Digital Media co-founder Karin Wulf to guest host a special conversation with two people who are leading the way: Gregg Amore, Chair of the Rhode Island 250 Commission, and Carly Fiorina, Chair of the Virginia 250 Commission.
Together, they reveal how their states are planning commemorative programs that center civic engagement, local storytelling, and inclusive history—and how the 250th can be more than a moment. It can be a spark.

Karin’s Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/427

EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:10 Welcome & Episode Overview
00:04:45 Guest Introductions
00:07:32 Virginia & Rhode Island's Commemorative Plans
00:11:21 State Efforts and Collaborations
00:16:32 Engaging Young People
00:20:11 Educational Initiatives
00:22:13 Ken Burns's The American Revolution
00:24:30 Navigating the Political Climate
00:32:05 Reflections on the Bicentennial
00:35:00 Challenges to Achieving Commemorative Goals
00:42:51 Conclusion and Future Opportunities
00:46:53 Final Thoughts
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 250: Virginia, 1619
🎧 Episode 373: The Gaspee Affair
🎧 Episode 417: Roger Williams, Rogue Puritan
🎧 Episode 416: Lineage: Genealogy in Early America
🎧 Episode 424: Dunmore's Proclamation & the American Revolution in Virginia
🎧 Episode 425: Ken Burns's The American Revolution
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BFW Revisited: The Mayflower

Tue, 25 Nov 2025 06:00:00 -0400

Each November, we Americans come together to celebrate Thanksgiving, a holiday that invites us to reflect on gratitude, community, and the stories we tell about our past.

But what do we really know about the origins of this holiday? What did the “First Thanksgiving” look like, and who were the people who made it happen?

In honor of Thanksgiving, we’re revisiting our 2018 conversation with Rebecca Fraser, author of The Mayflower: The Families, The Voyage, and the Founding of America. This rich conversation offers a look at the English Separatists or Pilgrims who settled in Massachusetts. It explores who they were, why they came to North America, and what their life was like in the early years of Plymouth Colony.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/213
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 095: A Tale of Two Bostons
🎧 Episode 104: The Saltwater Frontier
🎧 Episode 121: The Dutch Moment in the 17th-Century Atlantic World
🎧 Episode 182: The Great Awakening in New England
🎧 Episode 290: The World of the Wampanoag, Part 1
🎧 Episode 291: The World of the Wampanoag, Part 2
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426 Indigenous Agriculture and the Hidden Science of Native Foodways

Tue, 18 Nov 2025 06:00:00 -0400

As Thanksgiving approaches, many Americans are gathering to reflect on gratitude, family—and of course—food.

It's the time of year when we may think about the so-called "First Thanksgiving" and imagine scenes of Pilgrims and Native peoples gathering in Massachusetts to share in the bounty of their fall harvests.

But how much do we really know about the food systems and agricultural knowledge of Indigenous peoples of North America? In what ways were the Wampanoag people able to contribute to this harvest celebration—and what have we gotten wrong about their story?

Michael Wise, Associate Professor of History at the University of North Texas and author of Native Foods: Agriculture, Indigeneity, and Settler Colonialism in American History, joins us to challenge four persistent myths about Indigenous food practices. Discover how Native communities shaped and stewarded the land and its agriculture long before European colonists arrived—and why this history matters more than we might think.

Michael’s Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/426

EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:10 Episode Introduction
00:03:43 Guest Introduction
00:04:30 Myths about Indigenous Agriculture
00:11:29 Indigenous and European Gender Roles
00:15:56 Wampanoag Agriculture
00:17:29 Wampanoag Corn Cultivation
00:25:59 Wampanoag Cuisine
00:27:52 Indigenous Disspossession in New England
00:32:58 Cherokee Agriculture
00:37:13 The Cherokee Hunter Myth
00:40:53 The Origin of the Myths about Native American Agriculture
00:45:40 Future Projects
00:47:13 Closing Thoughts & Resources

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=

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425 Ken Burns' The American Revolution

Tue, 11 Nov 2025 06:00:00 -0400

What does it take to bring the American Revolution to life?

How can an event that took place 250 years ago be conveyed to us through modern-day film?

Ken Burns and his team worked to answer these questions in their new, epic six-part documentary, Ken Burns’ The American Revolution. Their work promises to deepen, complicate, and transform our understanding of the Revolution over 12 hours of film.

But how did Burns and his team make this film? What stories did they choose to tell? And what challenges did they face in telling those stories?

Sarah Botstein and David Schmidt, the two co-directors of Ken Burns’ The American Revolution, join us for a behind-the-scenes tour of their film and how they made it.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/425

EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00 Introduction
00:03:09 Guest Introduction
00:04:42 Becoming Involved in the Documentary
00:07:57 Approach to Telling the Story of the Revolution
00:18:57 Images and Representation
00:21:53 Challenges Faced
00:27:03 Choosing Which Stories to Include
00:39:00 Relevance and Meaning of the Revolution
00:45:45 Time Warp
00:52:15 Conclusion

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424 Dunmore's Proclamation & the American Revolution in Virginia

Tue, 04 Nov 2025 06:00:00 -0400

In November 1775, as tensions between the British Empire and its rebellious colonies continued to escalate, Virginia’s royal governor made a radical—and to some, terrifying—proclamation: Any enslaved person who fled a revolutionary enslaver and joined the British Army would gain their freedom.

Known to history as Dunmore’s Proclamation, this single decree changed the course of the American Revolution in the South. It offered a lifeline to thousands of enslaved men, women, and their families, ignited fierce debates about loyalty and liberty, and revealed deep contradictions at the heart of a revolution that claimed to fight for freedom.

In honor of the 250th anniversary of Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation, we’re taking a deeper look at the man behind it: John Murray, Fourth Earl of Dunmore, and at the Revolution in Virginia, which he helped fuel.

Our guide for this exploration is Andrew Lawler, an award-winning journalist and author of A Perfect Frenzy: A Royal Governor, His Black Allies, and the Crisis that Spurred the American Revolution.

Andrew's Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/424

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 109: The American Enlightenment & Cadwallader Colden
🎧 Episode 162: Dunmore's New World
🎧 Episode 252: The Highland Soldier in North America
🎧 Episode 322: Running From Bondage in Revolutionary America
🎧 Episode 333: Disruptions in Yorktown
🎧 Episode 398: The Shawnee-Dunmore War, 1774
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BFW Revisited: Disruptions in Yorktown

Tue, 28 Oct 2025 05:00:00 -0400

What did it take to end the War for Independence?

When we think of the American Revolution’s final chapter, we think of the Siege of Yorktown.

Between September 28 and October 19, 1781, British forces endured a siege by the Franco-American forces that ultimately led to a triumphant Franco-American victory, British recognition of American independence, and the birth of a new nation.

But the real story of the Yorktown victory is far more layered. It involved international alliances, enslaved people seeking freedom, and years of hardship.

Today, we’re revisiting the events of October 1781 as we revisit Episode 333.

In this episode, we join three historians–Marcus Nevius, Ed Ayers, and Gretchen Johnson– who help us uncover:

How American, French, and British forces converged at Yorktown
The vital role of the French army and navy in securing victory
And what this final battle looked like on the ground for soldiers, civilians, and Black Virginians alike

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/333

EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00 Introduction
00:03:59 Siege of Yorktown
00:05:13 The British Military Approach
00:08:50 The Importance of Virginia's Regions
00:18:57 The Impact of War on Yorktown
00:28:03 Dunmore's Proclamation and the British Strategy
00:33:44 The British Invasion of Virginia
00:48:00 Aftermath and Legacy
00:55:49 Conclusion
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 162: Dunmore's New World
🎧 Episode 208: Turning Points of the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 250: Virginia, 1619
🎧 Episode 289: Maroonage in the Great Dismal Swamp
🎧 Episode 306: The Horse's Tail
🎧 Episode 332: Occupied Philadelphia
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423 The Forgotten Artists of the American Revolution

Tue, 21 Oct 2025 05:00:00 -0400

Have you ever noticed how conversations about the American Revolution often center on great battles, founding documents, and famous statesmen?

What if, instead, we explored that world through the eyes—and the hands—of everyday people who shaped it through art?

Zara Anishanslin, Associate Professor of History and Art History at the University of Delaware and Director of its Museum Studies and Public Engagement Program, joins us to uncover the hidden world of artists, artisans, and makers who painted, stitched, and crafted the Revolution into being. Drawing from her book The Painter’s Fire: A Forgotten History of the Artists Who Championed the American Revolution, Zara helps us see how creativity and craftsmanship tell a fuller—and more human—story of America’s founding.
Zara’s Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/423

EPISODE OUTLINE

00:00:00 Introduction

00:41.79 Welcome & Episode Overview

00:02:59 Meet Our Guest

00:07:11 The Transatlantic Network of Revolutionary Artists

00:11:28 Why Revolutionary Artwork Didn't Survive

00:14:13 Prince Demah & His Mother Daphny

00:21:21 How Art Patronage Worked in the 18th Century

00:24:01 Finding Prince Demah a Teacher in London

00:27:40 Life as a Black Artist in London

00:41:22 Prince Demah's Life in Revolutionary Boston

00:49:24 Robert Edge Pine: The English Artist Who Supported America

00:59:24 How Revolutionary Art Differs from Later Commemorative Art

01:04:55 What Artists Reveal About the Revolution

01:07:29 Closing Thoughts & Resources

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 084: How Historians Read Historical Sources
🎧 Episode 106: The World of John Singleton Copley
🎧 Episode 201: Art, Politics, and Everyday Life in Early America
🎧 Episode 299: Colonial Virginia Portraits
🎧 Episode 390: Objects of Revolution
🎧 Episode 422: Plantation Goods
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BFW Revisited: The World of John Singleton Copley

Tue, 14 Oct 2025 05:00:00 -0400

What does it mean to be caught between two worlds? Between loyalty and liberty, artistry and commerce, and between the British North American colonies and the British Empire?

We’re revisiting our exploration of the life of John Singleton Copley, one of early America’s most celebrated portrait artists. Copley’s story reveals much about the upheaval of the American Revolution and the choices people made as events unfolded around them.
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/106

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Bonus: The Boston Stamp Act Riots of 1765
🎧 Episode 075: How Archives Work (Paul Revere)
🎧 Episode 084: How Historians Read Historical Sources
🎧 Episode 136: Material Culture and the Making of America
🎧 Episode 201: Art, Politics, and Everyday Life in Early America
🎧 Episode 299: Colonial Virginia Portraits
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422: Plantation Goods: How Northern Industry Fueled Slavery

Tue, 07 Oct 2025 05:00:00 -0400

When we talk about slavery in Early America, we often focus on plantations: their large, fertile fields, their cash crops, and the people who labored on those fields to produce those cash crops under conditions of enslavement.

But what about the ordinary objects that made slavery work? The shoes, axes, cloth, and hoes? What can these everyday objects reveal about the economic and social systems that sustained slavery in the early United States?

Seth Rockman, a Professor of History at Brown University and author of Plantation Goods: A Material History of Slavery, which was a finalist for the 2025 Pulitzer Prize in History, joins us to rethink how Northern manufacturing, labor, and commerce were entangled with the southern slave economy.

Seth’s Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/422

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Bonus: Lonnie Bunch: History & Historians in the Public
🎧 Episode 084: How Historians Read Historical Sources
🎧 Episode 244: Shoe Stories from Early America
🎧 Episode 281: The Business of Slavery
🎧 Episode 390: Objects of Revolution
🎧 Episode 406: Threads of Power
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BFW Revisited: Origins of American Manufacturing

Tue, 30 Sep 2025 05:00:00 -0400

When we picture the early United States, we often imagine a young nation fighting for political independence. But what about economic independence—and what did it take to achieve it?

Historian Lindsay Schakenbach Regele of Miami University in Ohio joins us to explore how manufacturing became central to the nation's post-Revolution identity.

Drawing from her book Manufacturing Advantage: War, the State, and the Origins of American Industry, 1776–1848, Lindsay reveals how the federal government championed industries like firearms and textiles as tools of sovereignty, security, and self-reliance. Tune in to discover:

Why early leaders saw manufacturing as essential to independence.
2. How state-sponsored factories shaped key sectors like arms and textiles.
3. How these efforts laid the foundation for America’s industrial and social transformation

This episode sheds light on the surprising role of government in jumpstarting the U.S. economy.

Lindsay’s Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/298

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 098: Birth of the American Tax Man
🎧 Episode 113: Building the Empire State
🎧 Episode 140: Nathaniel Bowditch
🎧 Episode 281: The Business of Slavery
🎧 Episode 292: Craft

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421 Loyalism and Revolution in Georgia

Tue, 23 Sep 2025 05:00:00 -0400

What if loyalty, not rebellion, was the default position in revolutionary British North America?

It’s easy to forget that before 1776, most colonists identified as proud Britons. They didn’t see themselves as future Americans or revolutionaries; they saw themselves as subjects of a global empire. And in the colony of Georgia, many clung to that identity longer than we might expect.

Greg Brooking, a historian of the American Revolution in the South and a high school history and social studies teacher, joins us to explore the American Revolution in Georgia with details from his book From Empire to Revolution: Sir James Wright and the Price of Loyalty in Georgia.

Greg’s Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/421

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 126: The Reintegration of American Loyalists
🎧 Episode 171: Native Americans, British Colonists, and Trade in North America
🎧 Episode 280: The British Are Coming
🎧 Episode 409: The Battles of Lexington & Concord, 1775
🎧 Episode 413: Dr. Joseph Warren & the Battle of Bunker Hill

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BFW Revisited: Loyalism in the British Atlantic World

Tue, 16 Sep 2025 05:00:00 -0400

When we think of the American Revolution, we often focus on the patriots who fought for independence. But what about the Loyalists—those who chose to remain faithful to the British crown?

In this episode, we revisit a thought-provoking conversation with historian Brad Jones of Fresno State University, author of Resisting Independence: Popular Loyalism in the Revolutionary British Atlantic. Brad challenges the long-held view of Loyalists as passive or fearful, instead revealing Loyalism as a vibrant political identity shaped by faith, governance, and a broader sense of British belonging.

Listen as we explore: Why the Revolution was also a civil war among neighbors. How Protestantism influenced Loyalist thought. What loyalty meant across the diverse communities of the British Atlantic.

This episode offers a deeper, more nuanced view of the Revolution—and the people who resisted it.
Brad’s Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/330

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420: Creating the U.S. Federal Government

Tue, 09 Sep 2025 05:00:00 -0400

When we think about the founding of the United States, we often focus on the Constitution, the Founding Fathers, and those first landmark elections.

But how did the United States actually build its federal government, the entire apparatus of state that could collect revenue, manage international diplomacy, provide law and order, and extend its reach across a rapidly expanding nation?

Who were the people who made that government work? And how did their service to the nation shape what it meant to be an American citizen?

Peter Kastor, a Professor of History and American Cultural Studies at Washington University in St. Louis, and the Founder of the Creating a Federal Government, 1789-1829 digital project, joins us to explore the remarkable and often overlooked story of how the United States built its federal government between 1789 and 1829.

Peter’s Website | Digital Project |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/420

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 098: Birth of the American Tax Man
🎧 Episode 202: The Early History of the United States Senate
🎧 Episode 279: The Cabinet: Creation of an American Institution
🎧 Episode 259: American Legal History
🎧 Episode 315: History and American Democracy
🎧 Episode 338: The Early History of the United States Senate

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BFW Revisited: Women & the Constitutional Moment of 1787

Tue, 02 Sep 2025 05:00:00 -0400

Each September, Constitution Day marks the signing of the U.S. Constitution on September 17, 1787.

But beyond celebration, this commemoration invites deeper reflection: Whose voices helped shape this foundational document? And who was imagined as part of the political community it created?

In honor of Constitution Day and Constitution Month, we’re revisiting a pivotal conversation from Episode 339 with constitutional historian Mary Sarah Bilder.

Drawing from her book, Female Genius: Eliza Harriot and George Washington at the Dawn of the Constitution, Mary challenges us to reconsider who influenced the Constitution and how women publicly engaged with its political possibilities.
Join us as we explore: Eliza Harriot’s advocacy for “female genius” and intellectual equality. Why the Constitution’s gender-neutral language mattered. And, the debates over representation, education, and citizenship in 1787
Mary’s Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/339

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 107: Madison's Hand
🎧 Episode 137: The Washingtons' Runaway Slave, Ona Judge
🎧 Episode 255: Birthright Citizens
🎧 Episode 259: American Legal History & the Bill of Rights
🎧 Episode 285: Elections & Voting in Early America
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419 The North Carolina Regulator Movement

Tue, 26 Aug 2025 05:00:00 -0400

What happens when the very people meant to uphold justice become the ones exploiting it?

In the 1760s, North Carolina farmers watched sheriffs pocket their tax payments, judges rule in favor of corrupt land speculators, and government officials literally steal their land, all while claiming to represent the Crown’s interests.

Nathan Schultz, a public historian and the Site Manager at the Alamance Battleground State Historic Site in North Carolina, joins us to explore the North Carolina Regulator Movement.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/419

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 330: Loyalism in the British Atlantic World
🎧 Episode 356: The Moravian Church in North America
🎧 Episode 373: The Gaspee Affair
🎧 Episode 374: The American Revolutionary War in the West
🎧 Episode 380: The Tory's Wife
🎧 Episode 409: The Battles of Lexington & Concord, 1775

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BFW Revisited: The Tory's Wife

Tue, 19 Aug 2025 05:00:00 -0400

Revolutionary upheaval didn't just reshape governments—it transformed daily life for ordinary families across colonial America.

In this revisited episode, historian Cynthia Kierner reveals the remarkable story of Jane Spurgin, a woman navigating loyalty, survival, and family obligations in Revolutionary-era North Carolina.

Through Jane's experience as a Loyalist's wife, we discover how political conflicts reached into homes and communities, forcing women to make difficult choices between personal safety and family loyalty.

As we prepare to explore the North Carolina Regulator Movement, Jane's story illuminates the human cost of colonial resistance and the often-overlooked voices of women caught in the crossfire of revolution.

Guest: Cynthia Kierner, Professor of History at George Mason University and author of The Tory's Wife: A Woman and Her Family in Revolutionary America

Cynthia’s Website | Book
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/380

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 085: American Loyalists in Canada
🎧 Episode 126: The Reintegration of American Loyalists
🎧 Episode 237: Motherhood in Early America
🎧 Episode 325: Everyday People of the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 330: Loyalism in the British Atlantic World
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418 The Driver's Story

Tue, 12 Aug 2025 05:00:00 -0400

We often learn about slavery in early America through broad economic or political terms—cotton, sugar, markets, revolutions. But what happens when we turn our focus to the lived experiences of enslaved people themselves?

What did slavery feel and look like on the ground? What did survival look like day to day? And what do we make of the enslaved people who were forced into positions of authority over others, like the plantation drivers who were tasked with extracting labor from their fellow enslaved workers?

Randy Browne, an award-winning historian and Professor of History at Xavier University, joins us to investigate plantation slavery and its driving system with details from his book The Driver’s Story: Labor and Power in the World of Atlantic Slavery.

Randy’s Website | Book

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/418

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 281: The Business of Slavery
🎧 Episode 282: Tacky's Revolt
🎧 Episode 289: Maroonage & the Great Dismal Swamp
🎧 Episode 295: The Whitney Plantation & Museum
🎧 Episode 312: The Domestic Slave Trade
🎧 Episode 324: New Netherland & Slavery

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BFW Revisited: The Business of Slavery

Tue, 05 Aug 2025 05:00:00 -0400

When we think about slavery in early America, we often rightfully focus on the human toll–the violence, the exploitation, the dehumanization that defined the institution. But slavery wasn’t just a system of forced labor; it was also a business.

Next week, in Episode 418, we’ll be investigating a different facet of the business of slavery: the story of slave drivers–enslaved people who were forced or took up positions of authority over others. To better understand the system slave drivers operated within, I thought we should revisit Episode 281 with historian Caitlin Rosenthal.

Caitlin is an Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley. Her book, Accounting for Slavery: Masters and Management, won the Simkins Award from the Southern Historical Association and the Economic Historical Society’s First Book Prize.

Caitlin’s Website | Book
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/403

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 173: Colonial Port Cities & Slavery
🎧 Episode 176: The Value of the Enslaved from Womb to Grave
🎧 Episode 312: The Domestic Slave Trade
🎧 Episode 324: New Netherland and Slavery
🎧 Episode 386: Sleeping with the Ancestors
🎧 Episode 387: California and Slavery
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417 Roger Williams, Rogue Puritan

Tue, 29 Jul 2025 05:00:00 -0400

When we think of early American champions of religious liberty, one name often rises above the rest: Roger Williams.

Best known as the founder of Rhode Island and a fierce advocate for the separation of church and state, Williams was a man who defied convention at every turn. He turned down a prestigious post in Boston, challenged Puritan orthodoxy, and was ultimately banished—only to build a new colony rooted in his radical ideas of liberty of conscience and religious toleration.

In this episode, we explore the life and legacy of this “nonconformist among nonconformists” with the co-editors of Reading Roger Williams: Rogue Puritans, Indigenous Nations, and the Founding of America:

Linford Fisher, Associate Professor of History at Brown University
Sheila McIntyre, Professor of History at SUNY Potsdam
Julie Fisher, scholar of Native American history

Together, they help us uncover:

How Williams challenged both church and colonial authority
His relationships with Indigenous communities and his work as a translator
And why his ideas still matter for understanding religious freedom in America today.

Guests' Book

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/417

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 118: The Business of Slavery in Rhode Island
🎧 Episode 290: The World of the Wampanoag, Pt. 1
🎧 Episode 291: The World of the Wampanoag, Pt. 2
🎧 Episode 356: The Moravian Church in North America
🎧 Episode 373: The Gaspee Affair
🎧 Episode 392: Religion and Race in Early America

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BFW Revisited: The History of Genealogy

Tue, 22 Jul 2025 05:00:00 -0400

Why do we trace our family histories? What drives our desire to know who our ancestors were and how we’re connected to past people and events?

Genealogy is often seen as a modern pursuit, spurred by DNA tests and online records–but in reality, early Americans were deeply invested in understanding and documenting their familial ties. Their desire to understand these ties, however, extended far beyond sheer curiosity.

Last week, in Episode 416, we were joined by Karin Wulf, who shared with us her now-finished project on genealogy and family history in Lineage: Genealogy and the Politics of Connection in the British Atlantic World. Karin’s book is built on the research she shared with us in 2016, so I thought it would be fun to return to her first conversation with us about her research so we can see how her thoughts, ideas, and her book project changed over time as she did more research and thinking on the subject.

Karin’s Website | Book | Instagram

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/114

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 231: The Religious Lives of the Adams Family
🎧 Episode 236: Mixed-Race Britons & the Atlantic Family
🎧 Episode 278: Polygamy: An Early American History
🎧 Episode 354: The Sewing Girl's Tale
🎧 Episode 416: Lineage: Genealogy in Early America

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416: Lineage: Genealogy in Early America

Tue, 15 Jul 2025 05:00:00 -0400

Have you ever wondered why genealogy captivates so many people?

Whether it’s tracing a family tree back generations or holding on to stories told around the dinner table, genealogy offers a powerful sense of connection—a connection that can shape identities, claims of property, and even arguments for freedom.

But genealogy isn’t just a modern-day hobby. In early America, genealogy was a deeply consequential practice with social, political, and legal implications.

Karin Wulf, a Professor of History and the Eighth Director and Librarian of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University, joins us to explore the ways early Americans were interested in their family histories with details from her book, Lineage: Genealogy and the Power of Connection in Early America.

Karin’s Website | Book | Instagram

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/403

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 114: The History of Genealogy
🎧 Episode 231: The Religious Lives of the Adams Family
🎧 Episode 236: Mixed-Race Britons & the Atlantic Family
🎧 Episode 278: Polygamy: An Early American History
🎧 Episode 296: The Boston Massacre: A Family History
🎧 Episode 354: The Sewing Girl's Tale

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BFW Revisited: A Declaration in Draft

Tue, 08 Jul 2025 05:00:00 -0400

The Declaration of Independence is one of the most iconic documents in United States history. But what do we really know about how it came to be?

In our most recent episode, historian Emily Sneff helped us explore the Declaration through your questions–questions that revealed just how complex, living, and contested this document still is.

So in today’s Revisited episode, we take a listen to the podcast that Emily helped to produce back in 2017: Episode 141: A Declaration in Draft.

Originally part of the Omohundro Institute’s Doing History: To the Revolution! Series, this episode features three distinguished scholars: Danielle Allen, Patrick Spero, and Peter Onuf, Together, these scholars reveal that many hands and minds shaped the Declaration of Independence. They also help us dive into some of the document’s contradictions around slavery and equality.

Emily’s Website

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/415

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 018: Our Declaration
🎧 Episode 245: Celebrating the Fourth
🎧 Episode 277: Whose Fourth of July?
🎧 Episode 388: John Hancock
🎧 Episode 394: The Pursuit of Happiness
🎧 Episode 415: The Many Declarations of Independence

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Lineage Book Preview

Thu, 03 Jul 2025 05:00:00 -0400

Preview of Karin Wulf’s book, Lineage: Genealogy and the Power of Connection in Early America.

In eighteenth-century America, genealogy was more than a simple record of family ties--it was a powerful force that shaped society. Lineage delves into an era where individuals, families, and institutions meticulously documented their connections. Whether driven by personal passion or mandated by churches, local governments, and courts, these records appeared in diverse forms-from handwritten notes and account books to intricate silk threads and enduring stone carvings.

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415: The Many Declarations of Independence

Tue, 01 Jul 2025 05:00:00 -0400

When you picture the Declaration of Independence, what comes to mind?

Most people envision a single, iconic document–parchment, signatures, maybe even a scene from National Treasure. But what if I told you, the Declaration of Independence isn’t just one document, but many documents? And that each version of the Declaration tells a different story–a story not just about American independence, but about the people who printed, read, preserved, and even re-wrote the Declaration?

Emily Sneff is one of the leading experts on the Declaration of Independence. She has spent more than a decade researching the Declaration’s origins, and its different copies. She’s the former research manager of the Declaration Resources Project at Harvard, a consulting curator for Revolution 250 exhibits at the Museum of the American Revolution and the American Philosophical Society, and I’m proud to say, she’s is one of our former interns here at Ben Franklin’s World.

Emily’s Website

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/415

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 018: Our Declaration
🎧 Episode 141: A Declaration in Draft
🎧 Episode 245: Celebrating the Fourth of July
🎧 Episode 277: Whose Fourth of July?
🎧 Episode 388: John Hancock
🎧 Episode 394: The Pursuit of Happiness

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414 Queerness and Reputation in Revolutionary America

Tue, 24 Jun 2025 05:00:00 -0400

How do we uncover queer lives from the distant past, especially in an era when language and records often erased or obscured them?

What did queerness look like in early America, and how might it have intersected with power, religion, and empire on the eve of the American Revolution?

John McCurdy, a Professor of History and Philosophy at Eastern Michigan University and the author of Vicious and Immoral: Homosexuality, the American Revolution, and the Trials of Robert Newburgh, joins us to explore these questions through the remarkable story of British Army Chaplain Robert Newburgh.

John's EMU Webpage | Book

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/414

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413 Dr. Joseph Warren & the Battle of Bunker Hill

Tue, 17 Jun 2025 05:00:00 -0400

June 17, 2025, marks the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill, the first full-scale battle of what would become the American War for Independence.

Although technically a British victory, Bunker Hill proved that colonial soldiers could hold their own against the might of the British Empire. New England militiamen inflicted 1,054 casualties on the British, 50 percent of the British force. The New Englanders sustained 411 casualties that day, including the man who stood at the heart of this battle: Dr. Joseph Warren.

Who was Dr. Joseph Warren, and why did he risk his life in the first major battle of the Revolutionary War? What drove this physician, political thinker, and revolutionary leader to become the face of the American Revolution in Boston?

Christian Di Spigna, Executive Director of the Dr. Joseph Warren Foundation, joins us to explore these questions and commemorate this important anniversary with details from his book, Founding Martyr: The Life and Death of Dr. Joseph Warren, the American Revolution’s Lost Hero.

Christian’s Foundation | Book

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/413

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 130: Paul Revere's Ride Through History
🎧 Episode 301: From Innoculation to Vaccination, Part 1
🎧 Episode 350: The Revolutionary Samuel Adams
🎧 Episode 388: John Hancock
🎧 Episode 409: The Battles of Lexington & Concord

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BFW Revisited: On Juneteenth

Tue, 10 Jun 2025 05:00:00 -0400

Juneteenth, the holiday that commemorates the end of slavery in the United States, is nearly upon us, and it offers us the perfect moment for reflection.

What do we know about Juneteenth? Where did this holiday begin? And how has it grown from a regional commemoration into a national conversation about freedom, equality, and memory?

In this episode, we return to our conversation with Annette Gordon-Reed in Episode 304. A native Texan and Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, Annette brings both personal insight and deep historical knowledge to her book On Juneteenth, which is a rich meditation on Texas history, African American identity, and the long arc of emancipation.

Annette’s Website | Book | Bluesky

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/304

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 067: Cattle Colonialism
🎧 Episode 115: The Early History of Texas
🎧 Episode 117: The Life and Ideas of Thomas Jefferson
🎧 Episode 139: The Other Slavery
🎧 Episode 281: The Business of Slavery
🎧 Episode 282: Tacky's Revolt

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412 The Franklin Stove

Tue, 03 Jun 2025 05:00:00 -0400

It might surprise you, but in the 18th century, people across the globe were reckoning with colder-than-usual weather brought on by the Little Ice Age—a centuries-long chill that made heating homes more urgent than ever.

At the same time, early Americans were cutting down trees at an unsustainable pace to stay warm. Enter Benjamin Franklin.

In this episode, Harvard historian Joyce Chaplin joins us to explore how Franklin tackled this problem by designing five different stove models, and what these innovations reveal about early American science, sustainability, and life with fire.

Joyce’s Website | Book

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/412

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 015: Round About the Earth: Circumnavigation from Magellan to Orbit
🎧 Episode 086: Benjamin Franklin in London
🎧 Episode 169: The Religious Life of Benjamin Franklin
🎧 Episode 189: The Little Ice Age
🎧 Episode 207: Young Benjamin Franklin
🎧 Episode 397: Native Nations

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BFW Revisited: The Early History of the U.S. Congress

Tue, 27 May 2025 05:00:00 -0400

To commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Second Continental Congress, this episode revisits the origins of the United States Congress and how early Americans built a representative government from revolutionary ideals.

Historians Matt Wasniewski and Terrence Ruckner of the Office of the Historian of the U.S. House of Representatives join us to explore how Congress evolved from its colonial and revolutionary predecessors into the bicameral legislature established by the Constitution.

House History Office Website

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/202

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 040: For Fear of an Elected King
🎧 Episode 078: Washington Brotherhood
🎧 Episode 153: Governments of the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 179: Governance During the Critical Period
🎧 Episode 338: The Early History of the United States Senate

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411 Philadelphia: An Early History

Tue, 20 May 2025 05:00:00 -0400

Two hundred fifty years ago, in May 1775, delegates from thirteen British North American colonies gathered in Philadelphia for the Second Continental Congress.

Why was Philadelphia chosen as the seat of Congress? What made the city a critical hub for revolutionary ideas, commerce, and culture? And how has Philadelphia’s early history shaped the broader narrative of American Independence?

Paul Kahan, a historian of American political, economic, and urban history, joins us to explore Philadelphia’s early American history with details from his book. Philadelphia: A Narrative History, the first comprehensive history book about Philadelphia in over 40 years.

Paul’s Website | Book

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/411

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 153: Committees and Congresses: Governments of the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 242: A History of Early Delaware
🎧 Episode 332: Experiences of Revolution, Pt 1: Occupied Philadelphia
🎧 Episode 352: James Forten and the Making of the United States
🎧 Episode 379: Women Healers in Early America
🎧 Episode 396: Carpenters' Hall and the First Continental Congress
🎧 Episode 402: Clocks, Watches, and Life in Early America

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BFW Revisited: Founding Friendships

Mon, 12 May 2025 23:00:00 -0400

What did friendship between men and women look like in the decades following the American Revolution? Could emotional closeness and intellectual kinship flourish outside of marriage— and without scandal?

In this episode, we revisit our earlier conversation with historian Cassandra Good, author of Founding Friendships: Friendships between Men and Women in the Early American Republic. Building on our recent exploration of love and advice in 1690s England, we take a closer look at how early Americans navigated the shifting social norms of gender, intimacy, and platonic relationships.

Cassie’s Website | Book

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/094

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Ben Franklin's World Trailer

Thu, 08 May 2025 14:56:00 -0400

This is a 30-second trailer for Ben Franklin's World.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

410 The World's First Personal Advice Column

Tue, 06 May 2025 05:00:00 -0400

When did people begin seeking anonymous advice for their most profound personal dilemmas? What can the answers to their early questions tell us about the emotional lives of people in the past?

We’re traveling back in time to 1690s England to explore the world’s first personal advice column, The Athenian Mercury. This two-sided broadsheet publication invited readers to send in questions about anything–from science and religion to love and marriage– and its creators, a small group of Londoners who dubbed themselves the “Athenian Society,” answered these queries with a surprising blend of wit, morality, and insight.

Joining us for this investigation is Mary Beth Norton, the Mary Donlon Alger Professor Emerita at Cornell University and award-winning historian who is a trailblazer in the field of early American women's history.

Mary Beth's Bio | Book

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/410

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 094: Founding Friendships
🎧 Episode 112: The Tea Crisis of 1773
🎧 Episode 155: Pauline Maier's American Revolution
🎧 Episode 294: 1774, The Long Year of Revolution

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BFW Revisited: Paul Revere's Ride Through History

Tue, 29 Apr 2025 05:00:00 -0400

Paul Revere’s Midnight Ride is one of the most famous events in American history. On the night of April 18, 1775, Revere set out to warn the Massachusetts countryside that British regulars were marching to seize rebel supplies in Concord. Revere’s name has become legendary, immortalized in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s famous poem, The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere.

But how much do we really know about Paul Revere beyond that single night?

In this revisited episode, we’ll explore the history and memory of Paul Revere. Why has he endured as a national icon, while other revolutionary couriers and figures have faded from public consciousness? How does the story of Revere’s ride illustrate the power of historical memory? And what does Revere’s real life—beyond that one night—tell us about the American Revolution and the ways we remember it?

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/130

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🎧 Episode 130: Paul Revere's Ride Through History

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409 The Battles of Lexington & Concord, 1775

Tue, 22 Apr 2025 05:00:00 -0400

April 19, 2025 marked the 250th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord—the moment the American Revolution turned from protest to war.

What do we really know about that fateful day? How did the people of Concord prepare for what they faced in April 1775?

David Wood, the longtime curator of the Concord Museum and the author of Eyewitness to Revolution: The American Revolution in the Concord Museum, joins us to explore answers to these questions.

Concord Museum Website | Book |

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/409

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES

🎧 Episode 112: The Tea Crisis of 1773

🎧 Episode 129: The Road to Concord

🎧 Episode 158: The Revolutionaries' Army

🎧 Episode 229: The Townshend Moment

🎧 Episode 401: Tea, Boycotts, and Revolution

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🎧 Episode 046: The American Revolution & The War That Won It

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BFW Revisited: The Road to Concord

Tue, 15 Apr 2025 05:00:00 -0400

April 2025 marks the 250th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord.

One of the lesser-known catalysts for these battles was the hunt for artillery. The British military, under General Thomas Gage, sought to seize weapons stockpiled by colonial militias, while Massachusetts Patriots scrambled to secure and hide weapons. This tug-of-war over firepower played a crucial role in pushing Massachusetts from political resistance to armed conflict.

To better understand how Massachusetts got to this point, we’re revisiting Episode 129: The Road to Concord, with historian J.L. Bell. John is the author of The Road to Concord: How Four Stolen Cannon Ignited the Revolutionary War and the prolific blogger behind Boston 1775.net.

John’s Website | Book

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/129

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES

🎧 Episode 039: The Royalist Revolution

🎧 Episode 112: The Tea Crisis of 1773

🎧 Episode 130: Paul Revere's Ride Through History

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🎧 Episode 193: Partisans: The Friendship & Rivalry of Adams and Jefferson

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408 The Memory of 1776

Tue, 08 Apr 2025 05:00:00 -0400

The American Revolution was more than just a series of events that unfolded between 1763 and 1783, the American Revolution is our national origin story–one we’ve passed down, shaped, and reshaped for the last 250 years.

But what do we really mean when we talk about “the Revolution?” Whose Revolution are we remembering? And how has the meaning of 1776 shifted from generation to generation?

Michael Hattem, a scholar of the American Revolution and historical memory, joins us to discuss the American Revolution and its memory, drawing on details from his new book, The Memory of ‘76: The Revolution in American History.

Michael’s Website | Book

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/408

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES

🎧 Episode 145: Mercy Otis Warren

🎧 Episode 259: American Legal History & the Bill of Rights

🎧 Episode 261: Creating the Fourth Amendment

🎧 Episode 307: History and the American Revolution

🎧 Episode 313: Hero of Two Worlds: The Marquis de Lafayette

🎧 Episode 401: Tea, Boycotts, and Revolution

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🎧 Episode 130: Paul Revere's Ride Through History

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BFW Revisited: Samuel Adams

Tue, 01 Apr 2025 05:00:00 -0400

This month, we commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the “shot heard round the world” that ignited the Revolutionary War.

But before those battles, and before the Revolution became a war for independence, it was a movement—a fight to secure more local control over government. And no one worked harder to transform that movement into a revolution than Samuel Adams.

To help us investigate, we’re revisiting our conversation from Episode 350 with Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Stacy Schiff, author of The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams.

Stacy's Website | Book

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/350

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES

🎧 Episode 145: Mercy Otis Warren and the American Revolution

🎧 Episode 152: Origins of the American Revolution

🎧 Episode 153: Governments of the American Revolution

🎧 Episode 228: The Boston Massacre

🎧 Episode 296: The Boston Massacre: A Family History

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🎧 Episode 102: George Rogers Clark & the Fight for the Illinois Country

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407 Patrick Henry

Tue, 25 Mar 2025 05:00:00 -0400

Patrick Henry is one of the most famous voices of the American Revolution. He was known in his own time for his powerful speeches and his unwavering commitment to liberty.

But did you know that later in life, Patrick Henry opposed the United States Constitution? Did you know that during the political crisis of 1798/99, George Washington wrote to Patrick Henry and asked him to save the nation?

In honor of the 250th anniversary of Patrick Henry’s most famous speech, “Give Me Liberty, or Give Me Death,” award-winning historian John Ragosta joins us to investigate the life and work of Patrick Henry.

John's Website | Book

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/403

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES

🎧 Episode 152: The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution

🎧 Episode 188: The Alien & Sedition Acts of 1798

🎧 Episode 348: Valley Forge

🎧 Episode 350: The Revolutionary, Samuel Adams

🎧 Episode 374: The American Revolutionary War in the West

🎧 Episode 403: Re-evaluating the Presidency of John Adams

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🎧 Episode 027: A History of Stepfamilies in Early America

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BFW Revisited: Motherhood in Early America

Tue, 18 Mar 2025 05:00:00 -0400

What precisely is the work that mothers do to raise children? Has the nature of mothers, motherhood, and the work mothers do changed over time?

Nora Doyle, an Associate Professor of History at Western Carolina University, has combed through the historical record to find answers to these questions. Specifically, she’s sought to better understand the lived and imagined experiences of mothers and motherhood between the 1750s and 1850s.

Nora’s Webpage | Book

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/237

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES

🎧 Episode 120: A History of Mail Order Brides in Early America

🎧 Episode 150: Abigail Adams: Revolutionary Spectator

🎧 Episode 205: First Ladies of the Republic

🎧 Episode 339: Women and the Constitutional Moment of 1787

🎧 Episode 379: Women Healers in Early America

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🎧 Episode 021: Smuggling in Colonial America & Living History

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406 How Haudenosaunee Women & Fashion Shaped History

Tue, 11 Mar 2025 05:00:00 -0400

Historians use a lot of different sources when they research the past. Many rely on primary source documents, documents that were written by official government bodies or those written by the people who witnessed the events or changes historians are studying.

But how do you uncover the voices and stories of people who didn’t know how to write or whose families didn’t preserve much of their writing?

Maeve Kane, an Associate Professor of History at the University at Albany and author of Shirts Powdered Red: Gender, Trade, and Exchange Across Three Centuries, ran into this very problem as she sought to recover the lives of Haudenosaunee women. Maeve overcame this challenge by researching a different type of historical source—the cloth Haudenosaunee women traded for and the clothing they made and wore.

Maeve’s Website | Book

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/403

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES

🎧 Episode 163: The American Revolution in North America

🎧 Episode 223: A Native American History of the Ohio River Valley & Great Lakes Region

🎧 Episode 264: The Treaty of Canandaigua

🎧 Episode 353: Women and the Making of Catawba Identity

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🎧 Episode 118: The Business of Slavery in Rhode Island

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BFW Revisited: The Poison Plot: Adultery & Murder in Colonial Newport

Tue, 04 Mar 2025 06:00:00 -0400

In 1738, a cooper named Benedict Arnold petitioned the Rhode Island General Assembly for a divorce from his wife Mary Ward Arnold. Benedict claimed that Mary had taken a lover and together they had attempted to murder him with poison.

How did this story of love, divorce, and attempted murder unfold? What does it reveal about the larger world of colonial America and the experiences of colonial American men and women?

Elaine Forman Crane, a Distinguished Professor of History at Fordham University, takes us through the Arnolds’ story with details from her book, The Poison Plot: A Tale of Adultery and Murder in Colonial Newport.

Elaine's Webpage | Book

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/225

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES

🎧 Episode 110: How Genealogists Research

🎧 Episode 114: The History of Genealogy

🎧 Episode 157: The Revolution's African American Soldiers

🎧 Episode 208: Nathaniel Philbrick, Turning Points of the American Revolution

🎧 Episode 373: Adrian Weimer, The Gaspee Affair

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🎧 Episode 351: Wealth and Slavery in New Netherland

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405 African Americans in Early New York

Tue, 25 Feb 2025 06:00:00 -0400

When we think of slavery in Early America, we often think about the plantations and economies of the South. But did you know that slavery was also deeply entrenched in New York City?

Did you know that Africans and African Americans helped New York City confront slavery, freedom, and racism in the Early American Republic and Antebellum periods?

Leslie M. Harris, a professor at Northwestern University and author of In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626-1863, joins us to explore the history of Africans and African Americans in early New York City.

Leslie’s Website | Book

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/405

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES

🎧 Episode 306: The Horse's Tale

🎧 Episode 324: New Netherland and Slavery

🎧 Episode 371: Archive of Indigenous Slavery

🎧 Episode 387: California and Slavery

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🎧 Episode 118: The Business of Slavery in Rhode Island

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BFW Revisited: Free People of Color in Early America

Tue, 18 Feb 2025 06:00:00 -0400

What does freedom mean when the deck is stacked against you?

In commemoration of Black History Month, we’re revisiting a story that is too often overlooked, but critical to our understanding of Early America.

Join Warren Milteer, Jr., an Associate Professor of History at George Washington University, as we uncover the lives of free people of color in Early America.

Warren’s Faculty Page | Book

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/328

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES

🎧 Episode 142: A History of Abolition

🎧 Episode 176: The Value of the Enslaved from Womb to Grave

🎧 Episode 289: Maroonage and the Great Dismal Swamp

🎧 Episode 312: The Domestic Slave Trade

🎧 Episode 352: James Forten and the Making of the United States

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🎧 Episode 137: The Washingtons’ Runaway Slave, Ona Judge

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404 The Hidden Legacy of Early African American Cuisine

Tue, 11 Feb 2025 06:00:00 -0400

Did you know that many of the food traditions that define cuisine in the United States today have roots in African culinary traditions and history?

Diane Spviey, a culinary historian and author of three culinary history books, joins us to uncover the rich and complex legacy of African and African American foodways and how those foodways helped establish the United States.

Diane’s Website | Book |

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/404

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES

🎧 Episode 170: New England Bound

🎧 Episode 222: Early History of Washington, D.C.

🎧 Episode 226: Making the State of South Carolina

🎧 Episode 348: Valley Forge

🎧 Episode 395: The Great New York Fire of 1776

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🎧 Episode 137: The Washingtons' Runaway Slave, Ona Judge

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BFW Revisited: Running from Bondage in Revolutionary America

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 00:00:00 -0400

What would you risk for freedom?

Would you risk your safety? You family? Your life?

During the American Revolution, enslaved women faced these impossible choices when the British Army promised freedom to those who dared to escape. In honor of Black History Month, we’re revisiting an extraordinary chapter of resilience and bravery: the stories of enslaved women who seized the chance to chart their own destinies amid the chaos of war.

Join Karen Cook-Bell for an exploration of enslaved women who self-emancipated during the American Revolution.

Karen's Website | Book

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/322

Complementary Episodes

🎧 Episode 142: A History of Abolition

🎧 Episode 157: The Revolution's African American Soldiers

🎧 Episode 162: Dunmore's New World

🎧 Episode 352: James Forten and the Making of the United States

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🎧 Episode 117: The Life and Ideas of Thomas Jefferson

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403 Re-Evaluating John Adams' Presidency

Tue, 28 Jan 2025 06:00:00 -0400

Did you know that John Adams, not George Washington, solidified the precedents of the executive branch and the presidency?

Lindsay Chervinsky, an award-winning presidential historian and the Executive Director of the George Washington Presidential Library, has written a book Making the Presidency: John Adams and the Precedents that Forged the Republic. She joins us to investigate the presidency of the United States’ second president, John Adams.

Lindsay’s Website | Book | Instagram

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/403

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES

🎧 Episode 040: For Fear of an Elected King

🎧 Episode 188: The Alien & Sedition Acts of 1798

🎧 Episode 193: Partisans: The Friendship & Rivalry of Adams and Jefferson

🎧 Episode 203: Alexander Hamilton

🎧 Episode 279: The Cabinet: Creation of An American Institution

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🎧 Episode 175: The Revolution in Ben Franklin’s House

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BFW Revisited: The Cabinet: Creation of an American Institution

Tue, 21 Jan 2025 06:00:00 -0400

January 20th, marked Inauguration Day in the United States, the day a new president and his administration takes office. So it seems a fitting time for us to revisit a conversation we had in 2020 about the creation of the Executive Branch, and more specifically, the creation of the president’s cabinet.

Lindsay Chervinsky is an award-winning presidential historian and the Executive Director of the George Washington Presidential Library. In 2020, she published her first book called The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/279

Complementary Episodes

Episode 040: Kathleen Bartoloni-Tuazon, For Fear of an Elected King

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402 Clocks, Watches, and Life in Early America

Tue, 14 Jan 2025 06:10:00 -0400

Do you know what time it is?

In early America, this question wasn’t as simple to answer as it is today. Urban dwellers in cities like Boston, Philadelphia, and Charleston often wondered about the time—but few owned their own watches or clocks. So, how did they keep track of the hours?

In this episode, we dive into the fascinating world of early American timekeeping. Bob Frishman, a horologist—a specialist in clocks and watches—and a scholar of horology, joins us to explore how timepieces and their makers shaped community life and craftsmanship in the 18th century. Along the way, we’ll uncover the remarkable story of Edward Duffield, a Philadelphia clockmaker who wasn’t just a master craftsman but also a close friend and neighbor of Benjamin Franklin.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/402

Complementary Episodes

🎧 Episode 149: Benjamin Franklin in London

🎧 Episode 301: From Inoculation to Vaccination, Pt 1

🎧 Episode 244: Shoe Stories from Early America

🎧 Episode 292: Craft in Early America

🎧 Episode 302: From Inoculation to Vaccination, Pt 2

🎧 Episode 332: Occupied Philadelphia

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BFW Revisited: The Politics of Tea

Tue, 07 Jan 2025 06:00:00 -0400

To close out our mini-series on Tea in early America, we’re going to revisit Episode 160: The Politics of Tea. This episode was part of our Doing History: To the Revolution series with the Omohundro Institute in 2017.

In this episode, we’ll revisit how early Americans went from attending tea parties to holding the Boston Tea Party. We’ll also explore more in-depth information about how tea became a central part of many early Americans’ lives.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/160

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401 Tea, Boycotts, and Revolution

Tue, 31 Dec 2024 06:00:00 -0400

During the early days of the American Revolution, British Americans attempted to sway their fellow Britons with consumer politics.

In 1768 and 1769, they organized a non-consumption movement of British goods to protest the Townshend Duties. In 1774, they arranged a non-importation and non-exportation movement to protest the Tea Act and Coercive Acts.

Why did the colonists protest the Tea Act and Coercive Acts? Why did they chose to protest those acts with the consumer politics of a non-importation/non-exportation program?

James Fichter, the author of Tea: Consumption, Politics, and Revolution, 1773-1776, joins us to explore the Tea Crisis of 1773 and the resulting non-importation/non-exportation movement the colonists organized after Parliament passed the Coercive Acts.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/401

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🎧 Episode 114: Karin Wulf, The History of the Genealogy

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BFW Revisited: The Tea Crisis of 1773

Tue, 24 Dec 2024 06:00:00 -0400

In Episode 401, we’ll be exploring the Tea Crisis and how it led to the non-importation/non-exportation movement of 1774-1776.

Our guest historian, James Fichter, references the work of Mary Beth Norton and her “The Seventh Tea Ship” article from The William and Mary Quarterly.

In this BFW Revisited episode, we’ll travel back to December 2016, when we spoke with Mary Beth Norton about her article and the Tea Crisis of 1773.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/112

Complementary Episodes

Episode 135: Moral Commerce: The Transatlantic Boycott of the Slave Labor Economy

Episode 160: The Politics of Tea
Episode 228: The Boston Massacre
Episode 229: The Townshend Moment
Episode 337: Early America's Trade with China
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400 Ben Franklin's world

Tue, 17 Dec 2024 06:00:00 -0400

How do historians define Ben Franklin’s “world?” What historical event, person, or place in the era of Ben Franklin do they wish you knew about?

In celebration of the 400th episode of Ben Franklin’s World, we posed these questions to more than 20 scholars. What do they think? Join the celebration and discover more about the world Ben Franklin lived in.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/400

Complementary Episodes

🎧 Episode 285: Elections & Voting in the Early Republic

🎧 Episode 300: Vast Early America

🎧 Episode 389: Indigenous Justice in Early America

🎧 Episode 393: Politics and Political Culture in the Early American Republic

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BFW Revisited: The Nat Turner Revolt

Tue, 10 Dec 2024 06:00:00 -0400

In our last episode, Episode 399, we discussed Denmark Vesey’s revolt and the way biblical texts and scripture enabled Vesey to organize what would have been the largest slave revolt in United States history if the revolt had not been thwarted before Vesey could put it into action.

Early American history is filled with revolts against enslavers that were thwarted and never made it past the planning stage. But, one uprising that did move beyond planning and into action was the Southampton Rebellion or Nat Turner’s Revolt in August 1831.

In this BFW Revisited episode, Episode 133, which was released in May 2017, we met with Patrick Breen, an Associate Professor of History at Providence College. Patrick joined us to investigate Nat Turner’s Revolt with details from his book The Land Shall Be Deluged in Blood: A New History of the Nat Turner Revolt.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/133

Complementary Episodes

Episode 016: The Internal Enemy

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399 Denmark Vesey's Bible

Tue, 03 Dec 2024 06:00:00 -0400

Denmark Vesey’s failed revolt in 1822 could have been the largest insurrection of enslaved people against their enslavers in United States history. Not only was Vesey’s plan large in scale, but Charleston officials arrested well over one hundred rumored participants.

Jeremy Schipper, a Professor in the departments for the Study or Religion and Near and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Toronto and the author of Denmark Vesey’s Bible: The Thwarted Revolt that Put Scripture and Slavery on Trial, joins us to investigate Vesey’s planned rebellion and the different ways Vesey used the Bible and biblical texts to justify his revolt and the violence it would have wrought.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/399

Complementary Episodes

🎧 Episode 052: Early United States-Haitian Diplomacy

🎧 Episode 124: Making the Haitian Revolution in Early America

🎧 Episode 133: Nat Turner’s Rebellion

🎧 Episode 165: The Age of Revolutions

🎧 Episode 190: Origins of the American Middle Class

🎧 Episode 226: Making the State of South Carolina

🎧 Episode 384: Making Maine: A Journey to Statehood

🎧 Episode 390: Objects of Revolution

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🎧 Episode 223: A Native American History of the Ohio River Valley & Great Lakes Region

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BFW Revisited: World of the Wampanoag, Pt. 2

Tue, 26 Nov 2024 06:00:00 -0400

This week is Thanksgiving week in the United States. On Thursday, most of us will sit down with friends, family, and other loved ones and share a large meal where we give thanks for whatever we’re grateful for over the last year.

In elementary school, we are taught to associate this holiday and its rituals with the religious separatists, or pilgrims, who migrated from England to what is today Plymouth, Massachusetts. We are taught that at the end of the fall harvest, the separatists sat down with their Indigenous neighbors to share in the bounty that the Wampanoag people helped them grow by teaching the separatists how to sow and cultivate crops like corn in the coastal soils of New England.

In this BFW Revisited episode, Episode 291, we investigate the arrival of the Mayflower and the Indigenous world the separatists arrived in. We’ll also explore how the Wampanoag and Narragansett peoples interacted with their new European neighbors and how they contended with the English people who were determined to settle on their lands.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/291

Complementary Episodes

Episode 104: The Saltwater Frontier: Native Americans and Colonsits on the Northeastern Coast

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398 The Shawnee-Dunmore War, 1774

Tue, 19 Nov 2024 06:00:00 -0400

After the Seven Years’ War (1754-1763), Great Britain instituted the Proclamation Line of 1763. The Line sought to create a lasting peace in British North America by limiting British colonial settlement east of the Appalachian Mountains.

In 1768, colonists and British Indian agents negotiated the Treaties of Fort Stanwix and Hard Labour to extend the boundary line further west. In 1774, the Shawnee-Dunmore War broke out as colonists attempted to push further west.

Fallon Burner and Russell Reed, two of the three co-managers of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation’s American Indian Initiative, join us to investigate the Shawnee-Dunmore War and what this war can show us about Indigenous life, warfare, and sovereignty during the mid-to-late eighteenth century.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/398

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🎧 Episode 368: Brafferton Indian School, Part 2

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🎧 Episode 223: A Native American History of the Ohio River Valley & Great Lakes Region

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BFW Revisited: World of the Wampanoag, Pt. 1

Tue, 12 Nov 2024 05:00:00 -0400

It’s November, the time of year when we Americans get ready for the Thanksgiving holiday. Although the federal holiday we know and honor today came about in 1863, Thanksgiving is a day that many modern-day Americans associate with the Indigenous peoples and religious separatists of Plymouth, Massachusetts.

What do we know about the Indigenous people the so-called Pilgrims interacted with?

This month, in between our new episodes about Indigenous history, the Ben Franklin’s World Revisited series explores the World of the Wampanoag. The World of the Wampanoag originally posted as a two-episode series in December 2020. This first episode will introduce you to the life, societies, and cultures of the Wampanoag and Narragansett peoples the Plymouth colonists interacted with before the colonists’ arrival in December 1620.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/290 Sponsor Links

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397 Native Nations: A Millennium in North America

Tue, 05 Nov 2024 05:00:00 -0400

The North American continent is approximately 160 million years old, yet in the United States, we tend to focus on what amounts to 3300 millionths of that history, which is the period between 1492 to the present.

Kathleen DuVal, a Professor of History at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, asks us to widen our view of early North American history to at least 1,000 years. Using details from her book, Native Nations: A Millennium in North America, DuVal shows us that long before European colonists and enslaved Africans arrived on North American shores, Indigenous Americans built vibrant cities and civilizations, and adapted to a changing world and climate.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/397

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🎧 Episode 323: American Expansion and the Political Economy of Plunder

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🎧 Episode 001: The Library Company of Philadelphia

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BFW Revisited: Committees & Congresses of the American Revolution

Tue, 29 Oct 2024 05:00:00 -0400

Ben Franklin’s World Revisited is a series where Liz surfaces one of our earlier episodes that complements and adds additional perspectives to the histories we discuss in our new episodes.

Given the conversation we just had in Episode 396 about Carpenters’ Hall & the First Continental Congress, Liz would like to offer you an episode she produced in 2017 as part of our Doing History: To the Revolution series. Episode 153: Committees and Congresses: Governments of the American Revolution, furthers the discussion we just had about the First Continental Congress by helping us investigate how the American revolutionaries formed governments as imperial rule in British North American disintegrated and the American Revolution turned to war.

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396 Carpenters' Hall & the First Continental Congress

Tue, 22 Oct 2024 05:00:00 -0400

“Monday, September 5, 1774. A number of the Delegates chosen and appointed by the Several Colonies and Provinces in North America to meet and hold a Congress at Philadelphia assembled at the Carpenters’ Hall.”

That statement begins the Journals of the Continental Congress, the official meeting minutes of the First and Second Continental Congresses. Between September 1774 and March 1789, the congressmen filled 34-printed volumes worth of entries.

Join Michael Norris, the Executive Director of the Carpenters’ Company of the City and County of Philadelphia, for a tour of Carpenters’ Hall, the meeting place of the First Continental Congress, and discover more about this historic building and the historic work of the First Continental Congress.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/396

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🎧 Episode 153: Committees and Congresses: Governments of the American Revolution

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🎧 Episode 292: Craft in Early America

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395 The Great New York Fire of 1776

Tue, 08 Oct 2024 05:00:00 -0400

When we think about the American Revolution, textbooks, documentaries, and historic sites have trained most of us to think about American triumphs in battles or events when American revolutionaries overcame moments of despair, when all seemed lost, to triumph in the cause of American independence.

Benjamin L. Carp will help us look at the American Revolution differently. The Daniel M. Lyons Chair of History at Brooklyn College, Ben will use details from his book The Great New York Fire of 1776: A Lost Story of the American Revolution to help us consider the strategic military importance of New York City and its capture by the British Army and how both armies used fire as an instrument of war.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/395

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🎧 Episode 332: Experiences of Revolution: Occupied Philadelphia

🎧 Episode 333: Experiences of Revolution: Disruptions in Yorktown

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🎧 Episode 061: The Retirement of George Washington

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394 The Pursuit of Happiness

Tue, 24 Sep 2024 05:00:00 -0400

What did Thomas Jefferson and the members of the Second Continental Congress mean when they wrote “the pursuit of Happiness” into the United States Declaration of Independence? And why is pursuing happiness so important that Jefferson and his fellow Founding Fathers included it in the Declaration of Independence’s most powerful statement of the new United States’ ideals?

Jeffrey Rosen, the President and CEO of the National Constitution Center and a law professor at George Washington University Law School, joins us to investigate and answer these questions with details from his book, The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/394

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🎧 Episode 231: The Religious Lives of the Adams Family

🎧 Episode 307: History and the American Revolution

🎧 Episode 377: Phillis Wheatley & the Playwright

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🎧 Episode 078: Washington Brotherhood: Politics, Social Life, and the Coming of the Civil War

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393 Politics & Political Culture in the Early American Republic

Tue, 10 Sep 2024 05:00:00 -0400

The Constitution is a document of “We the People.” The ways Americans have supported, debated, and interpreted the Constitution since 1787 have played a vital role in the rise of politics and political parties within the United States.

What kind of political culture did the United States Constitution and its interpretations help establish? What were the expectations, practices, and cultural norms early Americans had to follow when debating the Constitution or its interpretation in the early American republic?

In honor of Constitution Day on September 17, the day the United States commemorates the signing of the United States Constitution, we speak with two historians–Jonathan Gienapp, an Associate Professor of History and Associate Professor of Law at Stanford University and Rachel Shelden, Director of the Richard Civil War Era Center and an Associate Professor of History at Penn State University– about early American political culture and political civility in the early American republic.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/393

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🎧 Episode 047: Christian Imperialism: Converting the World in the Early American Republic

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392 Religion and Race in Early America

Tue, 27 Aug 2024 05:00:00 -0400

What does history have to tell us about how we, as Americans, came to define people by their race; the visual ways we have grouped people together based on their skin color, facial features, hair texture, and ancestry?

As you might imagine, history has a LOT to tell us about this question! So today, we’re going to explore one aspect of the answer to this question by focusing on some of the ways religion shaped European and early American ideas about race and racial groupings.

Kathryn Gin Lum is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Stanford University. She’s also the author of Heathen: Religion and Race in American History.

Show Notes:https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/392

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🎧 Episode 084: How Historians Read Historical Sources

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391 Government in Colonial Virginia

Tue, 13 Aug 2024 05:00:00 -0400

Do you ever wonder how governments met and worked in colonial British America?

Williamsburg, Virginia, served as the capital of Virginia between 1699 and 1779. During its 80 years of service as capital, Williamsburg represented the center of British authority in Virginia. This meant the Royal Governor of the colony lived in Williamsburg. Indigenous, colonial, and other delegations came to Williamsburg to negotiate treaties and trade with Virginia. And, the colonial government met in Williamsburg’s capitol building to pass laws, listen to court cases, and debate ideas.

Katie Schinabeck, a historian of historical memory and the American Revolution and the Digital Projects Researcher at Colonial Williamsburg’s Innovation Studios, takes us on a behind-the-scenes tour of Williamsburg’s colonial capitol building to explore how the government of colonial Virginia worked and operated.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/391

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🎧 Episode 124: James Alexander Dun, Making the Haitian Revolution in Early America

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390 Objects of Revolution

Tue, 30 Jul 2024 05:00:00 -0400

When we think about the American Revolution, the French Revolution, or the Haitian Revolution, we think about the ideals of freedom and equality. These ideals were embedded and discussed in all of these revolutions.

What we don’t always think about when we think about these revolutions are the objects that inspired, came out of, and were circulated as they took place.

Ashli White, an Associate Professor of History at the University of Miami in Florida, joins us to investigate the “revolutionary things” that were created and circulated during the American, French, and Haitian Revolutions with details from her book Revolutionary Things: Material Culture and Politics in the Late Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/390

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🎧 Episode 080: Liberty’s Prisoners: Prisons and Prison Life in Early America

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389 Indigenous Justice in Early America

Tue, 16 Jul 2024 05:00:00 -0400

Early North America was a place that contained hundreds of distinct Indigenous nations and peoples who spoke at least 2,000 distinct languages. In the early sixteenth century, Spain began to establish colonies on mainland North America, and they were followed by the French, Dutch, and English, and the forced migration of enslaved Africans who represented at least 45 different ethnic and cultural groups. With such diversity, Early North America was full of cross-cultural encounters.

What did it look like when people of different ethnicities, races, and cultures interacted with one another? How were the people involved in cross-cultural encounters able to understand and overcome their differences?

Nicole Eustace is an award-winning historian at New York University. Using details from her Pulitzer-prize-winning book, Covered with Night: A Story of Murder and Indigenous Justice in Early America, Nicole will take us through one cross-cultural encounter in 1722 between the Haudenosaunee and Susquehannock peoples and English colonists in Pennsylvania.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/389

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🎧 Episode 129: John Bell, The Road to Concord, 1775

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388 John Hancock

Tue, 02 Jul 2024 05:00:00 -0400

Happy Fourth of July!

We’ve created special episodes to commemorate, celebrate, and remember the Fourth of July for years. Many of our episodes have focused on the Declaration of Independence, how and why it was created, the ideas behind it, and its sacred words: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

This year, we examine a different aspect of the Declaration of Independence: the man behind the boldest signature on the document: John Hancock.

Brooke Barbier is a public historian and holds a Ph.D. in American History from Boston College. She’s also the author of the first biography in many years about John Hancock, it’s called King Hancock: The Radical Influence of a Moderate Founding Father.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/388

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🎧 Episode 014: West of the Revolution: An Uncommon History of 1776

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387 California and Slavery

Tue, 25 Jun 2024 05:00:00 -0400

When we think of California, we might think about sunny weather, Hollywood, beaches, wine country, and perhaps the Gold Rush.

What we don’t usually think about when we think about California is the state’s long history of slavery.

Jean Pfaelzer, a Californian and a Professor Emerita of English, Asian Studies, and Women and Gender Studies at the University of Delaware, joins us to lead us through some of California’s long 250-year history of slavery with details from her book, California: A Slave State.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/387

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🎧 Episode 089: Slavery & Freedom in Early Maryland

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386 Sleeping with the Ancestors

Tue, 11 Jun 2024 05:00:00 -0400

In this special Juneteenth episode, as we honor the emancipation of enslaved African Americans, we delve into the work of those working to preserve slave dwellings across the United States, safeguarding the essential stories these structures embody.

In our conversation, Joseph McGill, the Executive Director and Founder of the Slave Dwelling Project, joins us to share why former slave dwellings are vital to our nation's history and what they reveal about the lives of those who once lived in them.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/386

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🎧 Episode 027: A History of Stepfamilies in Early America

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385 Did George Washington Have Heirs?

Tue, 28 May 2024 05:00:00 -0400

The United States Constitution of 1787 gave many Americans pause about the powers the new federal government could exercise and how the government's leadership would rest with one person, the president.

The fact that George Washington would likely serve as the new nation’s first president calmed many Americans’ fears that the new nation was creating an opportunity for a hereditary monarch. Washington had proven his commitment to a democratic form of government when he gave up his army command peacefully and voluntarily. He had proven he was someone Americans could trust. Plus, George Washington had no biological heirs–no sons–to whom he might pass on the presidency.

But while George Washington had no biological heirs, he did have heirs.

Cassandra A. Good, an Associate Professor of History at Marymount University and author of First Family: George Washington’s Heirs and the Making of America, joins us to explore Washington’s heirs and the lives they lived.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/385

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🎧 Episode 030: Northern New England’s Religious Geography

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384 Making Maine: A Journey to Statehood

Tue, 14 May 2024 05:00:00 -0400

Article IV, Section 3 of the United States Constitution establishes guidelines by which the United States Congress can admit new states to the American Union. It clearly states that “no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State…without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.”

Five states have been formed from pre-existing states: Vermont, Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Maine. How did the process of forming a state from a pre-existing state work? Why would territories within a state want to declare their independence from their home state?

Joshua Smith, the interim director of the American Merchant Marine Museum in Kings Point, New York, and author of the book Making Maine: Statehood and the War of 1812, leads us on an exploration of Maine’s journey to statehood.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/384

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🎧 Episode 104: The Saltwater Frontier: Europeans & Native Americans on the Northeastern Coast

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383 Aquatic Culture in Early America

Tue, 30 Apr 2024 05:00:00 -0400

If you will recall from Episode 331, the Williamsburg Bray School is the oldest existing structure in the United States that we know was used to educate African and African American children.

As the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation prepares the Bray School for you to visit and see, we’re having many conversations about the history of the school, its scholars, and early Black American History in general.

During one of these conversations, the work of Kevin Dawson came up. Kevin is an Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Merced and author of the book, Undercurrents of Power: Aquatic Culture in the African Diaspora.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/383

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🎧 Episode 046: Whirlwind: The American Revolution & the War That Won It

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382 Hessians in the American Revolutionary War

Tue, 16 Apr 2024 05:00:00 -0400

Within the Declaration of Independence, the founders of the United States present twenty-seven grievances against King George III as they declare their reasons for why the thirteen British North American colonies sought their independence from Great Britain. Their twenty-fifth grievance declares that King George III “is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat [sic] the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun.”

What do we know about the “Armies of foreign Mercenaries” King George III sent to his rebellious American colonies?

Friederike Baer, an Associate Professor of History at Penn State Abbington College, joins us to explore the lives and wartime experiences of the 30,000 German soldiers the British Crown hired and dispatched to North America during the American War for Independence. Frederike is the author of the award-winning book Hessians: German Soldiers in the American Revolutionary War.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/382

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🎧 Episode 252: The Highland Soldier in North America

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🎧 Episode 037: Kathleen DuVal, Independence Lost: Lives on the Edge of the American Revolution

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381 Texas in the Spanish Empire

Tue, 02 Apr 2024 05:00:00 -0400

The vast and varied landscapes of Texas loom large in our American imaginations. As does Texas culture with its BBQ, cowboys, and larger-than-life personality. But before Texas was a place that embraced ranching, space flight, and country music, Texas was a place with rich and vibrant Indigenous cultures and traditions and with Spanish and Mexican cultures and traditions.

Martha Menchaca, a Professor of Anthropology at the University of Texas, Austin, is a scholar of Texas history and United States-Mexican culture. She joins us to explore the Spanish and Mexican origins of Texas with details from her book, The Mexican American Experience in Texas: Citizenship, Segregation, and the Struggle for Equality.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/381

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🎧 Episode 085: Bonnie Huskins, American Loyalists in Canada

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380 The Tory's Wife

Tue, 19 Mar 2024 05:00:00 -0400

The American Revolution was a movement that divided British Americans. Americans did not universally agree on the Revolution’s ideas about governance and independence. And the movement’s War for Independence was a bloody civil war that not only pitted brother against brother and fathers against sons; it also pitted wives against husbands.

Cynthia A. Kierner is a professor of history at George Mason University and the author of the book The Tory’s Wife: A Woman and Her Family in Revolutionary America. Cindy joins us to lead us through the story of Jane and William Spurgin, an everyday couple who lived in the North Carolina Backcountry during the American Revolution and who found themselves supporting different sides of the Revolution.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/380

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🎧 Episode 356: Paul Peucker, The Moravian Church in North America

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🎧 Episode 003: Director of the Library Company of Philadelphia

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379 Women Healers in Early America

Tue, 05 Mar 2024 06:00:00 -0400

Women make up eight out of every ten healthcare workers in the United States. Yet they lag behind men when it comes to working in the roles of medical doctors and surgeons.

Why has healthcare become a professional field dominated by women, and yet women represent a minority of physicians and doctors who serve at the top of the healthcare field?

Susan H. Brandt, a historian and lecturer at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, seeks to find answers to these questions. In doing so, she takes us into the rich history of women healers with details from her book, Women Healers: Gender, Authority, and Medicine in Early Philadelphia.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/379

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🎧 Episode 083: Unfreedom: Slavery in Colonial Boston

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378 Everyday Black Living in Early America

Tue, 20 Feb 2024 06:30:00 -0400

When we study the history of Black Americans, especially in the early American period, we tend to focus on slavery and the slave trades. But focusing solely on slavery can hinder our ability to see that, like all early Americans, Black Americans were multi-dimensional people who led complicated lives and lived a full range of experiences that were worth living and talking about.

Tara Bynum, an Assistant Professor of English and African American Studies at the University of Iowa and the author of Reading Pleasures: Everyday Black Living in Early America, joins us to explore the lives of four early Black American writers: Phillis Wheatley, John Marrant, James Albert Unkawsaw Groniosaw, and David Walker.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/378

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🎧 Episode 008: The Intercolonial Slave Trade of British America

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377 Phillis Wheatley & the Playwright

Tue, 06 Feb 2024 06:00:00 -0400

2023 marked the 250th anniversary of the arrival of Phillis Wheatley's published book of poetry in the British American colonies.

Phillis Wheatley was an enslaved African woman who, as a teenager, became the first published African author of a book of poetry written in English.

Ade Solanke, an award-winning playwright and screenwriter, has written two plays about Phillis Wheatley’s life to commemorate the semiquincentennial of Wheatley’s literary accomplishments. She joins us to not only explore the life of Phillis Wheatley, but also how playwrights use and research history to help them create dramatic works of art. Works of art that can help us forge an emotional connection with the past.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/377

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🎧 Episode 047: Emily Conroy-Krutz, Christian Imperialism: Converting the World in the Early American Republic

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376 Cotton Mather's Spanish Lessons

Tue, 23 Jan 2024 06:00:00 -0400

Colonial America was born in a world of religious alliances and rivalries. Missionary efforts in the colonial Americas allow us to see how some of these religious alliances and rivalries played out. Spain, and later France, sent Catholic priests and friars to North and South America, and the Caribbean, purportedly to save the souls of Indigenous Americans by converting them to Catholicism. We also know that Protestants did similar work to help counteract this Catholic work in the Americas.

Kirsten Silva Gruesz, a Professor of Literature at the University of California, Santa Cruz, joins us to explore the life and work of Cotton Mather, a Boston Puritan minister who actively sought to counteract the work of Catholic conversion, with details from her book Cotton Mather’s Spanish Lessons: A Story of Language, Race, and Belonging in the Early Americas.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/376

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🎧 Episode 242: Molly Warsh, Pearls & the Nature of the Spanish Empire

🎧 Episode 301: From Inoculation to Vaccination, Part 1

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🎧 Episode 371: Estevan Rael-Gálvez, An Archive of Indigenous Slavery

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🎧 Episode 144: The Common Cause of the American Revolution

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375 Misinformation Nation: Fake News in Early America

Tue, 09 Jan 2024 06:00:00 -0400

Over the past decade, we’ve heard a lot about “fake news” and “misinformation.” And as 2024 is an election year, it’s likely we’re going to hear even more about these terms.

So what is the origin of misinformation in the American press? When did Americans decide that they needed to be concerned with figuring out whether the information they heard or read was truthful or fake?

Jordan E. Taylor joins us to find answers to these questions. Jordan is a historian who studies the history of media and the ways early Americans created, spread, and circulated news. He is also the author of the book Misinformation Nation: Foreign News and the Politics of Truth in Revolutionary America.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/375

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🎧 Episode 014: West of the Revolution: An Uncommon History of 1776

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374 The American Revolutionary War in the West

Tue, 26 Dec 2023 06:00:00 -0400

The American Revolution and its War for Independence comprised the United States’ founding movement. The War for Independence also served as the fifth major war for European empire in North America.

The fourth war for European empire, the Seven Years’ War, reshaped and redefined Europe’s worldwide colonial landscape in Great Britain’s favor. The American Revolutionary War presented Britain’s European rivals with an opportunity to regain some of the territory they had lost. An opportunity we can see those rivals seizing in the Revolutionary War’s Western Theater.

Stephen Kling, Jr., is the author and co-author of several books and articles about the American Revolution in the West. His latest book, The American Revolutionary War in the West, has served as the basis for a museum exhibit at the St. Charles County Heritage Museum in St. Peters, Missouri. Stephen joins us as our expert guide on our expedition through the Revolution’s Western Theater.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/374

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🎧 Episode 318: Ste. Genevieve National Historical Park

🎧 Episode 372: A History of the Myaamia

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🎧 Episode 118: The Business of Slavery in Rhode Island

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373 The Gaspee Affair, 1772

Tue, 12 Dec 2023 06:30:00 -0400

The so-called “March to the American Revolution” comprised many more events than just the Stamp Act Riots, the Boston Massacre, and the Tea Crisis. One event we often overlook played an essential and direct role in the events needed to draw the thirteen rebellious British North American colonies into a union of coordinated response. That event was the Gaspee Affair in 1772.

Adrian Weimer, a professor of history at Providence College, has been researching the Gaspee Affair and what it can tell us about the constitutional balance between the British Empire and its colonies. She leads us on an investigation of the Gaspee Affair.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/373

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🎧 Episode 029: Colin Calloway, The Victory with No Name: The Native American Defeat of the First American Army

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372 A History of the Myaamia

Tue, 28 Nov 2023 06:00:00 -0400

Early America was a diverse place. A significant part of this diversity came from the fact that there were at least 1,000 different Indigenous tribes and nations living in different areas of North America before the Spanish and other European empires arrived on the continent’s shores.

Diane Hunter and John Bickers join us to investigate the history and culture of one of these distinct Indigenous tribes: the Myaamia. At the time of this recording, Diane Hunter was the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer for the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma. She has since retired from that position. John Bickers is an Assistant Professor of History at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio. Both Diane and John are citizens of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma and experts in Myaamia history and culture.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/372

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🎧 Episode 367: The Brafferton Indian School, Part 1

🎧 Episode 368: The Brafferton Indian School, Part 2: Legacies

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🎧 Episode 008: Greg O'Malley, Final Passages: The Intercolonial Slave Trade of British America

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371 An Archive of Indigenous Slavery

Tue, 14 Nov 2023 06:00:00 -0400

Long before European arrival in the Americas, Indigenous people and nations practiced enslavement. Their version of enslavement looked different from the version Christopher Columbus and his fellow Europeans practiced, but Indigenous slavery also shared many similarities with the Euro-American practice of African Chattel Slavery.

While there is no way to measure the exact impact of slavery upon the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, we do know the practice involved many millions of Indigenous people who were captured, bound, and sold as enslaved people.

Estevan Rael-Gálvez, Executive Director of Native Bound-Unbound: Archive of Indigenous Slavery, joins us to discuss the digital project Native Bound-Unbound: Archive of Indigenous Slavery.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/371

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🎧 Episode 367: The Brafferton Indian School, Part 1

🎧 Episode 368: The Brafferton Indian School, Part 2: Legacies

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🎧 Episode 049: Malcolm Gaskill, How the English Became American

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370 The Ruin of All Witches

Tue, 31 Oct 2023 05:00:00 -0400

Happy Halloween! In honor of the 31st of October and All Hallows Eve, we investigate a historical incident of witches and witchcraft in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1651.

Malcolm Gaskill, Emeritus Professor of Early Modern History at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, and one of the leading experts in the history of witchcraft, joins us to discuss details from his new book, The Ruin of All Witches: Life and Death in the New World.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/370

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🎧 Episode 067: John Ryan Fischer, An Environmental History of Early California & Hawaii

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369 Livestock and Animal Breeds in Early America

Tue, 24 Oct 2023 05:00:00 -0400

Establishing colonies in North America took an astonishing amount of work. Colonists had to clear trees, eventually remove stumps from newly cleared fields, plant crops to eat and sell, weed and tend those crops, and then they had to harvest crops, and get the crops they intended to sell to the nearest market town, and that was just some of the work involved to establish colonial farms.

Colonists did not often perform this work on their own. They enlisted the help of children and neighbors, purchased enslaved people, and used animals.

Undra Jeter is the Bill and Jean Lane Director of Coach and Livestock at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. He joins us to explore the animals English and British colonists brought with them to North America and used to build, run, and sustain their colonial farms and cities. Animals provided many benefits to early Americans, so Undra also shares information about the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation’s efforts to bring back the population numbers of some of these historic animal breeds through its rare breeds program.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/369

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🎧 Episode 290: The World of the Wampanoag, Part 1: Before 1620

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368 Legacies of the Brafferton Indian School

Tue, 10 Oct 2023 05:00:00 -0400

The Brafferton Indian School has a long and complicated legacy. Chartered with the College of William & Mary in 1693, the Brafferton Indian School’s purpose was to educate young Indigenous boys in the ways of English religion, language, and culture. The Brafferton performed this work for more than 70 years, between the arrival of its first students in 1702 and when the last documented student left the school in 1778.

This second episode in our 2-episode series about the Brafferton Indian School will focus on the legacy of the Brafferton Indian School and how it and other colonial-era Indian Schools established models for the schools the United States government and religious institutions established during the Indian Boarding School Era.

As one of the architects of these later Boarding Schools, Richard Henry Pratt, stated, the purpose of these boarding schools was to “kill the Indian and save the man.” Pratt meant that the United States government desired to assimilate and fully Americanize Indigenous children so there would be no more Native Americans.

But Indigenous peoples are resilient, and they have resisted American attempts to extinguish their cultures. So we’ll also hear from three tribal citizens in Virginia who are working in different ways to reawaken long-dormant aspects of their Indigenous cultures.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/368

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🎧 Episode 343: Music and Song in Native North America

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Series Music

🎵 WarPaint Singers

🎵 WarPaint Singers on YouTube

🎵 Blue Dot Sessions

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🎧 Episode 104: Andrew Lipman, The Saltwater Frontier: Native Americans and Colonists on the Northeastern Coast

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367 The Brafferton Indian School, Part 1

Tue, 26 Sep 2023 05:00:00 -0400

In 1693, King William III and Queen Mary II of England granted a royal charter for two institutions of higher education in the Colony of Virginia. The first institution was the College of William & Mary. The second institution was the Indian School at William & Mary, known from 1723 to the present as the Brafferton Indian School.

The history of the Brafferton Indian School is a story of power, trade, land, and culture. It’s an Indigenous story. It’s also a story of English, later British, colonialism.

Over the next two episodes, we will investigate the Brafferton Indian School and the stories it tells about power, trade, land, culture, and colonialism in early America. We’ll also explore the legacy of the Brafferton and other colonial Indian schools by examining the connections between these schools and the creation of the Indian Boarding Schools that operated within the United States between the mid-nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries.

In this episode, we focus on the history and origins of the Brafferton Indian School.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/367

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🎧 Episode 310: Rosalyn LaPier, History of the Blackfeet

🎧 Episode 314: Colin Calloway, Native Americans in Early American Cities

🎧 Episode 353: Brooke Bauer, Women and the Making of Catawba Identity

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🎧 Episode 055: Robb Haberman, John Jay: Forgotten Founder

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366 James Wilson & the U.S. Constitution

Tue, 12 Sep 2023 05:00:00 -0400

On September 17, 1787, the members of the Constitutional Convention concluded their work by signing the final draft of their new proposed government. The document they signed was the United States Constitution, which is why the United States marks Constitution Day each year on September 17.

In honor of Constitution Day, we explore the life of a Founder who played a large role in the creation and shaping of the United States Constitution: James Wilson.

Michael H. Taylor, Professor of United States History and Political Science at Northeast Community College and author of James Wilson: The Anxious Founder, joins us to investigate the life of James Wilson, who stands as one of the United States’ overlooked founders.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/366

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🎧Episode 258: Jane Calvert, “John Dickinson Life, Religion, & Politics”

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🎧 Episode 064: Brett Rushforth, Native American Slavery in New France

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365 Road Trip 2023: Early Settlement at Île Ste. Jean

Tue, 29 Aug 2023 05:00:00 -0400

2020 commemorated the 300th anniversary of French presence on Prince Edward Island. Like much of North America, the Canadian Maritime provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Cape Breton Island, and Prince Edward Island were highly contested regions. In fact, the way France and Great Britain fought for presence and control of this region places the Canadian Maritimes among the most contested regions in eighteenth-century North America.

Anne Marie Lane Jonah, a historian with the Parks Canada Agency, joins us to explore the history of Prince Edward Island and why Great Britain and France fought over the Canadian Maritime region.

This episode originally posted as Episode 283.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/365

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364 Road Trip 2023: La Pointe-Krebs House & Museum

Tue, 15 Aug 2023 05:00:00 -0400

The Mississippi Gulf Coast was the home of many different peoples, cultures, and empires during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. According to some historians, the Gulf Coast region may have been the most diverse region in early North America. 

Matthew Powell, a historian of slavery and southern history and the Executive Director of the La Pointe-Krebs House & Museum in Pascagoula, Mississippi, joins us to investigate and explore the Mississippi Gulf Coast and a prominent family who has lived there since about 1718.

This episode originally posted as Episode 303.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/364

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🎧 Episode 102: William Nester, George Rogers Clark and the Fight for the Illinois Country

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363 Road Trip 2023: Ste. Genevieve National Historical Park

Tue, 01 Aug 2023 05:00:00 -0400

About 620 miles north of New Orleans and 62 miles south of St. Louis, sits the town of Ste. Geneviéve, Missouri.

Established in 1750 by the French, Ste. Geneviéve reveals much about what it was like to establish a colony in the heartland of North America and what it was like for colonists to live so far removed from seats of imperial power.

Claire Casey, a National Park Service interpretative ranger at the Ste. Geneviéve National Historical Park, joins us to explore the early American history of Ste. Geneviéve.

This episode is originally posted as Episode 318.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/363

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🎧 Episode 163: The American Revolution in North America

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362 Treaties Between the United States & American Indian Nations

Tue, 18 Jul 2023 05:00:00 -0400

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian has an exhibit called Nation to Nation: Treaties Between the United States & American Indian Nations. This exhibit allows you to see treaties the United States has made with American Indian nations and learn more about those treaties and their outcomes.

David W. Penney is the Associate Director of Museum Scholarship, Exhibitions, and Public Engagement at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. He’s also an internationally recognized scholar and curator who has a lot of expertise in Native American art history, and he was involved in creating the Nation to Nation exhibit. He joins us to guide us through this exhibit and some of the treaties the United States has made with Indigenous nations.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/362

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🎧 Episode 052: Ronald A. Johnson, Early United States-Haitian Diplomacy

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361 The Fourth of July in 2026

Tue, 04 Jul 2023 05:00:00 -0400

July 4, 2023 marks the 247th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and the birth of the United States. In three short years, we will be marking the 250th anniversary of these events.

How are historians thinking about the American Revolution for 2026? What are they discussing when it comes to the 250th anniversary of the United States’ founding?

Lindsay M. Chervinsky, Ronald Angelo Johnson, and Kariann Akemi Yokota join us to answer these questions. All three guests are historians of the American Revolutionary Era who research the American Revolution from different perspectives.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/361

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🎧 Episode 083: Jared Hardesty, Unfreedom: Slavery in Colonial Boston

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360 Slavery and Freedom in Massachusetts

Tue, 20 Jun 2023 05:00:00 -0400

Juneteenth is a holiday that celebrates and commemorates the end of slavery in the United States. We choose to reflect on the end of slavery in the United States on June 19, because, on June 19, 1865, United States General Gordon Granger issued his General Order No. 3 in Galveston, Texas, informing Texans that all slaves are free.

Juneteenth may feel like it is a mid-19th-century moment, but the end of slavery didn’t just occur on one day or at one time. And it didn’t just occur in the mid-19th century. The fight to end slavery was a long process that started during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Kyera Singleton, the Executive Director of the Royall House and Slave Quarters in Medford, Massachusetts, has spent years researching the lives of the enslaved people who lived and worked on the Royall Plantation and the significant contributions they made to ending slavery in Massachusetts. Kyera joins us to investigate the story of slavery and freedom within the first state in the United States to legally abolish slavery.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/360

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🎧 Episode 002: Cornelia King, “That So Gay” Exhibit at the Library Company of Philadelphia

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359 Trans-ing Gender in Early America

Tue, 06 Jun 2023 05:00:00 -0400

“People are complicated” is a truism that holds in the past and the present. Seldom do we find a person where all of their actions and thoughts are black and white. What we see instead is that people are colorful because they aren’t just one thing and they don’t think and act in one way.

Human identities are one area where we find a lot of colorfulness and complexity. Most humans have multiple Identities based in geography, nationality, religious affiliation, race and ethnicity, and also gender.

Jen Manion, a Professor of History and of Sexuality and Women’s and Gender Studies at Amherst College and author of the book, Female Husbands: A Trans History, joins us to investigate the early American world of female husbands, people who were assigned female at birth and then transed-gender at some point in their lives to live as men.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/359

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🎧 Episode 082: Alejandra Dubcovsky, Information & Communication in the Early American South

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358 St. Augustine & Early Florida

Tue, 23 May 2023 05:00:00 -0400

For much of the colonial period, Spain claimed almost all of North America as Spanish territory. It displayed this claim on maps and in the administrative units it created to govern this vast territory: New Spain and La Florida.

Charles Tingley is a Senior Research Librarian at the St. Augustine Historical Society in St. Augustine, Florida, and an expert in the history of St. Augustine. He joins us to explore the early American history of La Florida through the lens of one of its capitals: the City of St. Augustine.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/358

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🎧 Episode 153: Committees and Congresses of the American Revolution

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357 Privateering in the American Revolution

Tue, 09 May 2023 05:00:00 -0400

How did the Continental Congress approach creating military forces that could go toe-to-toe with the British military during the American War for Independence?

Eric Jay Dolin joins us to answer part of that question by looking at the creation of the United States’ privateer fleet. Dolin is the author of fifteen books about the maritime history of early America, including Rebels at Sea: Privateering in the American Revolution.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/357

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🎧 Episode 352: James Forten and the Making of the United States

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🎧 Episode 025: Jessica Parr, Inventing George Whitefield

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356 The Moravian Church in North America

Tue, 25 Apr 2023 05:00:00 -0400

In 1682, the first Assembly of Pennsylvania and the Delaware counties met in Chester, Pennsylvania, and adopted “the Great Law,” a humanitarian code that guaranteed the people of Pennsylvania liberty of conscience.

“The Great Law” created an environment that not only welcomed William Penn’s fellow Quakers to Pennsylvania but also created space for the migration of other unestablished religions, such as the Lutherans, Schwenkfelders, and Moravians.

Paul Peucker, an archivist and the Director of the Moravian Archives in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, joins us to investigate the establishment of the Moravian Church in North America. Paul is the author of many articles, essays, and books about the Moravians and their history, including Herrnhut: The Formation of a Moravian Community, 1722-1732.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/356

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🎧 Episode 079: James Horn, What is a Historic Source?

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355 The Virginia Venture

Tue, 11 Apr 2023 05:00:00 -0400

On April 10th, 1606, King James I granted the Virginia Company of London a charter. Just over a year later, on May 14, 1607, this privately-funded, joint-stock company established the first, permanent English colony in North America at Jamestown, in the colony of Virginia.

What work did the Virginia Company have to do to establish this colony? How much money did it have to raise, and from whom did it raise this money, to support its colonial venture?

Misha Ewen, a Lecturer in early modern history at the University of Bristol and author of The Virginia Venture: American Colonization and English Society, 1580-1660, joins us to discuss the early history of the Virginia Company and its early investors.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/355

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354 The Sewing Girl's Tale

Tue, 28 Mar 2023 05:00:00 -0400

History tells us who we are and how we came to be who we are. It also allows us to look back and see how far we’ve come as people and societies. Of course, history also has the power to show us how little has changed over time.

John Wood Sweet, a professor of history at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and author of the book, The Sewing Girl’s Tale: A Story of Crime and Consequences in Revolutionary America, winner of the 2023 Bancroft Prize in American History, joins us to investigate the first published rape trial in the United States and how one woman, Lanah Sawyer, bravely confronted the man who raped her by bringing him to court for his crime.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/354

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353 Women and the Making of Catawba Identity

Tue, 14 Mar 2023 05:00:00 -0400

How did Indigenous people adapt to and survive the onslaught of Indigenous warfare, European diseases, and population loss between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries? How did past generations of Indigenous women ensure their culture would live on from one generation to the next so their people would endure?

Brooke Bauer, an assistant professor of history at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and author of the book Becoming Catawba: Catawba Women and Nation Building, 1540-1840, joins us to investigate these questions and what we might learn from the Catawba.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/353

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🎧 Episode 142: Manisha Sinha, A History of Abolition

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352 James Forten and the Making of the United States

Tue, 28 Feb 2023 06:00:00 -0400

People of African descent have made great contributions to the United States and its history. Think about all of the food, music, dance, medicine, farming and religious practices that people of African descent have contributed to American culture. Think about the sacrifices they’ve made to create and protect the United States as an independent nation.

Matthew Skic, a Curator of Exhibitions at the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia, joins us to investigate the life and deeds of the Forten Family. A family of African-descended people who worked in the revolutionary era and beyond to build a better world for their family, community, state, and nation.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/352

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🎧 Episode 121: Wim Klooster, The Dutch Moment in the 17th-Century Atlantic World

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351 Wealth and Slavery in New Netherland

Tue, 14 Feb 2023 06:00:00 -0400

African chattel slavery, the predominant type of slavery practiced in colonial North America and the early United States, did not represent one monolithic practice of slavery. Practices of slavery varied by region, labor systems, legal codes, and empire.

Slavery also wasn’t just about enslavers enslaving people for their labor. Enslavers used enslaved people to make statements about their social status, as areas of economic investment that built generational wealth, and as a form of currency.

Nicole Maskiell, an associate professor of History at the University of South Carolina and the author of Bound By Bondage: Slavery and the Creation of the Northern Gentry, joins us to investigate the practice of slavery in Dutch New Netherland and how the colony’s elite families built their wealth and power on the labor, skills, and bodies of enslaved Africans and African Americans.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/351

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350 The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams

Tue, 31 Jan 2023 06:00:00 -0400

Before the American Revolution became a war and a fight for independence, the Revolution was a movement and protest for more local control of government. So how did the American Revolution get started? Who worked to transform a series of protests into a revolution?

This is a BIG question with no one answer. But one American who worked to transform protests into a coordinated revolutionary movement was a Boston politician named Samuel Adams.

Stacy Schiff, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, joins us to explore and investigate the life, deeds, and contributions of Samuel Adams using details from her book, The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/350

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🎧 Episode 022: Vivian Bruce Conger, Deborah Read Franklin & Sally Franklin Bache

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349 The Women Behind Benjamin Franklin

Tue, 17 Jan 2023 06:00:00 -0400

There are a lot of books about Benjamin Franklin. They tell us about his youth and accomplishments in business, politics, and diplomacy. They tell us about his serious interest in electricity and science, and about his philanthropic work. But only a handful of these books tell us about Benjamin Franklin as a man. What did Benjamin Franklin think about and experience when it came to his private, lived life?

Nancy Rubin Stuart, an award-winning historian and journalist and author of Poor Richard’s Women: Deborah Read Franklin and the Other Women Behind the Founding Father, joins us to investigate the private life of Benjamin Franklin by using the women in his life as a window on to his experiences as a husband, father, and friend.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/349

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348 Valley Forge

Tue, 03 Jan 2023 06:00:00 -0400

On December 19, 1777, George Washington marched his Continental Army into its winter encampment at Valley Forge. In school we learned this was a hard, cold winter that saw the soldiers so ill-supplied they chewed on the leather of their shoes. But is this what really happened at Valley Forge? Were soldiers idle, wallowing in their misery?

Ricardo Herrera, a historian of American military history and a visiting professor in the Department of National Security and Strategy at the U.S. Army War College, joins us to investigate the winter at Valley Forge with details form his book, Feeding Washington’s Army: Surviving the Valley Forge Winter of 1778.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/348

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🎧 Episode 167: Eberhard Faber, The Early History of New Orleans

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347 African and African American Music

Tue, 20 Dec 2022 06:00:00 -0400

It’s impossible to overstate the importance of African and African American music to the United States’ musical traditions. Steven Lewis, a Curator of Music and Performing Arts at the Smithsonian, notes that “African American influences are so fundamental to American music there would be no American music without them.”

Jon Beebe, a Jazz pianist, professional musician, and an interpretive ranger at the New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park, leads us on an exploration of how and why African rhythms and beats came to play important roles in the musical history and musical evolution of the Untied States.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/347

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🎧 Episode 346: Music & Politics in the Early United States

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🎧 Episode 207: Nick Bunker, Young Benjamin Franklin

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346 Music and Politics in the Early United States

Tue, 13 Dec 2022 06:00:00 -0400

How did everyday Americans in the early United States use and enjoy music? How did they create and circulate new songs and musical lyrics?

Our five-episode series about music in early America continues in this fourth episode about music and politics in the early United States.

Billy Coleman, an Assistant Teaching Professor of History at the University of Missouri and author of the book Harnessing Harmony: Music, Power, and Politics in the United States, 1788-1865, joins us to investigate the role music played in early American politics.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/346

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345 Amateur Musicians in the Early United States

Tue, 06 Dec 2022 06:00:00 -0400

Our study of music in Early America continues with this third episode in our five-episode series.

Our last two episodes (Episode 343 and Episode 344) helped us better understand the musical landscapes of Native North America around 1492 and colonial British America before 1776. In this episode, we jump forward in time to the early days of the United States.

Glenda Goodman, an Associate Professor of Music at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of the book Cultivated by Hand: Amateur Musicians in the Early American Republic, joins us to investigate the role of music in the lives of wealthy white Americans during the earliest days of the early American republic.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/345

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🎧 Episode 219: Adrian Covert, Taverns in Early America

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344 Music in British North America

Tue, 29 Nov 2022 06:00:00 -0400

Our 5-episode series about music in Early America continues with this second episode that seeks to answer your questions about music in Early America.

David Hildebrand is a musicologist and an expert on early American music. His research specialty is in Anglo-American music, and he joins us to answer your questions.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/344

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🎧 Episode 163: The American Revolution in North America

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343 Music and Song in Native North America

Tue, 22 Nov 2022 06:00:00 -0400

What was music like in Early America? How did different early Americans—Native Americans, African Americans, and White Americans—integrate and use music in their daily lives?

Your questions about music inspired this 5-episode series about music in Early America.

Our exploration begins with music in Native America. Chad Hamill, a Professor of Applied Indigenous Studies at Northern Arizona University, is an ethnomusicologist who studies Native American and Indigenous music. He will guide us through Native North America’s musical landscapes before European colonization.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/343

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🎧 Episode 291: The World of the Wampanoag, Part 2

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🎧 Episode 342: Elizabeth Ellis, The Great Power of Small Native Nations

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342 The Great Power of Small Native Nations

Tue, 08 Nov 2022 06:00:00 -0400

Did you know that small Native American nations had the power to dictate the terms of French colonization in the Gulf South region?

Elizabeth Ellis, an Assistant Professor of History at Princeton University and a citizen of the Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma, joins us on an exploration of the uncovered and recovered histories of the more than 40 distinct and small Native nations who called the Gulf South region home during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Ellis is the author of The Great Power of Small Nations: Indigenous Diplomacy in the Gulf South.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/342

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🎧 Episode 108: Ann Little, The Many Captivities of Esther Wheelright

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341 Possession and Exorcism in New France

Tue, 25 Oct 2022 05:00:00 -0400

Prepare for tricks, treats, and time travel! In honor of Halloween, we’re traveling back to the mid-seventeenth century to investigate a case of demonic possession and the practice of exorcism in New France.

Mairi Cowan, an Associate Professor of History at the University of Toronto, Mississauga, joins us to investigate the life of a young French woman named Barbe Hallay and her demonic possession. Cowan is the author of The Possession of Barbe Hallay: Diabolical Arts and Daily Life in Early Canada.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/341

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🎧 Episode 048: Kenneth Miller, Enemy Captives During the War for Independence

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340: Prisoners of War and the War of 1812

Tue, 11 Oct 2022 05:00:00 -0400

The War of 1812 is an under-known conflict in United States history. It’s not a war that many Americans think about or dwell upon. And it was not a war that the United States can claim it clearly won.

Nicholas Guyatt, a Professor of North American History at the University of Cambridge, joins us to investigate the War of 1812 and the experiences of American prisoners of war using details from his book, The Hated Cage: An American Tragedy in Britain’s Most Terrifying Prison.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/340

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🎧 Episode107: Mary Sarah Bilder, Madison’s Hand

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339 Women and the Constitutional Moment of 1787

Tue, 27 Sep 2022 05:00:00 -0400

Between May 25 and September 17, 1787, delegates from each of the United States’ thirteen states assembled in Philadelphia for an event we now call the Constitutional Convention.

What do we know about the moment of the United States Constitution’s creation? What was happening around the Convention, and what issues were Americans discussing and debating as the Convention’s delegates met?

Mary Sarah Bilder, an award-winning historian and the Founders Professor of Law at Boston College Law School, joins us to investigate the context of the United States Constitution’s creation with details from her book, Female Genius: Eliza Harriot and George Washington at the Dawn of the Constitution.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/048

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🎧 Episode 040: Kathleen Bartoloni-Tuazon, For Fear of an Elective King

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338 The Early History of the United States Senate

Tue, 13 Sep 2022 05:00:00 -0400

On September 17, 1787, thirty-nine delegates to the Constitutional Convention signed the United States Constitution and submitted it to the states for ratification.

In honor of Constitution Day, we join three historians from the Senate Historical Office to investigate Article 1 of the Constitution and its creation of the United States Senate.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/338

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🎧 Episode 098: Gautham Rao, Birth of the American Tax Man

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337 Early America's Trade with China

Tue, 30 Aug 2022 05:00:00 -0400

What made trade with China so important to the new United States that one of Americans’ first acts after securing the United States’ independence was to establish a trade with China and other Southeast Asian countries?

Deal Norwood, an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Delaware, joins us to explore the lure of trade with China with details from his book, Trading Freedom: How Trade with China Defined Early America.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/337

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🎧 Episode 052: Ronald Johnson, Early United States-Haitian Diplomacy

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336 Surviving the Southampton Rebellion

Tue, 16 Aug 2022 05:00:00 -0400

What did it take to stage a successful slave uprising?

Over the course of the early republic, we see a few violent slave uprisings in the United States. A particularly brutal rebellion took place in Louisiana in January 1811. Another violent rebellion took place in Southampton County, Virginia in August 1831. Neither of these rebellions led to the abolishment of slavery, but they did lead to the death of many enslaved people and their enslavers.

Vanessa Holden, an Associate Professor of History at the University of Kentucky and the author of the award-winning book Surviving Southampton, leads us through the events and circumstances of the 1831-Southampton Rebellion, a rebellion we tend to know today as Nat Turner’s Rebellion.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/336

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🎧 Episode 328: Warren Milteer, Jr., Free People of Color in Early America

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🎧 Episode 057: Max Edling, War, Money, and the American State, 1783-1867

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335 The Jewish World of Alexander Hamilton

Tue, 02 Aug 2022 05:00:00 -0400

Alexander Hamilton played important roles in the founding of the United States. He served in the Continental Army, helped frame the United States Constitution, and helped place the United States on a secure economic footing with his work as the first Secretary of the Treasury.

But how did Hamilton come to know so much about the economic systems that could help the new United States build a strong economic footing?

Why did Hamilton work for and believe that the new United States should be a nation that welcomed all religions and forms of religious worship?

Andrew Porwacher, the Wick Cary Associate Professor of History at the University of Oklahoma and the Ernest May Fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center, joins us to investigate the Jewish world and upbringing of Alexander Hamilton.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/335

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🎧 Episode 082: Alejandra Dubcovsky, Information & Communication in the Early American South

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334 Missions & Mission Building in New Spain

Tue, 19 Jul 2022 05:00:00 -0400

Spanish explorers and colonists visited, settled, and claimed territory in 42 of the United States’ 50 states. So what does the history of Early America look like from a Spanish point of view?

Brandon Bayne, an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and author of the book Missions Begin with Blood, joins us to investigate some of the religious aspects of Spanish colonization. Specifically, the work of Spanish missionaries.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/334

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🎧 Episode 208: Nathaniel Philbrick, Turning Points of the American Revolution

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333 Experiences of Revolution: Disruptions in Yorktown

Tue, 05 Jul 2022 05:00:00 -0400

What was everyday life like during the American War for Independence?

Our Fourth of July series continues with an investigation of how the American War for Independence impacted those who remained on the home front. As episode 332 explored how the war impacted the lives of people who lived in urban Philadelphia, this episode investigates how the war impacted the lives of people who lived in the more rural setting of Yorktown, Virginia.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/333

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🎧 Episode 332: Occupied Philadelphia

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🎧 Episode 050: Marla Miller, Betsy Ross & The Making of America

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332 Experiences of Revolution: Occupied Philadelphia

Tue, 28 Jun 2022 05:00:00 -0400

What was everyday life like during the American War for Independence?

In honor of the Fourth of July, we’ll investigate answers to this question by exploring the histories of occupied Philadelphia and Yorktown, and how civilians, those left on the home front in both of those places, experienced the war and its armies. These episodes will allow us to see how the war impacted those who remained at home. They will also allow us to better understand the messy confusion and uncertainty Americans experienced in between the big battles and events of the American Revolution.

This first episode investigates everyday life in British-occupied Philadelphia.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/332

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🎧 Episode 025: Jessica Parr, Inventing George Whitefield

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331 The Discovery of the Williamsburg Bray School

Tue, 21 Jun 2022 05:00:00 -0400

In a town as old as Williamsburg, Virginia, which was established in 1638, it’s often the case that historic buildings with interesting pasts stand unnoticed and in plain sight.

Such was the case for the building that once housed Williamsburg’s Bray School. A school founded by a group of Anglican clergymen with the express purpose of educating Black children in the ways of the Anglican faith. It was an education that included reading, possibly writing, and the Book of Common Prayer.

In honor of Juneteenth, we explore the exciting rediscovery of Williamsburg’s Bray School with three scholars: Maureen Elgersman Lee, Director of the Bray School Lab at William & Mary; Ronald Hurst, Vice President of Museums, Preservation, and Historic Resources at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, and Nicole Brown, a historic interpreter, American Studies graduate student, and the graduate student assistant at William & Mary’s Bray School Lab.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/331

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🎧 Episode 119: Steve Pincus, The Heart of the Declaration

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330 Loyalism in the British Atlantic World

Tue, 07 Jun 2022 05:00:00 -0400

We’ll never know for certain how many Americans supported the American Revolution, remained loyal to the British Crown and Parliament, or tried to find a middle way as someone who was disaffected from either loyalty. But we can know about the different ideologies that drove people to support the Revolution, to remain loyal to crown and parliament, or to become disaffected from both sides.

Brad Jones, Professor of History at California State University, Fresno and author of the book, Resisting Independence: Popular Loyalism in the Revolutionary British Atlantic, joins us to investigate what loyalists believed and how loyalism was not just a loyalty or ideology adopted by British Americans living in the 13 rebellious colonies, but by Britons across the British Atlantic World.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/330

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🎧 Episode 026: Robert Middlekauff, George Washington’s Revolution

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329 Freemasonry in Early America

Tue, 24 May 2022 05:00:00 -0400

This is an episode you’ve been waiting for!

Mark Tabbert, the Director of Archives and Exhibits at the George Washington Masonic National Memorial Association and the author of Almanac of American Freemasonry and A Deserving Brother: George Washington and Freemasonry, joins us so we can investigate and better understand Freemasonry and its role in Early America.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/329

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🎧 Episode 118: Christy Clark Pujara: The Business of Slavery in Rhode Island

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328 Free People of Color in Early America

Tue, 10 May 2022 05:00:00 -0400

We know from our explorations of early America that not all Americans were treated equally or enjoyed the freedoms and liberties other Americans enjoyed.

Warren Milteer Jr., an Assistant Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and the author of North Carolina’s Free People of Color and Beyond Slavery’s Shadow, joins us to explore the lives and experiences of free people of color, men and women who ranked somewhere in the middle or middle bottom of early American society.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/328

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🎧 Episode 022: Vivian Bruce Conger, Deborah Read Franklin & Sally Franklin Bache

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327 Benjamin Franklin: A Film by Ken Burns

Tue, 26 Apr 2022 05:00:00 -0400

How do we know what we know about Benjamin Franklin? We know historians, museum curators, and archivists rely on historical documents and objects to find and learn information about the past. But how does a documentary filmmaker present what they know about history through video?

David Schmidt works as a senior producer at Florentine Films where he worked alongside Ken Burns to produce a 2-episode documentary about the life of Benjamin Franklin. The documentary is called Benjamin Franklin and Schmidt joins us for a behind-the-scenes tour of documentary filmmaking and to investigate some of the lesser-known details of Ben Franklin’s life.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/327

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🎧 Episode 017: François Furstenburg, When the United States Spoke French

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326 The Greek Revolution in Early America

Tue, 12 Apr 2022 05:00:00 -0400

With Ukrainian sovereignty and democracy under attack, Americans have been wondering: Should our government be doing more than placing economic sanctions on Russia? Should I, as U.S. military veteran, travel to Ukraine and offer to fight in their army? What would official U.S. military involvement mean for the politics of Europe and in our age of nuclear weapons?

While the situation in Ukraine is new and novel, Americans’ desire to assist other nations seeking to create or preserve their democracies and republics is not new.

Maureen Connors Santelli, an Associate Professor of History at Northern Virginia Community College and author of The Greek Fire: American-Ottoman Fervor in the Age of Revolutions, joins us to investigate the Greek Revolution and early Americans’ reactions to it.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/327

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🎧 Episode 060: David Preston, Braddock’s Defeat

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325 Everyday People of the American Revolution

Tue, 29 Mar 2022 05:00:00 -0400

What do we know about the American Revolution? Why is it important that we see the Revolution as a political event, a war, a time of social and economic reform, and as a time of violence and upheaval?

Woody Holton, a Professor of History at the University of South Carolina and the author of Liberty is Sweet: The Hidden History of the American Revolution, joins us to explore and discuss answers to these questions so that we can better see and understand the American Revolution as a whole event.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/325

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🎧 Episode 121: Wim Klooster, The Dutch Moment in the 17th-Century Atlantic World

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324 New Netherland and Slavery

Tue, 15 Mar 2022 05:00:00 -0400

After Henry Hudson’s 1609-voyage along the river that now bears his name, Dutch traders began to visit and trade at the area they called New Netherland. In 1614, the Dutch established a trading post near present-day Albany, New York. In 1624, the Dutch West India Company built the settlement of New Amsterdam.

How did the colony of New Netherland take shape? In what ways did the Dutch West India Company and private individuals use enslaved labor to develop the colony?

Andrea Mosterman, an Associate Professor of History at the University of New Orleans and author of Spaces of Enslavement: A History of Slavery and Resistance in Dutch New York, joins us to explore what life was like in New Netherland and early New York, especially for the enslaved people who did much of the work to build this Dutch, and later English, colony.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/324

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🎧 Episode 051: Catherine Cangany, A History of Early Detroit

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323 American Expansion and the Political Economy of Plunder

Tue, 01 Mar 2022 06:00:00 -0400

In the Treaty of Paris, 1783, Great Britain ceded to the United States all lands east of the Mississippi River and between the southern borders of Canada and Georgia. How would the United States take advantage of its new boundaries and incorporate these lands within its governance?

Answering this question presented a quandary for the young United States. The lands it sought to claim by right of treaty belonged to Indigenous peoples.

Michael Witgen, a Professor of History at Columbia University and a citizen of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe, joins us to investigate the story of the Anishinaabeg and Anishinaabewaki, the homelands of the Anishinaabeg people, with details from his book, Seeing Red: Indigenous Land, American Expansion, and the Political Economy of Plunder in North America.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/323

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🎧 Episode 137: Erica Dunbar, The Washingtons’ Runaway Slave, Ona Judge

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322 Running from Bondage in Revolutionary America

Tue, 15 Feb 2022 06:00:00 -0400

During the War for American Independence, the British Army attempted to create chaos and inflict economic damage to the revolutionaries’ war effort by issuing two proclamations that promised freedom to any enslaved person who ran away from their revolutionary owners.

How did enslaved people make their escape to British lines? What do we know about their lives and escape experiences?

Karen Cook-Bell, an Associate Professor of History at Bowie State University and author of Running From Bondage: Enslaved Women and Their Remarkable Fight for Freedom in Revolutionary America, joins us to investigate the experiences of enslaved women who feld their bondage for the British Army’s promise of freedom.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/322

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🎧 Episode 162: Dunmore’s New World

🎧 Episode 212: Researching Biography

🎧 Episode 312: Joshua D. Rothman, The Domestic Slave Trade

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🎧 Episode 119: Steve Pincus, The Heart of the Declaration

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321 BFW Team Favorite: Whose Fourth of July?

Tue, 01 Feb 2022 06:00:00 -0400

On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass delivered a speech to an anti-slavery society and he famously asked “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”

In this episode, we explore Douglass’ thoughtful question within the context of Early America: What did the Fourth of July mean for African Americans in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries?

To help us investigate this question, we are joined by Martha S. Jones, the Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor and Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University, and Christopher Bonner, an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Maryland.

This episode originally posted as Episode 277.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/321

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🎧 Episode 001: James N. Green, Library Company of Philadelphia

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320 Benjamin Franklin's London House

Tue, 18 Jan 2022 06:00:00 -0400

Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston on January 17, 1706, to Abiah Folger and Josiah Franklin. Although Franklin began his life as the youngest son of a youngest son, he traveled through many parts of what is now the northeastern United States and the Province of Quebec and lived in four different cities in three different countries: Boston, Philadelphia, London, and Passy, France.

In honor of Benjamin Franklin’s 316th birthday, Márcia Balisciano, the Founding Director of the Benjamin Franklin House museum in London, joins us to explore Benjamin Franklin’s life in London using details from the largest artifact Franklin left behind: his rented rooms at 36 Craven Street.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/320

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🎧 Episode 090: Caitlin Fitz, Age of American Revolutions

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319 Cuba: An Early American History

Tue, 04 Jan 2022 06:00:00 -0400

One of the Caribbean islands that Christopher Columbus stopped at during his 1492-voyage was an alligator-shaped island that sits at the mouth of the Gulf of Mexico in between the Yucatán and Florida peninsulas. This is, of course, is the island of Cuba.

What do we know about early Cuba, the island the Spanish described as the “Key to the Indies?” What kind of relationship and exchange did early Cuba have with British North America and the early United States?

Ada Ferrer, a Professor of History at New York University and author of Cuba: An American History, joins us to investigate the early history of Cuba.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/048

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🎧 Episode 291: The World of the Wampanoag, Part 2

🎧 Episode 313: Mike Duncan, The Marquis de Lafayette

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🎧 Episode 102: William Nester, George Rogers Clark and the Fight for the Illinois Country

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Bonus: Colonial Ste. Geneviéve, Missouri

Fri, 31 Dec 2021 06:00:00 -0400

What challenges do National Park Service interpretive rangers face when they interpret non-British colonial history? How did the relationships between Ste. Geneviéve's inhabitants and Indigenous peoples change over time?

NPS Interpretive Ranger Claire Casey is back to answer more of your questions about colonial Ste. Geneviéve, Missouri and the Ste. Geneviéve National Historical Park.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/318

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318 Ste. Geneviéve National Historical Park

Tue, 21 Dec 2021 06:00:00 -0400

About 620 miles north of New Orleans and 62 miles south of St. Louis, sits the town of Ste. Geneviéve, Missouri.

Claire Casey, a National Park Service interpretative ranger at the Ste. Geneviéve National Historical Park, joins us to explore the early American history of Ste. Geneviéve.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/318

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🎧 Episode 121: Wim Klooster, The Dutch Moment in the 17th-Century Atlantic World

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317 American Jewish Historical Society, Jews in Early America

Tue, 07 Dec 2021 06:00:00 -0400

The first Jewish colonists in North America arrived in 1654. From that moment, Jews worked to build and contribute to early American society and the birth of the United States.

Gemma Birnbaum and Melanie Meyers, the Executive Director and Director of Collections and Engagement at the American Jewish Historical Society, join us to explore the history and experiences of Jews in early America and their contributions to the American Revolution and the founding of the United States.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/317

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🎧 Episode 167: Eberhard Faber, The Early History of New Orleans

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316 Yellow Fever, Immunity, & Early New Orleans

Tue, 23 Nov 2021 06:00:00 -0400

In 1803, the United States purchased the Louisiana Territory from France. This purchase included the important port city of New Orleans. But the United States did not just acquire the city’s land, peoples, and wealth– the American government also inherited the city’s Yellow Fever problem.

Kathryn Olivarius, an Assistant Professor of History at Stanford University and author of Necropolis: Disease, Power, and Capitalism in the Cotton Kingdom, leads us on an exploration of yellow fever, immunity, and inequality in early New Orleans.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/316

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🎧 Episode 302: From Inoculation to Vaccination, Pt 2

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🎧 Episode 038: Carolyn Harris, Magna Carta & Its Gifts to North America

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315 History & American Democracy

Tue, 09 Nov 2021 06:00:00 -0400

What has enabled the American experiment in democracy to endure for nearly 250 years?

What is it about early American history that captivates peoples’ attention and makes them want to support the creation of historical scholarship and the sharing of historical knowledge?

David M. Rubenstein, the co-founder and co-chairman of The Carlyle Group and a great student and supporter of history and history education, joins us to explore his patriotic philanthropy and the history of American democracy with details from his book, The American Experiment: Dialogues on a Dream.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/315

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🎧 Episode 285: Elections and Voting in the Early Republic

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🎧 Episode 029: Colin Calloway, The Victory With No Name

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Bonus: The Object of History

Tue, 02 Nov 2021 05:00:00 -0400

The Massachusetts Historical Society has a podcast!

In this bonus episode of Ben Franklin's World, we'll introduce you to The Object of History, with a full-episode preview of "Episode 4: A Miniature Portrait of Elizabeth Freeman."

For more information about this new podcast and how to subscribe visit: https://masshist.org/podcast.

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Bonus: Colin Calloway, Native Americans in American Cities

Fri, 29 Oct 2021 18:14:51 -0400

We rejoin Colin Calloway, Professor of History and Native American Studies at Dartmouth College, in this bonus episode so he can answer more of your questions about Native American experiences in early American cities.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/314 Join Ben Franklin's World!

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314 Native Americans in Early American Cities

Tue, 26 Oct 2021 05:00:00 -0400

Have you ever considered early American cities as places where Native Americans lived, worked, and visited?

Native Americans often visited early American cities and port towns, especially the towns and cities that dotted the Atlantic seaboard of British North America.

Colin Calloway, an award-winning historian and a Professor History and Native American Studies at Dartmouth College, joins us to investigate Native American experiences in early American cities with details from his book, “The Chiefs Now In This City": Indians and the Urban Frontier in Early America.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/314

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🎧 Bonus Episode: The Marquis de Lafayette and the Hermione

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OI Reads: Carolyn Eastman, The Strange Genius of Mr. O

Tue, 19 Oct 2021 05:00:00 -0400

Welcome to OI Reads, an occasional series on Ben Franklin's World where we introduce you to new books that we'll think you love and that are published by the Omohundro Institute.

Using details from her book, The Strange Genius of Mr. O, Carolyn Eastman, a Professor of History at Virginia Commonwealth University, acquaints us with James Ogilvie, one of early America's first bonafide celebrities.

For more details about The Strange Genius of Mr. O: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/MrO Join Ben Franklin's World!

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313 The Marquis de Lafayette

Tue, 12 Oct 2021 05:00:00 -0400

You know “America’s favorite fighting Frenchman” is the Marquis de Lafayette. But what do you know about Lafayette and his life?

How and why did this French-born noble end up fighting in the American Revolution?

Mike Duncan, a self-described history geek, public historian, and the podcaster behind the award-winning podcast The History of Rome and the popular podcast Revolutions, joins us to investigate the life of the Marquis de Lafayette with details from his book, Hero of Two Worlds: The Marquis de Lafayette in the Age of Revolution.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/313

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🎧 Episode 063: Megan Kate Nelson, Ruin Nation: Destruction and the Civil War

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312 The Domestic Slave Trade

Tue, 28 Sep 2021 05:00:00 -0400

The transatlantic slave trade dominated in North America during the 17th and 18th centuries. But by 1808, a different slave trade came to dominate in the young United States, the domestic or internal slave trade. 

Joshua D. Rothman, an award-winning historian, Professor of History at the University of Alabama, and author of the book, The Ledger and the Chain: How Domestic Slave Traders Shaped America, leads us on an exploration of the United States’ domestic slave trade and the lives of three slave traders who helped to define this trade.  

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/312

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🎧 Episode 025: Jessica Parr, Inventing George Whitefield

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311 Religion and the American Revolution

Tue, 14 Sep 2021 05:00:00 -0400

Investigations of the American Revolution often include explorations of politics, ideology, trade and taxation, imperial control, and social strife. What about religion?

What role did religion play in the American Revolution?

Katherine Carté, an Associate Professor of History at Southern Methodist University and the author of Religion and the American Revolution: An Imperial History, joins us to investigate the role of religion in the American Revolution.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/311

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🎧 Episode 290: The World of the Wampanoag: Before 1620

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310 The Blackfeet: A History

Tue, 31 Aug 2021 05:00:00 -0400

To understand early American history, we need to investigate and understand North America as an Indigenous space. A place where Native American populations, politics, religion, and trade networks prevailed for centuries before and after the arrival of Europeans and enslaved Africans.

In this episode, we travel into the heart of the North American continent to explore the life, history and culture of the Blackfeet People with Rosalyn LaPier, a University of Montana professor, historian, ethnobotanist, and award-winning Indigenous writer. Rosalyn is a member of the Blackfeet Tribe of Montana and a member of the Métis, one of the three recognized Aboriginal peoples in Canada.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/310

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🎧 Episode 008: Gregory O’Malley, Final Passages: The Intercolonial Slave Trade of British America, 1619-1807

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309 Merchant Ships of the Eighteenth Century

Tue, 17 Aug 2021 05:00:00 -0400

By the eighteenth century, the Atlantic Ocean had become a busy highway of ships crisscrossing its waters.

What do we know about the ships that made these transatlantic voyages and connected the eighteenth-century British Atlantic world through trade, people, and information?

Phillip Reid, a historian of the Atlantic World and maritime technology and author of The Merchant Ship in the British Atlantic, joins us to explore the eighteenth-century British merchant ship and the business of transatlantic shipping.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/309

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308 Slavery and Freedom in French Louisiana

Tue, 03 Aug 2021 05:00:00 -0400

The story of freedom in colonial New Orleans and Louisiana pivoted on the choices black women made to retain control of their bodies, families, and futures.

How did black women in colonial Louisiana navigate French and Spanish black and slavery codes to retain control of their bodies, families, and futures?

Jessica Marie Johnson, Assistant Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University and author of the award-winning book Wicked Flesh: Black Women, Intimacy, and Freedom in the Atlantic World, joins us to investigate answers to this question and to reveal what viewing the history of the Atlantic World through the histories of slavery and gender can show us about what life was really like for colonists, settlers, and the enslaved.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/308

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🎧 Episode 031: Michael Hattem, Benjamin Franklin and the Papers of the Benjamin Franklin Editorial Project

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Bonus: A History of American Revolution Histories

Fri, 30 Jul 2021 05:00:00 -0400

In Episode 307, Michael Hattem helped us investigate the role history played in the American Revolution and the ways early historians used history as a tool to unite Americans as one people after the Revolution.

This bonus episode brings us back together with Michael Hattem so we can explore a few topics we didn’t have time to explore in our full-length episode: A listener question about how British Americans thought about the British Empire’s responsibility to protect them and historical schools of thought, how schools of thought develop, and the different schools of historical thought when it comes to the American Revolution.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/307

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307 History & the American Revolution

Tue, 20 Jul 2021 05:00:00 -0400

The story of the founding of the United States is a familiar one. It usually (but not always) begins with the English settlement at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607, describes the founding and development of thirteen British North American colonies that hugged North America’s eastern seaboard, and then delves into the imperial reforms and conflicts that caused the colonists to respond with violent protests during the 1760s and 1770s.

Then there is the war, which began in April 1775 and ended in 1783. The adoption of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. And the story of how against all odds, the Americans persevered and founded an independent United States.

Have you ever wondered where this familiar narrative came from and why it was developed?

Michael Hattem, a historian of Early America who has a research expertise in the age and memory of the American Revolution, joins us to investigate the creation of the “grand narrative” about the Revolution and the United States’ founding, with details from his book, Past and Prologue: Politics and Memory in the American Revolution.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/307

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🎧 Episode 058: Andrew Schocket, Fighting over the Founders: How We Remember the American Revolution

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306 The Horse's Tail

Fri, 02 Jul 2021 05:00:00 -0400

The words of the Declaration of Independence are not the only aspect of the American Revolution that carry power. Visual and material objects from during and after the Revolution also carry power and meaning. Objects like monuments, uniforms, muskets, powder horns, and the Horse’s Tail, a remnant of a grand equestrian statue of King George III, which stood in New York City’s Bowling Green park.

Historians Wendy Bellion, Leslie Harris, and Arthur Burns join us to investigate the history of revolutionary New York City and how New Yorkers came to their decisions to both install and tear down a statue to King George III, and what happened to this statue after it came down.

This episode is sponsored in part by Humanities New York. The mission of Humanities New York is to strengthen civil society and the bonds of community, using the humanities to foster engaging inquiry and dialog around social and cultural concerns.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/306

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🎧 Episode 125: Terri Snyder, Death, Slavery, & Suicide in British North America

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305 Speaking with the Dead in Early America

Tue, 22 Jun 2021 05:00:00 -0400

Death is one of the few universals in life. Everyone who is born, will die.

How do the living make peace with death?

While different cultures make peace with death in different ways, Erik Seeman joins us to investigate how white, American Protestants made their peace with death during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries.

Erik Seeman is a Professor of History at the University at Buffalo. He’s an award-winning historian who has written three books on death practices in early America, including his most recent book, Speaking with the Dead in Early America.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/305

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🎧 Episode 067, John Ryan Fischer, Cattle Colonialism

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304 On Juneteenth

Tue, 08 Jun 2021 05:00:00 -0400

Juneteenth is a state holiday that commemorates June 19, 1865, the day slavery ended in Texas. Over the last decade, a push to make Juneteenth a national holiday to commemorate the end of slavery in the United States has gained momentum.

What do we know about Juneteenth and its origins?

Annette Gordon-Reed, an award-winning historian at Harvard University and Harvard Law School, is a native Texan and she joins us to discuss the early history of Texas and the origins of the Juneteenth holiday with details from her book, On Juneteenth.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/304

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303 An Early History of the Mississippi Gulf Coast

Tue, 25 May 2021 05:00:00 -0400

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/303

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🎧 Episode 005 Jeanne Abrams, Revolutionary Medicine

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302 From Inoculation to Vaccination, Part 2

Tue, 11 May 2021 05:00:00 -0400

Before its eradication in 1980, smallpox was the most feared disease in many parts of the world. Known as the “king of terrors” and the “disease of diseases” the search for a way to lessen and avoid smallpox was on!

How did vaccination come about? What are vaccination’s connections to smallpox inoculation? And how did news and practice of vaccination spread throughout North America? These questions will be our focus in this second, and final, episode in our “From Inoculation to Vaccination” series.

In this episode, we join experts Dr. René Najera, Farren Yero, and Andrew Wehrman for a journey through the history of smallpox, the creation of the world’s first vaccine, and first mass public health initiative.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/302

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🎧 Episode 005: Jeanne Abrams, Revolutionary Medicine

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301 From Inoculation to Vaccination, Part 1

Tue, 27 Apr 2021 05:00:00 -0400

Smallpox was the most feared disease in North America and in many parts of the world before its eradication in 1980. So how did early Americans live with smallpox and work to prevent it? How did they help eradicate this terrible disease?

Over the next two episodes, we’ll explore smallpox in North America. We’ll investigate how smallpox came to North America, how North Americans worked to contain, control, and prevent outbreaks of the disease, and how the story of smallpox is also the story of immunization.

In this episode, we join experts Dr. René Najera, Farren Yero, Ben Mutschler, and Andrew Wehrman for a journey through the history of smallpox and the world’s first immunization procedure: inoculation.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/301

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300 Vast Early America

Tue, 13 Apr 2021 05:00:00 -0400

What do historians wish more people better understood about early American history and why do they wish people had that better understanding?

In celebration of the 300th episode of Ben Franklin’s World, we posed these questions to more than 30 scholars. What do they think?

Join the celebration to discover more about Early America and take a behind-the-scenes tour of your favorite history podcast.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/300

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🎧 Episode 024: Kimberly Alexander, 18th-Century Fashion & Material Culture

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299 Colonial Virginia Portraits

Tue, 06 Apr 2021 05:00:00 -0400

What can a portrait reveal about the history of colonial British America?

Portraits were both deeply personal and yet collaborative artifacts left behind by people of the past. When historians look at multiple portraits created around the same time and place, their similarities can reveal important social connections, trade relationships, or cultural beliefs about race and gender in early American history.

Janine Yorimoto Boldt, Associate Curator of American Art at the Chazen Museum of Art and the researcher behind the digital project Colonial Virginia Portraits, leads us on an exploration of portraiture and what it can reveal about the early American past.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/299

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🎧 Episode 098: Gautham Rao, Birth of the American Tax Man

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298 Origins of American Manufacturing

Tue, 30 Mar 2021 05:00:00 -0400

Have you ever stopped to think about how the United States became a manufacturing nation? Have you ever wondered how the United States developed not just products, but the technologies, knowledge, and machinery necessary to manufacture or produce various products?

Lindsay Schakenbach Regele has.

Lindsay is an Associate Professor of History at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio and the author of Manufacturing Advantage: War, the State, and the Origins of American Industry, 1776-1848, and she joins us today to lead our exploration into the early American origins of industrialization.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/298

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🎧 Episode 034: Mark Cheatham, Andrew Jackson, Southerner

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297 Indian Removal Act of 1830

Tue, 16 Mar 2021 05:00:00 -0400

The history of Native American land dispossession is as old as the story of colonization. European colonists came to the Americas, and the Caribbean, wanting land for farms and settlement so they found ways to acquire lands from indigenous peoples by the means of negotiation, bad-faith dealing, war, and violence.

The Indian Removal Act of 1830 is deeply rooted in early American history.

Claudio Saunt, a scholar of Native American history at the University of Georgia, and author of the book Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory, joins us to discuss the Indian Removal Act of 1830 and how Native Americans in the southeastern part of the United States were removed from their homelands and resettled in areas of southeastern Kansas and Oklahoma.  

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/048

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🎧 Episode 159: Serena Zabin, The Revolutionary Economy

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296 The Boston Massacre: A Family History

Tue, 02 Mar 2021 06:00:00 -0400

Is there anything more we can know about well-researched and reported events like the Boston Massacre?

Are there new ways of looking at oft-taught events that can help us see new details about them, even 250 years after they happened?

Serena Zabin, a Professor of History at Carleton College in Minnesota and the author of the award-winning book, The Boston Massacre: A Family History, joins us to discuss the Boston Massacre and how she found a new lens through which to view this famous event that reveals new details and insights.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/296

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🎧 Episode 017: François Furstenberg, When the United States Spoke French

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295 Whitney Plantation Museum

Tue, 16 Feb 2021 06:00:00 -0400

What does it take to create a museum? How can a museum help visitors grapple with a very uncomfortable aspect of their nation’s past?

Ibrahima Seck, a member of the History Department at the University Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar, Senegal, author of the book, Bouki Fait Gombo: A History of the Slave Community of Habitation Haydel (Whitney Plantation) Louisiana, 1750-1860, and the Director of Research of the Whitney Plantation museum, leads us on a behind-the-scenes tour of Whitney Plantation and through the history of slavery in early Louisiana.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/295

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🎧 Episode 112: Mary Beth Norton, The Tea Crisis of 1773

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294 1774: The Long Year of Revolution

Tue, 02 Feb 2021 06:00:00 -0400

When we think of important years in the history of the American Revolution, we might think of years like 1765 and the Stamp Act Crisis, 1773 and the Tea Crisis, 1775 and the start of what would become the War for American Independence, or 1776, the year the United States declared independence.

Award-winning historian Mary Beth Norton, the Mary Donlan Alger Professor Emerita at Cornell University and the author of 1774: The Long Year of Revolution, joins us to discuss another year that she would like us to pay attention to as we think about the American Revolution: the year 1774.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/294

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🎧 Episode 008: Gregory O’Malley, Final Passages

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293 Jamaica Ladies: Female Slaveholding in Jamaica

Tue, 19 Jan 2021 06:00:00 -0400

How did Jamaica grow to become the "crown jewel" of the British Atlantic World?

Part of the answer is that Jamaica’s women served as some of the most ardent and best supporters of the island’s practice of slavery.

Christine Walker, an Assistant Professor of History at the Yale-NUS College in Singapore and the author of the award-winning book, Jamaica Ladies: Female Slaveholders and the Creation of Britain’s Atlantic Empire, leads us on an investigation of female slave holder-ship in 17th and 18th-century Jamaica.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/293

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🎧 Episode 050: Marla Miller, Betsy Ross and the Making of America

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292 Craft in Early America

Tue, 05 Jan 2021 06:00:00 -0400

What was everyday life like for those who lived in early America?

To understand the everyday lives of early Americans we need to look at the goods they made and how they produced those goods. In essence, nothing explains the everyday as much as the goods in people’s lives.

Glenn Adamson, author of Craft: An American History, joins us to investigate craft and craftspeople in Early America.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/282

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🎧 Episode 104: Native Americans and Colonists on the Northeastern Coast

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Bonus: The Plimoth Patuxet and Tomaquag Museums

Fri, 18 Dec 2020 06:00:00 -0400

This episode is a companion episode to the 2-episode World of the Wampanoag series.

This bonus episode allows us to speak with two guests from the World of the Wampanoag series: Jade Luiz, Curator of Collections at the Plimoth Patuxet Museums, and Lorén Spears, Executive Director of the Tomaquag Museum in Rhode Island.

Both Jade and Lorén help us explore their museums and what it will be like when we visit them in person.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/290

Become a subscriber! https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/subscribe

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291 The World of the Wampanoag, Part 2: 1620 and Beyond

Tue, 15 Dec 2020 06:00:00 -0400

Before New England was New England, it was the Dawnland. A region that remains the homeland of numerous Native American peoples, including the Wampanoag.

When the English colonists arrived at Patuxet 400 years ago, they arrived at a confusing time. The World of the Wampanoag people had changed in the wake of a destabilizing epidemic.

This episode is part of a two-episode series about the World of the Wampanoag. In Episode 290, we investigated the life, cultures, and trade of the Wampanoag and their neighbors, the Narragansett, up to December 16, 1620, the day the Mayflower made its way into Plymouth Harbor.

In this episode, our focus will be on the World of the Wampanoag in 1620 and beyond.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/291

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🎧 Episode 104:Native Americans and Colonists on the Northeastern Coast

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290 The World of the Wampanoag, Part 1: Before 1620

Tue, 08 Dec 2020 06:00:00 -0400

Before New England was New England, it was the Dawnland. A region that remains the homeland of numerous Native American peoples, including the Wampanoag.

Over the next two episodes, we’ll explore the World of the Wampanoag before and after 1620, a year that saw approximately 100 English colonists enter the Wampanoags’ world. Those English colonists have been called the “Pilgrims” and this year, 2020, marks the 400th anniversary of their arrival in New England.

The arrival of these English settlers brought change to the Wampanoags’ world. But many aspects of Wampanoag life and culture persisted, as did the Wampanoag who lived, and still live, in Massachusetts and beyond.

In this episode, we’ll investigate the cultures, society, and economy of the Wampanoags’ 16th- and 17th-century world. This focus will help us develop a better understanding for the peoples, places, and circumstances of the World of the Wampanoag.

This two-episode “World of the Wampanoag” series is made possible through support from Mass Humanities.

Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this episode do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/290

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🎧 Episode 133: Patrick Breen, The Nat Turner Rebellion

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289 Maroonage in the Great Dismal Swamp

Tue, 24 Nov 2020 06:00:00 -0400

The name “Great Dismal Swamp” doesn’t evoke an image of a pleasant or beautiful place, and yet, it was an important place that offered land speculators the chance to profit and enslaved men and women a chance for freedom in colonial British America and the early United States. 

Marcus Nevius, an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Rhode Island and author of City of Refuge: Slavery and Petit Maroonage in the Great Dismal Swamp, 1763-1856, has offered to guide us into and through the Great Dismal Swamp and its history, so that we can better understand maroons and maroon communities in early America and learn more about how enslaved people used an environment around them to resist their enslaved condition.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/289

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🎧 Episode 090: Caitlin Fitz, Age of American Revolutions

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288 Smugglers & Patriots in the 18th-Century Atlantic

Tue, 10 Nov 2020 06:00:00 -0400

In what ways did the Atlantic World contribute to the American Revolution?

Empire, slavery, and constant warfare interacted with each other in the Atlantic World. Which brings us to our question: In what ways did the Atlantic World and its issues contribute to the American Revolution?

Tyson Reeder, an editor of the Papers of James Madison and an affiliated assistant professor at the University of Virginia, is a scholar of the Atlantic World, who will help us see how smuggling and trade in the Luso-Atlantic, or Portuguese-Atlantic, World contributed to the development and spread of ideas about free trade and republicanism.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/288

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🎧 Episode 254: Jeffrey Sklansky, The Money Question in Early America

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🎧 Episode 040: Kathleen Bartoloni-Tuazon, For Fear of an Elective King

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Our History Has Always Been Spoken: Trailer for Massachusetts, 1620 Series

Fri, 06 Nov 2020 06:00:00 -0400

Join the Omohundro Institute and Mass Humanities for a special two-episode series about the World of the Wampanoag before and after 1620. The Wampanoag’s history has always been spoken. Hear it on Ben Franklin’s World in December 2020.

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Bonus. Listener Q&A: The Early History of the United States Congress

Fri, 30 Oct 2020 05:00:00 -0400

This special bonus episode previews the Ben Franklin's World Subscription program and its monthly bonus episode for program subscribers.

In this bonus episode, Historian of the United States House of Representatives Matt Wasniewski and Historical Publications Specialist Terrance Rucker answer your questions about the early history of the United States Congress.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/202

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287 Elections in Early America: Presidential Elections & the Electoral College

Tue, 27 Oct 2020 05:00:00 -0400

For four months during the summer of 1787, delegates from the thirteen states met in Philadelphia to craft a revised Constitution that would define the government of the United States. It took them nearly the entire time to settle on the method for selecting the President, the Chief Executive. What they came up with is a system of indirect election where the states would select electors who would then cast votes for President and Vice President. Today we call these electors the Electoral College.

In this final episode of our series on Elections in Early America, we explore the origins and early development of the Electoral College and how it shaped presidential elections in the first decades of the United States with Alexander Keyssar and Frank Cogliano.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/287

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🎧 Episode 193: Partisans: The Friendship & Rivalry of Adams & Jefferson

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286 Elections in Early America: Native Sovereignty

Tue, 20 Oct 2020 05:00:00 -0400

Who is American democracy for and who could participate in early American democracy?

Women and African Americans were often barred from voting in colonial and early republic elections. But what about Native Americans? Could Native Americans participate in early American democracy?

Julie Reed, an Assistant Professor of History at the Pennsylvania State University, and Kathleen DuVal, the Bowman and Gordon Gray Distinguished Term Professor of History at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, join us to investigate how the sovereignty of native nations fits within the sovereignty of the United States and its democracy.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/286

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285 Elections in Early America: Elections & Voting in the Early American Republic

Tue, 13 Oct 2020 05:00:00 -0400

Independence from Great Britain provided the former British American colonists the opportunity to create a new, more democratic government than they had lived under before the American Revolution.

What did this new American government look like? Who could participate in this new American democracy? And what was it like to participate in this new democracy?

Scholars Terrance Rucker, a Historical Publications Specialist in the Office of the Historian of the U.S. House of Representatives, and Marcela Miccuci, a curator at the Museum of the American Revolution, join us to investigate the first federal elections in the United States and who could vote in early U.S. elections.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/285

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🎧 Episode 143: Michael Klarman, The Making of the United States Constitution

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284 Elections in Early America: Democracy & Voting in British North America

Tue, 06 Oct 2020 05:00:00 -0400

The British North American colonies formed some of the most democratic governments in the world. But that doesn't mean that all early Americans were treated equally or allowed to participate in representative government.

So who could vote in Early America? Who could participate in representative government?

Historians James Kloppenberg, the Charles Warren Professor of History at Harvard University, and Amy Watson, an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, help us explore who democracy was meant for and how those who lived in colonial British America understood and practiced representative government.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/284

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🎧 Episode 064: Brett Rushforth, Native American Slavery in New France

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Bonus: A Brief History of the United States Supreme Court

Tue, 22 Sep 2020 19:31:59 -0400

On Friday, September 18, 2020, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, died.

Justice Ginsburg's death has caused a lot of debate about whether the President should appoint a new justice to fill her seat and, if he does appoint someone, whether the Senate should vote on the President’s nomination before the election.

This short bonus episode offers a brief history of the Supreme Court and how it functions within the United States government. Our guest for this episode is Mary Sarah Bilder, the Founders Professor of Law at Boston College.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/259 Join Ben Franklin's World!

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283 Acadie 300

Tue, 22 Sep 2020 05:00:00 -0400

2020 commemorates the 300th anniversary of French presence on Prince Edward Island. Like much of North America, the Canadian Maritime provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Cape Breton Island, and Prince Edward Island were highly contested regions. In fact, the way France and Great Britain fought for presence and control of this region places the Canadian Maritimes among the most contested regions in eighteenth-century North America.

Anne Marie Lane Jonah, a historian with the Parks Canada Agency, joins us to explore the history of Prince Edward Island and why Great Britain and France fought over the Canadian Maritime region.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/283

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🎧 Episode 052: Ronald A. Johnson, Early United States-Haitian Diplomacy

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282 Tacky's Revolt

Tue, 08 Sep 2020 05:00:00 -0400

Between 1760 and 1761, Great Britain witnessed one of the largest slave insurrections in the history of its empire. Although the revolt took place on the island of Jamaica, the reverberations of this revolt stretched across the Atlantic Ocean and into the British North American colonies.

Vincent Brown, the Charles Warren Professor of American History and a Professor of African American Studies at Harvard University, joins us to investigate Tacky’s Revolt and how that revolt served as an eddy within the larger current of Atlantic warfare, with details from his book, Tacky’s Revolt: The Story of an Atlantic Slave War.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/282

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🎧 Episode 137: Erica Dunbar, The Washingtons’ Runaway Slave, Ona Judge

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281 The Business of Slavery

Tue, 25 Aug 2020 05:00:00 -0400

We live in an age where big businesses track our shopping habits and in some cases our work habits. But is the age of data new? When did the “age of the spreadsheet” and quantification of habits develop? 

Caitlin Rosenthal, an Assistant Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley and the author of Accounting for Slavery: Masters and Management, leads us on an investigation into the origins of how American businesses came to collect and use data to manage their workers and their pursuit of profits.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/281

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🎧 Episode 122: Andrew O’Shaughnessy, The Men Who Lost America

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280 The British Are Coming

Tue, 11 Aug 2020 05:00:00 -0400

The American Revolution is embedded in the American character. It’s an event that can tell us who we are, how we came to be who we are, and how we can strive to be who we want to be as a nation and people.

Rick Atkinson, a three-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, a journalist who has worked at The Washington Post, and the author of The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777, joins us to explore how the War for Independence has impacted and shaped the American character.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/280

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279 The Cabinet: Creation of an American Institution

Tue, 28 Jul 2020 05:00:00 -0400

As the first President of the United States, George Washington set many precedents for the new nation. One of the biggest precedents Washington set came in the form of the Cabinet, a body of advisors from across the U.S. government who advise the president on how to handle matters of foreign and domestic policy.

Today, we investigate Washington’s creation of the Cabinet and how it became a government institution with Lindsay Chervinsky, a Scholar-in-Residence at the Institute for Thomas Paine Studies, a Senior Fellow at the International Center for Jefferson Studies, and the author of the book, The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/279

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278 Polygamy: An Early American History

Tue, 14 Jul 2020 05:00:00 -0400

Polygamy is not a practice that often comes to mind when many of us think about early America. But it turns out, polygamy was a ubiquitous practice among different groups of early Americans living in 17th and 18th-century North America.

Sarah Pearsall, a University Teaching Officer, Fellow, and Historian at the University of Cambridge, joins us to discuss the surprising history of polygamy in early North America, with details from her book, Polygamy: An Early American History.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/278 Join Ben Franklin's World!

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277 Whose Fourth of July?

Tue, 30 Jun 2020 05:00:00 -0400

On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass delivered a speech to an anti-slavery society and he famously asked “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/277 Join Ben Franklin's World!

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Bonus Listener Q & A: Young Benjamin Franklin

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 05:00:00 -0400

This special bonus episode introduces the Ben Franklin's World Subscription program and a new monthly Listener Question & Answer feature for subscribers to that program.

In this preview, award-winning historian Nick Bunker answers your questions about the life of young Benjamin Franklin.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/207 Join Ben Franklin's World!

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276 Benjamin Rush: Founding Father

Tue, 16 Jun 2020 05:00:00 -0400

Who gets to be a founding father?

“Founding Father” status goes to men who helped found the United States. That means the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence, those who led the Continental Army, and the 36 delegates who signed the Constitution. We’re talking about more than 100 men and yet, we don’t really talk about more than a handful of these “founders” as Founders.

Stephen Fried, an award-winning journalist and author of Rush: Revolution, Madness, and Benjamin Rush, the Visionary Doctor Who Became a Founding Father, joins us to explore the life and deeds of one founder we don’t always talk about, Benjamin Rush.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/276

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275 Pets in Early America

Tue, 02 Jun 2020 05:00:00 -0400

What kinds of animals did early Americans keep as pets? How did early Americans acquire pets? What kinds of animals did early Americans keep as pets?

Ingrid Tague, a Professor of History at the University of Denver and the author of Animal Companions: Pets and Social Change in Eighteenth-Century Britain, joins us to answer your questions about pets and pet keeping in Early America.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/275

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274 Walter Ralegh: Architect of Empire

Tue, 19 May 2020 05:00:00 -0400

What do we know about how and why England came to establish its first permanent colony at Jamestown? And what do we know about the English colony that came before it, the Colony of Roanoke?

Alan Gallay, Lyndon B. Johnson chair of United States History at Texas Christian University and author of Walter Ralegh: Architect of Empire, leads us on exploration of the life and work of Sir Walter Ralegh, the man who crafted the blueprint for England’s colonization plans in the Americas.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/274

Production of this episode was made possible by a grant from the Roller-Bottimore Foundation of Richmond, Virginia.

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273 David Hosack, Botany, and Medicine in the Early Republic

Tue, 05 May 2020 05:00:00 -0400

How did Americans learn to establish philanthropic institutions?

Victoria Johnson, an Associate Professor of Urban Policy and Planning at Hunter College in New York City and author of American Eden: David Hosack, Botany, and Medicine in the Garden of the Early Republic, leads us on an investigation of the life of Dr. David Hosack and the many organizations he founded, including the Elgin Botanical Garden.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/273 Sponsor Links

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272 Origins of the 11th Amendment

Tue, 21 Apr 2020 05:00:00 -0400

What do you know about the Eleventh Amendment to the United States Constitution?

Caitlin Galante-DeAngelis Hopkins, a Lecturer in the History Department at Harvard University and a former research associate for the Harvard and Slavery Project, joins us to explore the origins of the Eleventh Amendment and why the United States added it to its Constitution.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/272

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271 BFW Team Favorites: Paul Revere's Ride Through History

Tue, 31 Dec 2019 06:00:00 -0400

On April 18, 1775, Paul Revere rode to Lexington, Massachusetts to spread the alarm that the Regulars were marching. Revere made several important rides between 1774 and 1775, including one in September 1774 that brought the Suffolk Resolves to the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia.

So why is it that we remember Paul Revere’s ride to Lexington and not any of his other rides?

Why is it that we remember Paul Revere on the night of April 18, 1775 and nothing about his life either before or after that famous ride?

Why is it that Paul Revere seems to ride quickly into history and then just as quickly out of it?

In this episode we speak with four scholars to explore Paul Revere’s ride through history.

This episode originally posted as Episode 130.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/271

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270 BFW Team Favorites: Slavery & Freedom in Early Maryland

Tue, 24 Dec 2019 06:00:00 -0400

How do you uncover the life of an enslaved person who left no paper trail?

What can the everyday life of an enslaved person tell us about slavery, how it was practiced, and how some enslaved people made the transition from slavery to freedom?

We explore the life of Charity Folks, an enslaved woman from Maryland who gained her freedom in the late-18th century. Our guide through Charity’s life is Jessica Millward, an Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Irvine and author of Finding Charity’s Folk.

This episode originally posted as Episode 089.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/270

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269 BFW Team Favorites: One Colonial Woman's World

Tue, 17 Dec 2019 06:00:00 -0400

What was everyday life like for average men and women in early America?

Listeners ask this question more than any other question and today we continue to try to answer it.

Michelle Marchetti Coughlin, author of One Colonial Woman's World: The Life and Writings of Mehetabel Chandler Coit, joins us to explore the life of an average woman who lived in early New England.

This episode originally posted as Episode 032.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/269 Sponsor Links

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268 BFW Team Favorites: Young Benjamin Franklin

Tue, 10 Dec 2019 06:00:00 -0400

What in the first 40 years of his life made Benjamin Franklin the genius he became?

Benjamin Franklin serves as a great window on to the early American past because as a man of “variety” he pursued many interests: literature, poetry, science, business, philosophy, philanthropy, and politics.

But one aspect of Franklin’s life has gone largely unstudied: his childhood and early life.

Nick Bunker, author of Young Benjamin Franklin: The Birth of Ingenuity, joins us to explore Benjamin Franklin’s early life and how family, childhood, and youthful experiences shaped him as a scientist and diplomat.

This episode originally posted as Episode 207.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/268

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267 Winter in the Early American Northeast

Tue, 03 Dec 2019 06:00:00 -0400

How did the people of early America experience and feel about winter?

Thomas Wickman, an Associate Professor of History and American Studies at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut and author of Snowshoe Country: An Environmental and Cultural Winter in the Early American Northeast, joins us to investigate how Native Americans and early Americans experienced and felt about winter during the 17th and early 18th centuries.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/267

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266 Education in Early America

Tue, 26 Nov 2019 06:00:00 -0400

How did early Americans educate their children? How and when did Americans create a formal system of public education?

You sent me these questions for Episode 200: Everyday Life in Early America. You also said you wanted to know more about how early American boys and girls learned the trades they would practice later in life.

Johann Neem, a Professor of History at Western Washington University and author of Democracy’s Schools: The Rise of Public Education in America, joins us to further explore how early Americans educated their children and how early American children learned the trades they would practice later in life.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/266

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265 An Early History of the White House

Tue, 19 Nov 2019 06:00:00 -0400

On July 1, 1790, Congress passed “An Act for Establishing the temporary and permanent Seat of the Government of the United States.” This act formalized a plan to move the capital of the United States from New York City to Philadelphia, for a period of 10 years, and then from Philadelphia to Washington D.C., where the United States government would make its permanent home.

What buildings did Congress have erected to house the government?

Lindsay Chervinsky works for the White House Historical Association as the White House Historian and she joins us to explore the history of one of the earliest buildings in Washington D.C., the White House.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/265

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264 The Iroquois, United States, and the Treaty of Canandaigua 1794

Tue, 12 Nov 2019 06:00:00 -0400

The Treaty of Paris 1783 ended the American War for Independence, but it did not bring peace to North America. After 1783, warfare and violence continued between Americans and Native Americans. So how did the early United States attempt to create peace for itsnew nation?

Michael Oberg, a Distinguished Professor of History at the State University of New York-Geneseo and the author of Peacemakers: The Iroquois, the United States, and the Treaty of Canandaigua, joins us to investigate how the United States worked with the Haudenosaunee or Six Nations peoples to create peace through the Treaty of Canandaigua, 1794.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/264

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263 The Medical Imagination

Tue, 05 Nov 2019 06:00:00 -0400

Did you know that imagination once played a key role in the way Americans understood and practiced medicine?

Sari Altschuler, an Assistant Professor of English at Northeastern University and author of The Medical Imagination: Literature and Health in the Early United States, joins us to investigate the ways early American doctors used imagination in their practice and learning of medicine.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/263

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262 Interpreting the Fourth Amendment (Doing History 4)

Tue, 29 Oct 2019 05:00:00 -0400

History is an important tool when it comes to understanding American law.

History is what the justices of the United States Supreme Court use when they want to ascertain what the framers meant when they drafted the Constitution of 1787 and its first ten amendments in 1789. History is also the tool we use when we want to know how and why the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Constitution and its amendments have changed over time. 

Sarah Seo, an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Iowa, Fourth Amendment expert, and the author of Policing the Open Road: How Cars Transformed American Freedom, joins us to investigate how and why the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Fourth Amendment has changed over time and how that change has impacted the way the Fourth Amendment protects us from unreasonable search and seizures.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/262 Sponsor Links

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261 Creating the Fourth Amendment (Doing History 4)

Tue, 22 Oct 2019 05:00:00 -0400

The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution doesn’t always make headlines, but it’s an amendment that undergirds foundational rights. It’s also an amendment that can show us a lot about the intertwined nature between history and American law.  

In this 3rd episode of our 4th Doing History series, we explore the early American origins of the Fourth Amendment with Thomas Clancy, a Professor Emeritus at the University of Mississippi School of Law and an expert on the Fourth Amendment.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/261

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260 Origins of the Bill of Rights (Doing History 4)

Tue, 15 Oct 2019 05:00:00 -0400

How and why did Congress draft the First Ten Amendments to the Constitution?

In the United States, we use the Constitution and Bill of Rights to understand and define ourselves culturally. Americans are a people with laws and rights that are protected by the Constitution because they are defined in the Constitution. And the place where the Constitution defines and outlines our rights is within its First Ten Amendments, the Bill of Rights.

In this second episode of our 4th Doing History series, we’re investigating how and why Congress drafted the First Ten Amendments to the Constitution. Our guide for this investigation is Kenneth Bowling, a member of the First Federal Congress Project and a co-editor of A Documentary History of the First Federal Congress. 

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/260

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259 The Bill of Rights & How Legal Historians Work (Doing History 4)

Tue, 08 Oct 2019 05:00:00 -0400

Law is all around us. And the basis of American Law comes not only from our early American past, but from our founding documents.

This episode begins our 4th Doing History series. Over the next four episodes, we’ll explore the early American origins of the Bill of Rights as well as the history of the Fourth Amendment. The Fourth Amendment will serve as our case study so we can see where our rights come from and how they developed from the early American past.

In this episode we go inside the United States National Archives to investigate the Constitution and Bill of Rights. During our visit we’ll speak with Jessie Kratz, First Historian of the National Archives, and Mary Sarah Bilder, the Founders Professor of Law at Boston College, to better understand our founding documents and the laws they established.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/259

About the Series

Law is all around us. The Doing History: Why the 4th? series uses the Bill of Rights and the Fourth Amendment as case studies to examine where our rights come from and how they developed out of early American knowledge and experiences. It also uses the history of the Bill of Rights and the Fourth Amendment to explore the history of law as a field of study and how this field of study differs from other historical subjects and how historians and lawyers use and view the history of the law differently.

The Doing History series explores early American history and how historians work. It is part of Ben Franklin’s World, which is a production of the Omohundro Institute.

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Gautham Rao blog post: "Friends in All the Right Places: The Newest Legal History"
Jonathan Gienapp, “Constitutional Originalism and History”
Doing History 4 Legal Lexicon; or A Useful List of Terms You Might Not Know"
"Doing History 4: Bibliography"

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258 John Dickinson: Life, Religion, and Politics

Tue, 01 Oct 2019 05:00:00 -0400

The Second Continental Congress voted for independence on July 2, 1776 with 12 colonies and one abstention. The delegation from New York abstained from the vote. And Pennsylvania voted in favor of independence because two of its delegates were persuaded not to attend the vote given their opposition.

John Dickinson was one of the two delegates who absented himself from the vote. Later, he would refuse to sign the Declaration of Independence. But why?  

Jane Calvert, an Associate Professor of History at the University of Kentucky and the Director/Editor of The John Dickinson Writings Project, joins us to explore the life, religion, and political views of John Dickinson.  

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/258

Listener Meet Up

Atlanta, Georgia October 12, 4pm

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257 Elizabeth Seton: An Early American Life

Tue, 24 Sep 2019 05:00:00 -0400

What was it like to live as a woman of faith in early republic America? What was it like to live as a Catholic in the early United States?

Catherine O’Donnell, an Associate Professor of History at Arizona State University and author of Elizabeth Seton: American Saint, helps us investigate answers to these questions by taking us through the life of the United States’ first saint: Elizabeth Ann Seton. 

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/257

Atlanta Meet Up

October 12, 4pm at Atkins Park Restaurant. RSVP Here

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256 Mapping Empire in the Chesapeake

Tue, 17 Sep 2019 05:00:00 -0400

How do empires come to be? How are empires made and who makes them? What role do maps play in making empires?

Christian Koot is a Professor of History at Towson University and the author of A Biography of a Map in Motion: Augustine Herrman’s Chesapeake. Christian has researched and written two books about the seventeenth-century Anglo-Dutch World to better understand empires and how they are made. Today, he joins us to take us through his research and to share what one specific map, Augustine Herrman’s 1673 map Virginia and Maryland, reveals about empire and empire making.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/256

Augustine Herrman’s Map, Virginia and Maryland as it is planted and inhabited Sponsor Links

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255 Birthright Citizenship

Tue, 10 Sep 2019 05:00:00 -0400

Who gets to be a citizen of the United States? How does the United States define who belongs to the nation?

Early Americans asked and grappled with these questions during the earliest days of the early republic.

Martha S. Jones is a Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University and a former public interest litigator. Using details from her book, Birthright Citizens: A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America, Martha joins us to investigate how early Americans thought about citizenship and how they defined who could and couldn’t belong to the United States.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/255 Sponsor Links

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254 The Money Question in Early America

Tue, 03 Sep 2019 05:00:00 -0400

We read and hear a lot about money. We read and hear about fluctuations in the value of the Dollar, Pound, and Euro, interest rates and who can and can’t get access to credit, and we also read and hear about new virtual currencies like Bitcoin and Facebook’s Libra.

We talk a lot about money. But where did the idea of money come from?

Did early Americans think about money a lot too?

Jeffrey Sklansky is a Professor of History at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the author of Sovereign of the Market: The Money Question in Early America. Jeff is an expert in the intellectual and social history of capitalism in early America and he’s agreed to lead us on an investigation of the world of money in early America.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/254 Sponsor Links

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253 Life and Revolution in Boston and Grenada

Tue, 27 Aug 2019 05:00:00 -0400

What can a family history tell us about revolutionary and early republic America?

What can the letters of a wife and mother tell us about life in the Caribbean during the Age of Revolutions?

These are questions Susan Clair Imbarrato, a Professor of English at Minnesota State University Moorhead, set out to answer as she explored an amazing trove of letters to and from a woman named Sarah Gray Cary.  

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/253 Sponsor Links

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252 The Highland Soldier in North America

Tue, 20 Aug 2019 05:00:00 -0400

Much of early American history comprises stories of empire and how different Native, European, and Euro-American nations vied for control of North American territory, resources, and people.   In this episode, Matthew P. Dziennick, an Assistant Professor of History at the United States Naval Academy and author The Fatal Land: War, Empire, and the Highland Soldier, presents us with one of these imperial stories. Specifically, we’re going to investigate the world of the eighteenth-century Scottish Highlands and how the 12,000 soldiers the Highlands sent to North America shaped the course of the British Empire during Seven Years’ War and the American Revolution.

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251 Frontiers of Science

Tue, 13 Aug 2019 05:00:00 -0400

What did early Americans think about science? And how did they pursue and develop their knowledge of it?

Cameron Strang, an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Nevada, Reno and author of Frontiers of Science: Imperialism and Natural Knowledge in the Gulf South Borderlands, 1500-1850, joins us to investigate the early American world of science and how early Americans developed their scientific knowledge.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/048 Sponsor Links

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250 Virginia, 1619

Tue, 06 Aug 2019 05:00:00 -0400

2019 marks the 400th anniversary of two important events in American History: The creation of the first representative assembly in English North America and the arrival of the first African people in English North America.

Why were these Virginia-based events significant and how have they impacted American history?

Cassandra Newby-Alexander, a scholar of African American and American History and the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Norfolk State University, helps us find answers.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/250 Sponsor Links

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249 BFW Road Trip: James Monroe's Highland

Tue, 30 Jul 2019 05:00:00 -0400

Between 1789 and 1825, five men would serve as President of the United States. Four of them hailed from Virginia.

Many of us know details about the lives and presidencies of Washington, Jefferson, and Madison. But what do we know about the life and presidency of the fourth Virginia president, James Monroe?

Sara Bon-Harper, Executive Director of James Monroe’s Highland, joins us to explore the public and private life of James Monroe.

This episode originally posted as Episode103.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/249

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248 BFW Road Trip: National Museum of African American History and Culture

Tue, 23 Jul 2019 05:00:00 -0400

Not all historians publish their findings about history in books and articles. Some historians convey knowledge about history to the public in public spaces and in public ways.

We conclude the “Doing History: How Historians Work” series with a look at how historians do history for the public with guest historian Lonnie Bunch, the Founding Director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.

This episode originally posted as a Bonus Episode in 2016.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/248

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247 BFW Road Trip: Schoharie Crossing

Tue, 16 Jul 2019 05:00:00 -0400

A “little short of madness.” That is how Thomas Jefferson responded when two delegates from New York approached him with the idea to build the Erie Canal in January 1809.

Jefferson’s comment did not discourage New Yorkers. On January 4, 1817, New York State began building a 363-mile long canal to link the Hudson River and Atlantic Ocean with the Great Lakes and the Midwest.

Janice Fontanella, site manager of Schoharie Crossing State Historic Site in Fort Hunter, New York, joins us to discuss the Erie Canal, its construction, and the impact that this waterway made on New York and the United States.

This episode originally posted as Episode 028.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/247

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246 BFW Road Trip: Château de Ramezay

Tue, 09 Jul 2019 05:00:00 -0400

Did Canada almost join the American Revolution?

Bruno Paul Stenson, a historian and musicologist with the Château de Ramezay historic site in Montréal, joins us to discuss how the American Revolution played out in Canada.

This episode originally posted as Episode 041.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/246

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245 Celebrating the Fourth

Tue, 02 Jul 2019 05:00:00 -0400

It wasn’t always fireworks on the fourth.

John Adams predicted Americans would celebrate the Second of July, the day Congress voted in favor of independence, "with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other." He got the date wrong, but he was right about the festivities in commemoration of Independence Day. And yet July Fourth events have changed a great deal since 1776.

How do our fireworks displays, barbecues, parades, and sporting events compare to the first and earliest celebrations of independence? How and why do we celebrate the United States and its independence as we do?

Three historical experts take us through the early American origins of Fourth of July celebration.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/245 Sponsor Links

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244 Shoe Stories From Early America

Tue, 25 Jun 2019 05:00:00 -0400

There’s a saying that tells us we should walk a mile in someone else’s shoes. It’s a reminder we should practice empathy and try to understand people before we cast judgement.

As it happens, this expression is right on the mark because it seems when we use shoes as historical objects, we can learn a LOT about people and their everyday lives and actions.

Kimberly Alexander, museum specialist, lecturer at the University of New Hampshire, and author of Treasures Afoot: Shoe Stories from the Georgian Era, joins us to help us better understand shoes and what they can tell us about the everyday lives of early Americans.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/244

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243 Revolutionary Print Networks

Tue, 18 Jun 2019 05:00:00 -0400

For the American Revolution to be successful, it needed ideas people could embrace and methods for spreading those ideas. It also needed ways for revolutionaries to coordinate across colonial lines.

How did revolutionaries develop and spread their ideas? How did they communicate and coordinate plans of action?

Joseph Adelman, an Assistant Professor of History at Framingham State University and author of Revolutionary Networks: The Business and Politics of Printing the News, 1763-1789, joins us to investigate the roles printers and their networks played in developing and spreading ideas of the American Revolution.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/243

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242 An Early History of Delaware

Tue, 11 Jun 2019 05:00:00 -0400

Delaware may be the second smallest state in the United States, but it has a BIG, rich history that can tell us much about the history of early America.

David Young, the Executive Director of the Delaware Historical Society, joins us to explore the early American history of Delaware from its Native American inhabitants through its emergence as the first state in the United States.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/242 Sponsor Links

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241 Pearls and the Nature of the Spanish Empire

Tue, 04 Jun 2019 05:00:00 -0400

Spain became the first European power to use the peoples, resources, and lands of the Americas and Caribbean as the basis for its Atlantic Empire.

How did this empire function and what wealth was Spain able to extract from these peoples and lands?

Molly Warsh, an Associate Professor of History at the University of Pittsburgh and author of American Baroque: Pearls and the Nature of Empire, 1492-1700, helps us investigate answers to these questions by showing us how Spain attempted to increase its wealth and govern its empire through its American and Caribbean pearl operations.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/241

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240 Biography and a Biographer's Work

Tue, 28 May 2019 05:00:00 -0400

Have you ever had one of those really conversations where the person was so fascinating that you wished the conversation didn’t have to end?

Flora Fraser joins us for one of those conversations. We’ll talk about biography, and in doing so, she’ll tell us what it was like to grow up as the daughter and granddaughter of two famed, British biographers and about the genre of biography and how it developed in the United Kingdom.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/240 Sponsor Links

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239 Travel and Post in Early America

Tue, 21 May 2019 05:00:00 -0400

How did the postal system work in Early America? How did people send mail across the North American colonies and the British Empire?

Joseph Adelman, an Assistant Professor of History at Framingham State University and author of Revolutionary Networks: The Business and Politics of Printing, 1763-1789, joins us to further explore how the early American postal system worked and how people and mail traveled around early North America and the Atlantic World.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/239

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238 Benedict Arnold

Tue, 14 May 2019 05:00:00 -0400

Benedict Arnold is an intriguing figure. He was both a military hero who greatly impacted and furthered the American War for Independence with his bravery on the battlefield and someone who did something unthinkable: he betrayed his country.

Stephen Brumwell, an award-winning historian and the author of Turncoat: Benedict Arnold and the Crisis of American Liberty, joins us to explore the life and deeds of Benedict Arnold and Arnold’s stunning metamorphosis from hero to traitor.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/238 Sponsor Links

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237 Motherhood in Early America

Tue, 07 May 2019 05:00:00 -0400

Mother’s Day became a national holiday on May 9, 1914 to honor all of the work mothers do to raise children.

But what precisely is the work that mothers do to raise children? Has the nature of mothers, motherhood, and the work mothers do changed over time?

Nora Doyle, an Assistant Professor of History at Salem College in North Carolina, has combed through the historical record to find answers to these questions. Specifically, she’s sought to better understand the lived and imagined experiences of mothers and motherhood between the 1750s and 1850s.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/237

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236 Mixed-Race Britons and the Atlantic Family

Tue, 30 Apr 2019 05:00:00 -0400

Who do we count as family?

If a relative was born in a foreign place and one of their parents was of a different race? Would they count as family?

Eighteenth-century Britons asked themselves these questions. As we might suspect, their answers varied by time and whether they lived in Great Britain, North America, or the Caribbean.

Daniel Livesay, an Associate Professor of History at Claremont McKenna College in California, helps us explore the evolution of British ideas about race with details from his book Children of Uncertain Fortune: Mixed-Race Jamaicans in Britain and the Atlantic Family, 1733-1833.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/236 Sponsor Links

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235 A 17th-Century Native American Life

Tue, 23 Apr 2019 05:00:00 -0400

What does early America look like if we view it through Native American eyes?

Jenny Hale Pulsipher, an Associate Professor of History at Brigham Young University and author of Swindler Sachem, is a scholar who enjoys investigating the many answers to this question. And today, she introduces us to a Nipmuc Indian named John Wompas and how he experienced a critical time in early American history, the period between the 1650s and 1680s.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/235

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234 Farms & Farm Families in Early America

Tue, 16 Apr 2019 05:00:00 -0400

If we want to understand everyday life in early America we need to understand the everyday life of early American farms and farmers.

Roughly three-quarters of Americans in British North America and the early United States considered themselves to be farmers. So how did early Americans establish farms and what were the rhythms of their daily lives?

Richard Bushman, the Gouverneur Morris Professor Emeritus of History at Columbia University, joins us to investigate farms and farm life in early America with details from his book, The American Farmer in the Eighteenth Century: A Social and Cultural History.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/234

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233 A History of Russian America

Tue, 09 Apr 2019 05:00:00 -0400

When we think about colonial American history we think about the colonies of the English, the Dutch, the French, and the Spanish. Rarely do we think about the colonies of the Russians. And yet Russia had colonies in North America.

Gwenn Miller, an Associate Professor of History at the College of the Holy Cross, joins us to investigate a history of Russia’s colonies in North America with details from her book Kodiak Kreol: Communities of Empire in Early Russian America.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/233

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232 The Acadian Diaspora

Tue, 02 Apr 2019 05:00:00 -0400

Before the English settled in Jamestown, Virginia in 1607 or the Dutch settled near Albany, New York in 1615, a group of French-speaking, Catholic settlers established a settlement in Nova Scotia in 1605.

By 1755, nearly 15,000 Acadians lived in Acadia.

Christopher Hodson, an Associate Professor of history at Brigham Young University and the author of The Acadian Diaspora, joins us to investigate the lives of these early North American colonists and how the British government came to displace them through a forced migration in 1755. 

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/232 Sponsor Links

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231 The Religious Lives of the Adams Family

Tue, 26 Mar 2019 05:00:00 -0400

Historians use archives to create the histories we love to read, watch, and listen to. So we’re going into one archive to investigate how historians use them and to discover more about the religious lives of the Adams Family.

Sara Georgini, Series Editor of The Papers of John Adams, invites us to join her inside the Massachusetts Historical Society so we can take a closer look at the historical details provided by the Adams Papers and the role these manuscripts played in helping her write her book, Household Gods: The Religious Lives of the Adams Family.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/231

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230 First Martyr of Liberty

Tue, 19 Mar 2019 05:00:00 -0400

Samuel Gray, James Caldwell, Samuel Maverick, Patrick Carr, and Crispus Attucks. These are the five men who died as a result of the shootings on Boston’s King Street on the night of March 5, 1770.

Of these five victims, evidence points to Crispus Attucks falling first, and of all the victims, Crispus Attucks is the name we can recall.

Why is that?

To help us answer this question and to conclude our 3-episode series on the Boston Massacre, we’re joined by Mitch Kachun, a Professor of History at Western Michigan University and the author of First Martyr of Liberty: Crispus Attucks in American Memory.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/230

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229 The Townshend Moment

Tue, 12 Mar 2019 05:00:00 -0400

Within days of the Boston Massacre, Bostonians politicized the event. They circulated a pamphlet about “the Horrid Massacre” and published images portraying soldiers firing into a well-assembled and peaceful crowd.  

But why did the Boston Massacre happen? Why did the British government feel it had little choice but to station as many 2,000 soldiers in Boston during peacetime? And what was going on within the larger British Empire that drove colonists to the point where they provoked armed soldiers to fire upon them?

Patrick Griffin, the Madden-Hennebry Family Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame and author of The Townshend Moment: The Making of Empire and Revolution in the Eighteenth Century, joins us to answer these questions as we continue our 3-episode investigation of the Boston Massacre.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/229

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228 The Boston Massacre

Tue, 05 Mar 2019 06:00:00 -0400

On the evening of March 5, 1770, a crowd gathered in Boston’s King Street and confronted a a sentry and his fellow soldiers in front of the custom house. The confrontation led the soldiers to fire their muskets into the crowd, five civilians died.

What happened on the night of March 5, 1770 that led the crowd to gather and the soldiers to discharge their weapons?

Eric Hinderaker, a distinguished professor of history at the University of Utah and the author of Boston’s Massacre, assists our quest to discover more about the Boston Massacre.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/228

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227 Copyright & Fair Use in Early America

Tue, 26 Feb 2019 06:00:00 -0400

In the 21st century, we are all creators and users of content. We take original photos with our smartphones, generate blog posts, digital videos, and podcasts. Some of us write books and articles. And nearly everyone contributes content to social media.

Given all of the information and content we generate and use, it’s really important for us to understand the principles of copyright and fair use, principles that have an early American past.

Kyle Courtney, a lawyer, librarian, and Copyright Advisor for Harvard University, will serve as our guide through the early American origins of copyright and fair use.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/227

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226 Making the State of South Carolina

Tue, 19 Feb 2019 06:00:00 -0400

What do we mean by “the state?”

How is a “state” produced?

Is “the state” something everyone can participate in producing?

Ryan Quintana, an Associate Professor of History at Wellesley College and the author of Making a Slave State: Political Development in Early South Carolina, joins us to answer these questions with a look at the creation and development of the State of South Carolina.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/226

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225 The Poison Plot: Adultery and Murder in Colonial Newport

Tue, 12 Feb 2019 06:00:00 -0400

How did this story of love, divorce, and attempted murder unfold? What does it reveal about the larger world of colonial America and the experiences of colonial American men and women?

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/225

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224 Aquatic Culture in Early America

Tue, 05 Feb 2019 06:00:00 -0400

The Atlantic World has brought many disparate peoples together, which has caused a lot of ideas and cultures to mix.

How did the Atlantic World bring so many different peoples and cultures together? How did this large intermixing of people and cultures impact the development of colonial America?

Kevin Dawson, an Associate Professor of History at the University of California-Merced and author of Undercurrents of Power: Aquatic Culture in the African Diaspora, joins us to explore answers to these questions with an investigation of the African Diaspora and African and African American aquatic culture.

Send Liz your questions about early American history for Episode 200!

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223 A Native American History of the Ohio River Valley & Great Lakes Region

Tue, 29 Jan 2019 06:00:00 -0400

During the 17th and 18th centuries, the Ohio River Valley proved to be a rich agrarian region. Many different Native American peoples prospered from its land both in terms of the the land’s ability to produce a wide variety of crops and its support of a wide variety of small fur-bearing animals for the fur trade.

Susan Sleeper-Smith, a Professor of History at Michigan State University and author of Indigenous Prosperity and American Conquest: Indian Women and the Ohio River Valley, 1690-1792, helps us explore this unique region and the important roles it played in the early American past.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/223

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222 The Early History of Washington, D.C.

Tue, 22 Jan 2019 06:00:00 -0400

Have you ever wondered how the capital of the United States came to be situated at Washington D.C.?

The banks of the Potomac River represent an odd place to build a national city, a place that would not only serve as the seat of government for the nation, but also as an economic, cultural, and intellectual hub. Still in 1790, the United States Congress passed the Residence Act and mandated that it would establish a new, permanent capital along the banks of the Potomac River. Why?

Adam Costanzo, a Professional Assistant Professor of History at Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi and author of George Washington’s Washington: Visions for the National Capital in the Early American Republic, joins us to consider questions of the national capital’s location and construction.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/222

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221 The Culinary Adventures of Benjamin Franklin

Tue, 15 Jan 2019 06:00:00 -0400

Can food help us better understand the people and events of the past? Can we better understand a person like Benjamin Franklin and who he was by the foods he ate?

Rae Katherine Eighmey, an award-winning food historian, author, and cook, joins us to explore the culinary tastes and habits of Benjamin Franklin and colonial British Americans with details from her book Stirring the Pot with Benjamin Franklin: A Founding Father’s Culinary Adventures.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/221

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220 New England Indians, Colonists, & the Origins of American Slavery

Tue, 08 Jan 2019 06:00:00 -0400

Did you know that one of the earliest practices of slavery by English colonists originated in New England?

In fact, Massachusetts issued the very first slave code in English America in 1641. Why did New Englanders turn to slavery and become the first in English America to codify its practice?

Margaret Ellen Newell, a professor of history at The Ohio State University and the author of Brethren By Nature: New England Indians, Colonists, and the Origins of American Slavery, joins us to investigate these questions and issues.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/220

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219 Taverns in Early America

Tue, 01 Jan 2019 06:00:00 -0400

Inns and taverns played prominent roles in early American life. They served the needs of travelers who needed food to eat and places to sleep.They offered local communities a form of poor relief. And they functioned as public spaces where men could gather to discuss news, organize movements, and to drink and play cards.

Adrian Covert, author of Taverns of the American Revolution, helps us explore taverns and the many roles they played in early American life.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/219

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218 How the Dutch Brough Us Santa, Presents, & Treats

Tue, 25 Dec 2018 06:00:00 -0400

Have you ever wondered where the Christmas traditions of stockings, presents, and cookies come from?

What about jolly, old Saint Nicholas? Who was he and why do we often call him Santa Claus?

Peter G. Rose, culinary historian of Dutch foodways in North America and author of Delicious December: How the Dutch Brought Us Santa, Presents, and Treats joins us to discuss the origins of Santa Claus and edible goodies such as cookies in the United States.

This episode originally posted as Episode 009.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/218

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217 Slavery and Freedom in Early Maryland

Tue, 18 Dec 2018 06:00:00 -0400

How do you uncover the life of an enslaved person who left no paper trail?

What can the everyday life of an enslaved person tell us about slavery, how it was practiced, and how some enslaved people made the transition from slavery to freedom?

This episode originally posted as Episode 089.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/217

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216 A History of Stepfamilies in Early America

Tue, 11 Dec 2018 06:00:00 -0400

What do George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Abraham Lincoln have in common?

They all grew-up in blended or stepfamilies.

Lisa Wilson, the Charles J. MacCurdy Professor of American History at Connecticut College and author of A History of Stepfamilies in Early America, takes us through the creation and interactions of blended and stepfamilies in early America.

This episode originally posted as Episode 027.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/216

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215 A Same-Sex Marriage in Early America

Tue, 04 Dec 2018 06:00:00 -0400

We tend to view gay marriage as a cultural and legal development of the 21st century.

But did you know that some early Americans lived openly as same-sex married couples?

Rachel Hope Cleves, a Professor of History at the University of Victoria in British Columbia and author of Charity and Sylvia: A Same-Sex Marriage in Early America, reveals the story of Charity Bryant and Sylvia Drake, women who lived as a married couple in Weybridge, Vermont between 1807 and 1851.

This episode originally posted as Episode 013.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/215

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214 Skpeticism and American Faith

Tue, 27 Nov 2018 06:00:00 -0400

Was the early United States a “Christian nation?” Did most of its citizenry accept God and the Bible as the moral authority that bound them together as one nation?

Scholars have taken a binary stance on these questions. Some argue that early America was a thoroughly religious place and that even those who didn’t attend church were on the same basic page as those who did. While others argue early America boasted an increasingly secularized society.

Christopher Grasso, a professor of history at William & Mary and the author of Skepticism and American Faith: From the Revolution to the Civil War, challenges and complicates these two ideas by offering a third explanation: the religious landscape of early America was a continuum where many people experienced both faith and doubt over the course of their lives.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/214

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213 The Pilgrims of Plimoth

Tue, 20 Nov 2018 06:00:00 -0400

In 1621, the Pilgrims of Plimoth Colony and their Wampanoag neighbors came together to celebrate their first harvest. Today we remember this event as the first Thanksgiving.

But what do we really know about this holiday and the people who celebrated it?

So much of what we know about the Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving comes to us through myth and legend, which is why Rebecca Fraser, author of The Mayflower: The Families, The Voyage, and the Founding of America, joins us to help suss out fact from fiction.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/213

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212 Researching Biography (Doing History)

Tue, 13 Nov 2018 06:00:00 -0400

How do historians and biographers reconstruct the lives of people from the past?

Good biographies rely on telling the lives of people using practiced historical methods of thorough archival research and the sound interrogation of historical sources. But what does this practice of historical methods look like?

In this final episode of the Omohundro Institute’s Doing History series about biography, Erica Dunbar, the Charles and Mary Beard Professor of History at Rutgers University and author of Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave Ona Judge, takes us into the archives to show us how she recovered the life of Ona Judge.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/212

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Bonus: The Washingtons' Runaway Slave, Ona Judge

Fri, 09 Nov 2018 06:00:00 -0400

As part of the Omohundro Institute's Doing History series on biography, Episode 212 offers us a new conversation with Erica Dunbar, the author of Never Caught: The Washington’s Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave Ona Judge.

The new episode will explore how historians and biographers reconstruct the lives of people from the past using the story of Ona Judge. In preparation for this new episode, here is our original conversation with Erica Dunbar about Ona Judge.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/137

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211 Considering John Marshall, Part 2 (Doing History)

Tue, 06 Nov 2018 06:00:00 -0400

Can a biography help us explore big historical questions?

Can knowing about the life of John Marshall, the fourth Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, help us better understand the Supreme Court and how it came to occupy the powerful place it has in the United State government?

The Doing History: Biography series continues and explores these questions with Richard Brookhiser, author of John Marshall: The Man Who Made The Supreme Court.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/211

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210 Considering John Marshall, Part 1 (Doing History)

Tue, 30 Oct 2018 05:00:00 -0400

For 34 years, John Marshall presided as the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. During his service, Marshal transformed the nation’s top court and its judicial branch into the powerful body and co-equal branch of government we know it as today.

The Doing History: Biography series continues as Joel Richard Paul, a professor of law at the University of California, Hastings Law School and author of Without Precedent: Chief Justice John Marshall and His Times, joins us to explore the life of John Marshall and how he wrote his biography.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/210

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209 Considering Biography (Doing History)

Tue, 23 Oct 2018 05:00:00 -0400

Biography. Since the earliest days of the United States, and even before the thirteen colonies came together to forge a nation, Americans have been interested in biography. But why?

What is it about the lives of others that makes the past so interesting and fun to explore?

This episode marks the start of the Omohundro Institute’s 4-episode Doing History series about biography. This series will take us behind-the-scenes of biography and how historians and biographers reconstruct the lives of people from the past.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/209

About the Series

The Doing History: Biography series explores the genre of biography, how it relates to and is different from the genre of history, and how historians and biographers can best uncover and understand the lives of people from the past.

The Doing History series explores early American history and how historians work. It is part of Ben Franklin’s World, which is produced by the Omohundro Institute.

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208 Turning Points of the American Revolution

Tue, 16 Oct 2018 05:00:00 -0400

2018 marks the 241st anniversary of the American victory at the Battle of Saratoga and the 240th anniversary of the Franco-American Alliance. But was the victory that prompted the French to join the American war effort, truly the "turning point" of the War for Independence?

National Book Award-winner Nathaniel Philbrick joins us to explore the two events he sees as better turning points in the American War for Independence: Benedict Arnold’s treason and the French Navy’s participation in the war.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/208

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207 Young Benjamin Franklin

Tue, 09 Oct 2018 05:00:00 -0400

What in the first 40 years of his life made Benjamin Franklin the genius he became?

But one aspect of Franklin’s life has gone largely unstudied: his childhood and early life.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/207

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206 Christian Slavery: Conversion and Race in the Protestant Atlantic World

Tue, 02 Oct 2018 05:00:00 -0400

Between 1500 and the 1860s, Europeans and Americans forcibly removed approximately 12 million African people from the African continent, transported them to the Americas, and enslaved them.

Why did Europeans and Americans enslave Africans? How did they justify their actions?

Katherine Gerbner, an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Minnesota and author of Christian Slavery: Conversion and Race in the Protestant Atlantic World, leads us on an exploration of ways Christianity influenced early ideas about slavery and its practice.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/206

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205 First Ladies of the Republic

Tue, 25 Sep 2018 05:00:00 -0400

La Presidente? The Presidentess? The First Lady of the Land?

The Second Article of the United States Constitution defines the Executive Branch of the government, the powers it has, and the role of the chief executive, the President of the United States. But what about the position of the President’s spouse?

Jeanne Abrams, a Professor at the University Libraries and the Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Denver, joins us to explore the lives and work of the first First Ladies of the American Republic with details from her book, First Ladies of the Republic: Martha Washington, Abigail Adams, and Dolley Madison and the Creation of an Iconic American Role.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/205

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204 The Burr Conspiracy

Tue, 18 Sep 2018 05:00:00 -0400

Aaron Burr: Revolutionary War hero, talented lawyer, Vice President, and Intriguer of treason?

Between 1805 and 1807, Aaron Burr supposedly intended to commit treason by dividing the American union. How did Americans learn about and respond to this treasonous intrigue?

James Lewis Jr., a Professor of History at Kalamazoo College and author of The Burr Conspiracy: Uncovering the Story of an Early American Crisis, guides us through what we know and don’t know about about Aaron Burr’s supposed plot to divide the American union.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/204

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203 Alexander Hamilton

Tue, 11 Sep 2018 05:00:00 -0400

Hamilton the Musical hit Broadway in August 2015 and since that time people all around the world have been learning about a man named Alexander Hamilton. Or, at least they’ve been learning about the musical’s character Alexander Hamilton.

But who was Alexander Hamilton as a real person?

Joanne Freeman, a Professor of History and American Studies at Yale University, and one of the foremost experts on the life of Alexander Hamilton, joins us to explore this large question so we can discover more about the man who helped to create the United States.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/203

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202 The Early History of the United States Congress

Tue, 04 Sep 2018 05:00:00 -0400

On September 17, 1787, a majority of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention approved the new form of government they had spent months drafting and submitted it to the 13 states for their ratification and approval.

On June 21, 1788, New Hampshire became the 9th state to ratify the Constitution, which prompted the transition to the government of the United States Constitution.

Matt Wasniewski, the Historian of the United States House of Representatives and Terrance Rucker, a Historical Publications Specialist in the Office of the Historian at the United States House of Representatives, lead us on an exploration of why and how the United States Constitution established a bicameral Congress and how and why the House of Representatives took the shape and form that it did during its early meetings.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/202

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201 Art, Politics, and Everyday Life in Early America

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 05:00:00 -0400

What kind of character should Americans have? Is it possible to create a shared sense of national character and identity that all Americans can subscribe to?

Americans grappled with many questions about what it meant to be an American and a citizen of the new republic after the American Revolution. They grappled with these questions because the people who made up the new United States hailed from many different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. So they wondered: How do you unite the disparate peoples of the United States into one national people?

Catherine Kelly, author of Republic of Taste: Art, Politics, and Everyday Life in Early America, joins us to explore the world of art, politics, and taste in the early American republic and how that world contributed to the formation of American character and virtue.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/201

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200 Everyday Life in Early America

Tue, 21 Aug 2018 05:00:00 -0400

What would you like to know about Early American History?

It turns out, you wanted to know about the establishment of schools, how the colonial postal service worked, and about aspects of health and hygiene in early America.

In this listener-inspired Q&A episode, we speak with Johann Neem, Joseph Adelman, and Ann Little to explore these aspects of early American history and to get answers to your questions about them.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/200

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199 Indigenous London: Native Travelers at the Heart of the Empire

Tue, 14 Aug 2018 05:00:00 -0400

When we explore the history of early America, we often look at people who lived in North America. But what about the people who lived and worked in European metropoles?

What about Native Americans?

We explore early American history through a slightly different lens, a lens that allows us to see interactions that occurred between Native American peoples and English men and women who lived in London.

Our guide for this exploration is Coll Thrush, an Associate Professor of History at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver and author of Indigenous London: Native Travelers at the Heart of the Empire.

This episode originally posted as Episode 132.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/199

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198 Saltwater Frontier: Native Americans and the Contest for the Northeastern Coast

Tue, 07 Aug 2018 05:00:00 -0400

When we think of Native Americans, many of us think of inland dwellers. People adept at navigating forests and rivers and the skilled hunters and horsemen who lived and hunted on the American Plains.

But did you know that Native Americans were seafaring mariners too?

Andrew Lipman, an Assistant Professor of History at Barnard College, Columbia University and author of The Saltwater Frontier: Indians and the Contest for the American Coast, leads us on an exploration of the northeastern coastline and of the Native American and European peoples who lived there during the seventeenth century.

This episode originally posted as Episode 104.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/198

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197 Native American Slavery in New France

Tue, 31 Jul 2018 05:00:00 -0400

When we think about early American slavery, our minds evoke images of plantations where enslaved men and women were forced to labor in agricultural fields and inside the homes of wealthy Americans.

These images depict the practice of chattel slavery; a practice where early Americans treated slaves as property that they could buy, sell, trade, and use as they would real estate and draught animals.

But, did you know that some early Americans practiced a different type of slavery?

We investigate the practice of Native American or indigenous slavery, a little-known aspect of early American history, with Brett Rushforth, author of Bonds of Alliance: Indigenous and Atlantic Slaveries in New France.

This episode originally published as Episode 064.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/197

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196 Information Exchange in the Early Southeast

Tue, 24 Jul 2018 05:00:00 -0400

We live in an age of information. The internet provides us with 24/7 access to all types of information—news, how-to articles, sports scores, entertainment news, and congressional votes.

But what do we do with all of this knowledge? How do we sift through and interpret it all?

We are not the first people to ponder these questions.

Today, Alejandra Dubcovsky, an Associate Professor at University of California Riverside and author of Informed Power: Communication in the Early South, takes us through the early American south and how the Native Americans, Europeans, and enslaved Africans who lived there acquired, used, and traded information.

This episode originally published as Episode 082.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/196

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195 Old Newgate Prison and Copper Mine

Tue, 17 Jul 2018 05:00:00 -0400

In 1705 a group of colonists in Simsbury, Connecticut founded a copper mine, which the Connecticut General Assembly purchased and turned into a prison in 1773.

How did an old copper mine function as a prison?

Morgan Bengel, a Museum Assistant at the Old New-Gate Prison and Copper Mine, a Connecticut State Historic Site, helps us investigate both the history of early American mining and the history of early American prisons by taking us on a tour of the Old New-Gate Prison and Copper Mine in East Granby, Connecticut.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/195

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194 Longfellow House-Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site

Tue, 10 Jul 2018 05:00:00 -0400

As part of its mission, the National Park Service seeks to protect and preserve places saved by the American people so that all may experience the heritage of the United States. These places include those with historical significance.

Supervisory Park Ranger Garrett Cloer joins us to explore the Longfellow House-Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site so we can discover more about the Siege of Boston (1775-76) and the birth of the Continental Army and the life and work of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/194

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Bonus: Behind the Scenes of the Adams-Jefferson Letters

Fri, 06 Jul 2018 05:00:00 -0400

In 1959, the Omohundro Institute and University of North Carolina Press published Lester J. Cappon’s The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence between Thomas Jefferson and John and Abigail Adams. It was the first time that all 380 letters between Jefferson and the Adamses appeared in a single volume.

Why did Lester Cappon and the Omohundro Institute undertake this great project? And how did they put together this important documentary edition?

Karin Wulf, Director of the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, takes us behind-the-scenes of The Adams-Jefferson Letters and its publication.

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193 Partisans: The Friendship and Rivalry of Adams and Jefferson

Tue, 03 Jul 2018 05:00:00 -0400

John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Two drafters and signers of the Declaration of Independence, two diplomats who served the United States abroad in Europe, and two men who went on to serve as vice president and president of the United States. Both men left indelible marks on American society.

Adams and Jefferson are two founders who captivate the attention of and greatly interest Americans today, so in honor of the 242nd anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and the 192nd anniversary of their deaths, we will explore their lives and relationship.

Barbara Oberg and Sara Georgini, two historians and documentary editors, join us from the Papers of Thomas Jefferson and the Papers of John Adams Documentary Editing Projects so we can explore the lives and relationships of John and Abigail Adams and Thomas Jefferson.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/193

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192 The Secret History of the Jersey Devil

Tue, 26 Jun 2018 05:00:00 -0400

The Jersey Devil is a monster legend that originated in New Jersey’s early American past.

How and why did this legend emerge? And, what can it tell us about New Jersey’s past?

Brian Regal, an Associate Professor of History at Kean University and the co-author of The Secret History of the Jersey Devil: How Quakers, Hucksters, and Benjamin Franklin Created A Monster, takes us into New Jersey’s past by taking us through the origins of the New Jersey Devil story.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/192

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191 A New History of King Philip's War

Tue, 19 Jun 2018 05:00:00 -0400

King Philip’s War is an event that appears over and over again in books about colonial America.

So when you have an event that has been as studied as King Philip’s War has been, is there anything new that we can learn about it by re-examining it in our own time?

Lisa Brooks, an Associate Professor of English and American Studies at Amherst College believes the answer to this question is “yes.” And today, she’s going to help us re-examine and re-think what we know about King Philip’s War by introducing us to new people, new ways we can look at known historical sources, and to different ways we can think about what we know about this event with details from her book Our Beloved Kin: A New History of King Philip’s War.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/191

Meet Ups

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Cleveland Meet Up: Saturday July 21

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190 Origins of the American Middle Class

Tue, 12 Jun 2018 05:00:00 -0400

As many as 70 percent of Americans consider themselves to be members of the middle class. But if you consider income as a qualifier for membership, only about 50 percent of Americans qualify for membership.

So what does it meant to be middle class and why do so many Americans want to be members of it?

Jennifer Goloboy, an independent scholar based in Minneapolis, Minnesota and the author of Charleston and the Emergence of Middle-Class Culture in the Revolutionary Era, helps us explore the origins of the American middle class so we can better understand what it is and why so many Americans want to be a part of it.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/190

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189 The Little Ice Age

Tue, 05 Jun 2018 05:00:00 -0400

We’re living in a period of climate change. Our Earth has been getting warmer since the mid-19th century.

So how will humans adapt to and endure this period of global warming? Will they adapt to it and endure?

It turns out the people of early America also lived through a period of climate change and their experiences may hold some answers for us.

Sam White, an Associate Professor at The Ohio State University and author of A Cold Welcome: The Little Ice Age and Europe’s Encounter, joins us to explore the Little Ice Age and how it impacted initial European exploration and colonization of North America.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/189

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Episode 200

Tell Liz what would you like to know about early American history?

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188 The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798

Tue, 29 May 2018 05:00:00 -0400

The Alien and Sedition Acts consisted of four laws enacted by the United States government in 1798. The United States passed these laws during a time of great uncertainty, a time when many Americans feared for the very survival for their nation.

But why did Americans fear for the United States’ existence and why did they think four laws that limited citizenship and freedom of speech would protect and secure their young republic?

Terri Halperin, an instructor at the University of Richmond and author of The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798: Testing the Constitution, will help us find answers to these questions by taking us through the Alien and Sedition Acts and how they came to be.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/188

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187 Sport in Early America

Tue, 22 May 2018 05:00:00 -0400

Our present-day American culture is obsessed with sports. To cite just two pieces of evidence of this, on average, more than 67,000 fans attend each National Football League game and more than 30,000 fans attend each Major League Baseball game. This is to say nothing of the millions of fans who watch these sports on television or listen to them on the radio.

When did America become a place filled with sports nuts? When did the business of professional sports become a thing in the United States?

Early American history has answers for us as does Kenneth Cohen, a curator at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History and the author of They Will Their Game: Sporting Culture and the Making of the American Republic.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/187

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186 The New Map of the British Empire

Tue, 15 May 2018 05:00:00 -0400

As a result of Great Britain’s victory in the Seven Years’ War, British North America expanded so that it stretched from the Atlantic seaboard west to the Mississippi River and from Hudson Bay and the Gulf of St. Lawrence south to Florida. Plus, it also included islands in the Caribbean.

How exactly would Great Britain, centered on a small island over 3,000 miles away, govern this new, expanded North American empire?

Max Edelson, an Associate Professor of History at the University of Virginia and author of The New Map of Empire: How Britain Imagined America Before Independence, helps us explore this question by taking us on an investigation of the Board of Trade and its General Survey of North America.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/186

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185 Early New York City and its Culture

Tue, 08 May 2018 05:00:00 -0400

Who should determine our culture and the morals our society follows?

Culture, or the intellectual achievements, attitudes, and behaviors of our particular places and social groups, is all around us. It impacts how we think and act as members of families, local communities, states, and nations.

Culture is important. So how do we establish culture? Who sets the unwritten social rules and ideas that we adopt and live by?

Joyce Goodfriend, a professor of history at the University of Denver and author of Who Should Rule at Home? Confronting the Elite in British New York City, helps us investigate these questions by taking us through the history of early New York City and how its culture evolved between 1664 and 1776.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/185

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184 Thundersticks: Firearms and the Violent Transformation of Native America

Tue, 01 May 2018 05:00:00 -0400

Early North America was a place rife with violent conflict. Between the 17th and 19th centuries we see a lot of conflict between different Native American peoples, Native American peoples and colonists, colonists from one empire versus colonists from another empire, settlers from one state quarreling with settlers from another state, and in the 19th century, we also see strife between Americans, Canadians, and Mexicans.

Today, we’re going to explore some of the causes of the violent conflict that took place in early America by looking specifically at Native America and the ways Native Americans used guns to shape their lives and the course of North American colonial and indigenous history.

Our guide for this exploration is David J. Silverman, a professor of history at George Washington University and the author of Thundersticks: Firearms and the Violent Transformation of Native America.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/184

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183 George Washington's Mount Vernon

Tue, 24 Apr 2018 05:00:00 -0400

George Washington played three very important public roles during his lifetime. He served as the Commander in Chief of the Continental Army, the President of the Constitutional Convention, and as the first President of the United States.

In addition to these important public roles, Washington also played a role that was very important to him. He served as a farmer and agricultural innovator.

Douglas Bradburn, the CEO and President of George Washington’s Mount Vernon, joins us so we can explore the history of Washington’s storied estate and his agricultural practices. Plus, we’ll also discover all that Mount Vernon has to offer us as a historic site.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/183

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182 Darkness Falls on the Land of Light: The Great Awakening in New England

Tue, 17 Apr 2018 05:00:00 -0400

What was it like to live through an extraordinary time?

The 1740s and 1750s proved to be an extraordinary time for many ordinary New Englanders. It was a period when itinerant preachers swept through the region and asked its people to question the fundamental assumptions of their religion: What did it mean to be a Puritan? What did it mean to be a Protestant Christian?

Douglas Winiarski, a Professor of American Studies and Religious Studies at the University of Richmond and the author of the Bancroft prize-winning book, Darkness Falls on the Land of Light: Experiencing Religious Awakenings in Eighteenth-Century New England, helps us explore the religious landscape of New England during the 18th century and how New Englanders answered these powerful questions during the extraordinary period known as the Great Awakening.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/182

Listener Meet up

Las Vegas Meet up: Saturday April 21, 4pm, Wyndham Grand Desert Hotel Lobby

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181 The Martyr and the Traitor: Nathan Hale & Moses Dunbar

Tue, 10 Apr 2018 05:00:00 -0400

Why did early Americans choose to become patriots or loyalists during the American Revolution?

How did they make the decision to either stand with or against their neighbors?

Did political beliefs really drive them to support one side of the imperial conflict over the other?

In this episode, we explore answers to these questions about how and why Americans chose to support the sides they did during the American Revolution, by looking at the lives of two young soldiers from Connecticut: Moses Dunbar and Nathan Hale.

Taking us through the lives, politics, and decisions of these young men is Virginia DeJohn Anderson, a professor of history at the University of Colorado-Boulder and author of The Martyr and the Traitor: Nathan Hale, Moses Dunbar, and the American Revolution.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/181

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Sacramento Meet up: Saturday April 14, 4pm, Firestone Public House
Las Vegas Meet up: Saturday April 21, 4pm, Wyndham Grand Desert Hotel Lobby

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180 Alexander Hamilton and the Making of American Law

Tue, 03 Apr 2018 05:00:00 -0400

The legacy of Alexander Hamilton tells us that he was Thomas Jefferson’s political rival, a man who fought to secure strong powers for the national government, and the first Secretary of the Treasury.

What Hamilton’s legacy doesn’t tell us is that he also fought for states rights and championed civil liberties for all Americans, even those Americans who had supported the British during the American Revolution.

Kate Elizabeth Brown, an Assistant Professor of History and Political Science at Huntington University in Indiana and author of Alexander Hamilton and the Development of American Law, joins us to explore more about the Alexander Hamilton we don’t know, the Hamilton who helped develop American law.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/180

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Sacramento Meet up: Saturday April 14, 4pm, Firestone Public House
Las Vegas Meet up: Saturday April 21, 4pm, Wyndham Grand Desert Hotel Lobby

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Bonus: Listener Q&A About Religion in Early New England

Fri, 30 Mar 2018 05:00:00 -0400

Douglas Winiarski answers your questions about religion in early New England with details from his book, Darkness Falls on the Land of Light: Experiencing Religious Awakenings in Eighteenth-Century New England.

Darkness Falls on the Land of Light is the story of how ordinary New Englanders living through extraordinary times ended up giving birth to today’s evangelical movement. Doug performed a close reading of letters, diaries, and testimonies to write this book and his outstanding scholarship in this book was recognized with a 2018 Bancroft Prize.

Download the FREE OI Reader app for Bonus Content and Sample Chapters from Darkness Falls on the Land of Light

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179 After the Revolution: Governance During the Critical Period

Tue, 27 Mar 2018 05:00:00 -0400

The Confederation period is one of the most neglected aspects of United States History. And yet, it’s a very important period. Between 1781 and 1789, the Confederation Congress established by the Articles of Confederation had to deal with war, economic depression, infighting between the states, trouble in the west, foreign meddling, and domestic insurrection. It’s a critical period where no one knew whether the United States would survive as an independent nation.

George William Van Cleve, a researcher in law and history at the University of Seattle Law School and author of We Have Not A Government: The Articles of Confederation and the Road to the Constitution, takes us into the Confederation period so we can discover more about the Articles of Confederation, the government it established, and the problems that government confronted.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/179

*Correction: After production we noticed that in her second question to George, Liz noted the Articles of Confederation has a history that begins in 1787. Liz misspoke. The Second Continental Congress drafted the Articles of Confederation in 1777, ratified them in 1781, and they remained the active constitution of the United States until 1789, when the Constitution of 1787 went into effect on March 4, 1789.

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178 Muslims and Moriscos in Colonial Spanish America

Tue, 20 Mar 2018 05:00:00 -0400

In 1535, Spanish holdings in the Americas proved so great that the Spanish government created the Viceroyalty of New Spain to govern all territory north of the Isthmus of Panama.

The jurisdiction of New Spain included areas of upper and lower California and large areas of the American southwest and southeast, including Florida.

Karoline Cook, author of Forbidden Passages: Muslims and Moriscos in Colonial Spanish America, serves as our guide as we explore some of the political, cultural, and religious history of New Spain. Specifically, how Spaniards and Spanish Americans used ideas about Muslims and a group of “new Christian” converts called Moriscos to define who could and should be able to settle and help colonies North America.

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177 The Social Life of Maps in America

Tue, 13 Mar 2018 05:00:00 -0400

Did you know that maps have social lives?

Maps facilitate a lot of different social and political relationships between people and nations. And they did a lot of this work for Americans throughout the early American past.

Martin Brückner, a Professor of English at the University of Delaware, joins us to discuss early American maps and early American mapmaking with details from his book The Social Life of Maps in America. 

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/177

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176 The Value of the Enslaved From Womb to Grave

Tue, 06 Mar 2018 06:00:00 -0400

What did it mean to be a person and to also be a commodity in early America?

Daina Ramey Berry, author of The Price for Their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved, from Womb to Grave, in the Building of a Nation, takes us behind the scenes of her research so we can explore how early Americans valued and commodified enslaved men, women, and children.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/176

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175 House Divided: The Revolution in Ben Franklin's House

Tue, 27 Feb 2018 06:00:00 -0400

Just how personal was the American Revolution?

What could the event and war mean for individual people and families?

Daniel Mark Epstein, author of The Loyal Son: The War in Ben Franklin’s House, guides as as we explore what the Revolution meant for Benjamin Franklin and his family and how the Revolution caused a major rift between Franklin and his beloved son, William.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/176

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174 Yellow Fever in the Early American Republic

Tue, 20 Feb 2018 06:00:00 -0400

It’s February 2018 and doctors have declared this year’s seasonal flu epidemic as one of the worst to hit the United States in over a decade. Yet this flu epidemic is nothing compared to the yellow fever epidemics that struck the early American republic during the 1790s and early 1800s.

So what happened when epidemic diseases took hold in early America? How did early Americans deal with disease and illness?

Thomas Apel, author of Feverish Bodies, Enlightened Minds: Science and the Yellow Fever Controversy in the Early American Republic, has some answers for us.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/174

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173 Colonial Port Cities and Slavery

Tue, 13 Feb 2018 06:00:00 -0400

The histories of early North America and the Caribbean are intimately intertwined. The same European empires we encounter in our study of early America also appear in the Caribbean. The colonies of these respective empires often traded goods, people, and ideas between each other.

Marisa Fuentes, an associate professor of history and women and gender studies at Rutgers University and author of Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence, and the Archive, joins us to explore some of the connections mainland North America and the British Caribbean shared in their practices of slavery in urban towns.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/173

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172 Spies, Patriots, and Traitors: American Intelligence in the Revolutionary War

Tue, 06 Feb 2018 06:00:00 -0400

Intelligence gathering plays an important role in the foreign policies of many modern-day nation states, including the United States. Which raises the questions: How and when did the United States establish its foreign intelligence service? 

To answer those questions we’ll need to journey back to the American Revolution.

Our guide is Kenneth Daigler, an intelligence professional with 33 years experience managing human sources and collection and the author of Spies, Patriots, and Traitors: American Intelligence in the Revolutionary War, will facilitate our mental time travel and exploration of this topic.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/172

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171 Native Americans, British Colonists, and Trade in North America

Tue, 30 Jan 2018 06:00:00 -0400

History books like to tell us that Native Americans did not fully understand British methods and ideas of trade. Is this really true?

Did Native Americans only understand trade as a form of simplistic, gift exchange?

Jessica Stern, a Professor of History at California State University, Fullerton and the author of The Lives in Objects: Native Americans, British Colonists, and Cultures of Labor and Exchange in the Southeast, takes us on a journey into the southeast during the early 18th century to show us how trade between Native Americans and British colonists really took place.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/171

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170 New England Bound: Slavery in Early New England

Tue, 23 Jan 2018 06:00:00 -0400

New England was a place with no cash crops. It was a place where many of its earliest settlers came to live just so they could worship their Puritan faith freely. New England was also a place that became known for its strong anti-slavery sentiment during the 19th century. So how did New England also become a place that practiced slavery?

Wendy Warren, an Assistant Professor of History at Princeton University and author of the Pulitzer Prize-finalist book New England Bound: Slavery and Colonization in Early America, joins us to explore why New Englanders practiced slavery and just how far back the region’s slave past goes.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/170

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169 The Religious Life of Benjamin Franklin

Tue, 16 Jan 2018 06:00:00 -0400

We remember Benjamin Franklin as an accomplished printer, scientist, and statesman. Someone who came from humble beginnings and made his own way in the world. Rarely do we remember Franklin as a man of faith.

Benjamin Franklin spent more time grappling with questions of religion, faith, virtue, and morality in his writing than about any other topic.

Thomas S. Kidd, a Professor of History at Baylor University and author of Benjamin Franklin: The Religious Life of a Founding Father, leads us on a detailed exploration of the religious life of Benjamin Franklin.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/169

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168 Wild By Nature: Colonists and Animals in North America

Tue, 09 Jan 2018 06:00:00 -0400

When we study the history of colonial North America, we tend to focus on European colonists and their rivalries with each other and with Native Americans. But humans weren’t the only living beings occupying North America during the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries.

Rivalries existed between humans and animals too. And these human-animal rivalries impacted and shaped how European colonists used and settled North American lands.

Andrea Smalley, an associate professor of history at Northern Illinois University and author of Wild By Nature: North American Animals Confront Colonization, joins us to explore the many ways wild animals shaped colonists’ ideas and behavior as they settled and interacted with North American lands.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/168

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167 The Early History of New Orleans

Tue, 02 Jan 2018 06:00:00 -0400

The French established New Orleans and the greater colony of Louisiana in 1717. By 1840, New Orleans had become the 3rd largest city in the United States. How did that happen?

How did New Orleans transform from a sleepy, minor French outpost into a large and important early American city with a thriving, bustling port?

Eberhard “Lo” Faber, an assistant professor of history at Loyola University, New Orleans and the author of Building the Land of Dreams: New Orleans and the Transformation of Early America, leads us on an exploration of the early history of New Orleans.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/167

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Date: Saturday, January 6, 2018

Time: 5pm

Place: Open City Diner, Woodley Park

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166 Freedom and the American Revolution

Tue, 26 Dec 2017 06:00:00 -0400

The Declaration of Independence described “all men” as “created equal” when its authors knew they were not. So was the revolutionary idea of freedom dependent on slavery?

In this last episode of the Doing History: To the Revolution series we return to the place our series began: the world of Paul Revere. We speak with Christopher Cameron, an associate professor of history at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte, to discuss how Phillis Wheatley, Cesar Sarter and other black revolutionaries in Massachusetts grappled with the seeming paradox of American freedom as they fought to end slavery during the American Revolution.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/166

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165 The Age of Revolutions

Tue, 19 Dec 2017 06:00:00 -0400

Between 1763 and 1848, revolutions took place in North America, South America, the Caribbean, Africa, and Europe. But why is it that we only seem to remember the American Revolution, the French Revolution, and the Haitian Revolution?

Given that the American Revolution took place before all of these other revolutions, what was its role in influencing this larger “Age of Revolutions?” Did it influence this larger period?

Our exploration of what the American Revolution looked like within the larger period known as the “Age of Revolutions” continues as Janet Polasky, a professor of history at the University of New Hampshire and the author of Revolutions Without Borders: The Call of Liberty in the Atlantic World, guides us through the period to explore answers to these questions.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/165

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164 The American Revolution in the Age of Revolutions

Tue, 12 Dec 2017 06:00:00 -0400

The American Revolution took place within a larger period known today as the “Age of Revolutions.”

What does the Revolution look like when we place it within this larger context? Did it really help foment the many other failed and successful revolutions that took place during the period?

Over the next two episodes of the Doing History: To the Revolution series, we’ll explore answers to these questions by taking a closer look at how the American Revolution fit within the larger context of the Age of Revolutions.

The first part of our exploration will take us into the Caribbean. Laurent Dubois, a professor of history at Duke University and the author of four books about slavery and revolution in the French Caribbean, will serve as our guide.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/164

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163 The American Revolution in North America

Tue, 05 Dec 2017 06:00:00 -0400

When we think about North America during the American Revolution, most of our brains show us images of eastern Canada and the thirteen British American colonies that waged a revolution and war for independence against Great Britain.

But what about the rest of the North American continent? What about the areas that we know today as the midwest, the Great Plains, the southwest, the west, and the Pacific Northwest? What about Alaska? What went on in these areas during the American Revolution?

What did the American Revolution look like through the eyes of Native American peoples?

In this episode of the Doing History: To the Revolution series, we explore what the American Revolution looked like within the larger context of North American history with historians Claudio Saunt and Alyssa Mt. Pleasant.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/163

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162 Dunmore's New World: The Revolution and the British Empire

Tue, 28 Nov 2017 06:00:00 -0400

What did British imperial officials in London and their North America-based representatives make of the American Revolution?

In this episode, we explore the American Revolution through the eyes of John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore, a British imperial official who served the empire in North America before, during, and after the American Revolution.

James Corbett David, author of Dunmore’s New World: The Extraordinary Life of a Royal Governor in Revolutionary America, serves as our guide for this exploration.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/162

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161 Smuggling and the American Revolution

Tue, 21 Nov 2017 06:00:00 -0400

At the end of the French and Indian, or Seven Years’ War in 1763, Great Britain claimed that smuggling was a BIG problem in its North American colonies and cracked down on the practice.

But just how BIG of a problem was smuggling in North America? Why did British North Americans choose to engage in the illegal importation of goods like tea? Was it really all about cheaper prices?

Fabrício Prado, Christian Koot, and Wim Klooster join us to explore the history of smuggling in the eighteenth-century Atlantic World and to investigate the connections between smuggling and the American Revolution.

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160 The Politics of Tea

Tue, 14 Nov 2017 06:00:00 -0400

How did early Americans go from hosting social tea parties to hosting protests like the Boston Tea Party?

Tea played a central role in the economic, cultural, and political lives of early Americans. As such, tea came to serve as a powerful symbol of both early American culture and of the American Revolution.

In this episode of the Doing History: To the Revolution series, Jane Merritt, Jennifer Anderson, and David Shields take us on an exploration of the politics of tea during the era of the American Revolution.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/160

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159 The Revolutionary Economy

Tue, 07 Nov 2017 06:00:00 -0400

How much merit do the economic factors behind the cry “No Taxation Without Representation” have when we consider the origins of the American Revolution?

In this episode of the Doing History: To the Revolution series we begin a 3-episode exploration of different aspects of the early American economy and what roles these economic aspects played in causing the American Revolution.

Serena Zabin, a Professor of History at Carleton College and author of Dangerous Economies: Status and Commerce in Imperial New York, helps us survey the economic scene by guiding us through the British North American economy on the eve of the American Revolution.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/159

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158 The Revolutionaries' Army

Tue, 31 Oct 2017 05:00:00 -0400

Between 1775 and 1783, an estimated 230,000 men served in the Continental Army with another approximately 145,000 men serving in state militia units.

Who were the men who served in these military ranks? What motivated them to take up arms and join the army? And what was their military experience like?

In this episode of the Doing History: To the Revolution series, we explore the development of the Continental Army, partisan militia groups, and Native American scouting parties. Our guides for this exploration are Fred Anderson, Randy Flood, and Brooke Bauer.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/158

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157 The Revolution's African American Soldiers (Doing History Rev)

Tue, 24 Oct 2017 05:00:00 -0400

Between 1775 and 1783, an estimated 230,000 men served in the Continental Army with another approximately 145,000 men serving in state militia units.

But who were the men who served in these military ranks? What motivated them to take up arms and join the army? And what was their military experience like?

In this episode of the Doing History: To the Revolution series we begin a 2-episode exploration of some of the military aspects of the American Revolution by exploring the experiences of the approximately 6,000-7,000 African American men who served in the Continental Army. Our guide for this exploration is Judith Van Buskirk, a professor of history at the State University of New York, Cortland and the author of Standing in Their Own Light: African American Patriots in the American Revolution.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/157

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156 Power of the Press in the American Revolution (Doing History Rev)

Tue, 17 Oct 2017 05:00:00 -0400

How did Americans find out about the Revolution?

What effect did printed materials like newspapers, pamphlets, and books have on shaping the debate about independence? And just how big of a role did Thomas Paine’s Common Sense play in causing Americans to declare their independence from Great Britain?

In this episode of the Doing History: To the Revolution! series, we explore these question with four scholars of Revolutionary communication: Alyssa Zuercher Reichardt, Eric Slauter, Seth Cotlar, and Trish Loughran.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/156

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155 Pauline Maier's American Revolution (Doing History Rev)

Tue, 10 Oct 2017 05:00:00 -0400

How much can the work of one historian impact how we view and study the American Revolution?

We investigate the answer to this question by exploring the life and work of Pauline Maier, a historian who spent her life researching and investigating the American Revolution. Over the course of her lifetime, Maier wrote four important books about the American Revolution: From Resistance to Revolution, The Old Revolutionaries, American Scripture, and Ratification.

Mary Beth Norton, Joanne Freeman, Todd Estes, and Lindsay Chervinsky join us as we journey through Maier’s body of work to better understand the American Revolution and how one historian can impact how we view and study history.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/155

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154 The Freedoms We Lost (Doing History Rev)

Tue, 03 Oct 2017 05:00:00 -0400

Declaring independence from Great Britain required the formation of new governments.

But why did Americans want and need new governments? And how did their interactions and experiences with their old, colonial governments inform their decisions to create new governments?

Barbara Clark Smith, a curator in the division of political history at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History and the author of The Freedoms We Lost: Consent and Resistance in Revolutionary America, leads us on an exploration of how Americans interacted with their government before the American Revolution and how the Revolution changed their interaction and ideas about government.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/154

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153 Committees and Congress: Governments of the American Revolution (Doing History Rev)

Tue, 26 Sep 2017 05:00:00 -0400

How did the American revolutionaries organize and coordinate local, provincial, and intercolonial action?

How did the revolutionaries form governments?

In this episode of the Doing History: To the Revolution series we explore governance and governments of the American Revolution with three scholars: Mark Boonshoft, Benjamin Irvin, and Jane Calvert.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/153

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152 Origins of the American Revolution (Doing History Rev)

Tue, 19 Sep 2017 05:00:00 -0400

What caused the American Revolution?

Was it the issue of ‘No Taxation without Representation?’ Was it conflict and change in the social order of colonial and British society? Or, was the Revolution about differences in ideas about governance and the roles government should play in society?

In this episode of the Doing History: To the Revolution series, we explore one set of ideas about the origins of the American Revolution with Bernard Bailyn, a Professor Emeritus at Harvard University and author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution.

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151 Defining the American Revolution (Doing History Rev)

Tue, 12 Sep 2017 05:00:00 -0400

What do we mean by the American Revolution?

How do we define it? Was it a war? Was it a movement? Was it a series of movements?

The Doing History: To the Revolution! Series seeks to explore not just the history of the American Revolution, but the histories of the American Revolution. In this episode, we undertake the difficult task of trying to define the American Revolution by going behind-the-scenes of the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/151

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150 Abigail Adams: Revolutionary Speculator

Tue, 05 Sep 2017 05:00:00 -0400

Abigail Adams lived through and participated in the American Revolution. As the wife of John Adams, she used her position to famously remind Adams and his colleagues to "remember the ladies" when they created laws for the new, independent United States.

In this episode, Woody Holton, a Professor of History at the University of South Carolina and author of Abigail Adams: A Life, helps us explore a different, largely unknown aspect of Adams' life: Her financial investments.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/150

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149 Benjamin Franklin in London

Tue, 29 Aug 2017 05:00:00 -0400

Over the course of his long life, Benjamin Franklin traveled to and lived in London on two different occasions. The first time he went as a teenager. The second, as a man and colonial agent. All told he spent nearly 18 years living in the heart of the British Empire.

How did Franklin’s experiences in London shape his opportunities and view of the world?

George Goodwin, author of Benjamin Franklin in London: The British Life of America’s Founding Father, leads us on an exploration of Franklin’s life in London.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/149

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148 Betsy Ross

Tue, 22 Aug 2017 05:00:00 -0400

How did everyday men and women experience life in the colonial America?

How did the American Revolution transform their work and personal lives?

Marla Miller, a professor of history at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and the author of Betsy Ross and the Making of America, guides us through the life of Betsy Ross with an aim to help us answer these questions.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/148

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147 British Soldiers, American War

Tue, 15 Aug 2017 05:00:00 -0400

What about the British Redcoats?

When we discuss the military history of the American War for Independence, we tend to focus on specific battles or details about the men who served in George Washington’s Continental Army. Rarely do we take the opportunity to ask questions about the approximately 50,000 men who served in the British Army that opposed them.

Don N. Hagist, independent scholar and author of British Soldiers, American War: Voices of the American Revolution, leads us on exploration of the “other” men who fought in the American War for Independence, the soldiers in the British Army.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/147

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146 George Washington's Revolution

Tue, 08 Aug 2017 05:00:00 -0400

What drove George Washington to become a Patriot during the American Revolution?

How did he overcome the ill-trained and inexperienced troops, inadequate pay, and supply problems that plagued the Continental Army to win the War for American Independence?

Robert Middlekauff, professor emeritus of colonial and early United States history at the University of California, Berkeley, reveals the answers to these questions as we explore details from his book Washington’s Revolution: The Making of America’s First Leader.

This episode originally posted as Episode 026.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/146

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145 Mercy Otis Warren and the American Revolution

Tue, 01 Aug 2017 05:00:00 -0400

Mercy Otis Warren wasn’t your typical early American woman. She was a woman with strong political viewpoints, which she wrote about and published for the world to see and consider.

Did anyone take her views seriously?

Did her writings sway public opinion in the direction of her political views?

In this episode, Rosemarie Zagarri, a professor of history at George Mason University and author of A Woman’s Dilemma: Mercy Otis Warren and the American Revolution, helps us kick off a new, six-episode series about the people of the American Revolution by taking us through the life of Mercy Otis Warren.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/145

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144 The Common Cause of the American Revolution

Tue, 25 Jul 2017 05:00:00 -0400

How do you get people living in thirteen different colonies to come together and fight for independence?

What ideas and experiences would even unite them behind the fight?

Patriot leaders asked themselves these very questions, especially as the American Revolution turned from a series of political protests against imperial policies to a bloody war for independence. What’s more, Patriot leaders also asked themselves once we find these ideas and experiences, how do we use them to unite the American people?

Robert Parkinson, an Assistant Professor of History at Binghamton University and author of the award-winning book, The Common Cause: Creating Race and Nation in the American Revolution, has some ideas for how patriot leaders answered these questions.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/144

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143 The Making of the United States Constitution

Tue, 18 Jul 2017 05:00:00 -0400

How did the framers draft the Constitution of 1787? What powers does the Constitution provide the federal government? Why do we elect the President of the United States by an electoral system rather than by popular vote?

These are some of the many questions you’ve asked since November 2016. And today we’re going to explore some answers.

Michael Klarman, the Kirkland & Ellis Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and author of The Founders’ Coup: The Making of the United States Constitution joins us to discuss the United States Constitution and how and why the framers drafted it.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/143

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142 A History of Abolition

Tue, 11 Jul 2017 05:00:00 -0400

Most histories of American abolitionism begin just before the Civil War, during the Antebellum period. But the movement to end chattel slavery in America began long before the United States was a nation.

Manisha Sinha, a professor of history at the University of Connecticut and author of the award-winning book The Slaves Cause: A History of Abolition, takes us through the early American origins of the the abolition movement.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/142

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141 A Declaration in Draft (Doing History Rev)

Tue, 04 Jul 2017 05:00:00 -0400

The Declaration of Independence stands first in a series of documents that founded the United States. It also stands as an early step in the long process of establishing a free, independent, and self-governing nation. Since 1776, more than 100 nation-states and freedom organizations have used the Declaration of Independence as a model for their own declarations and proclamations of independence.

Given the Declaration of Independence’s important place in the hearts and minds of peoples around the world, we need to go behind its parchment and explore just how the Declaration of Independence came to be.

In this preview episode of the Doing History: To the Revolution! Series, we explore how the Second Continental Congress drafted the Declaration of Independence.

Show Notes:https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/141

About the Series

The mission of episodes in the Doing History: To the Revolution series is to ask not just “what is the history of the American Revolution?” but “what are the histories of the American Revolution?”

Episodes in this series will air beginning in September 2017.

The Doing History series explores early American history and how historians work. It's produced by the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture.

Be sure to check out Doing History season 1, Doing History: How Historians Work.

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140 Nathaniel Bowditch: 19th-Century Man of Business, Science, and the Sea

Tue, 27 Jun 2017 05:00:00 -0400

Nathaniel Bowditch worked as a navigator, mathematician, astronomer, and business innovator. Over the course of his lifetime, his fellow Americans hailed him as the “American Sir Isaac Newton.”

Tamara Thornton, a professor of history at the University of Buffalo and author of Nathaniel Bowditch and the Power of Numbers: How a Nineteenth-Century Man of Business, Science, and the Sea Changed America, leads us on a detailed exploration of the life of Nathaniel Bowditch.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/140

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139 The Other Slavery: Indian Enslavement in the Americas

Tue, 20 Jun 2017 05:00:00 -0400

In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. He also played a central role in the European adoption of Indian or Native American slavery.

When we think of slavery in early America, we often think of the practice of African and African-American chattel slavery. However, that system of slavery wasn’t the only system of slavery that existed in North America. Systems of Indian slavery existed too. In fact, Indians remained enslaved long after the 13th Amendment abolished African-American slavery in 1865.

In this episode, Andrés Reséndez, a professor of history at the University of California, Davis and author of The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in Americas, leads us on an investigation of this “other" form of American slavery.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/139

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138 Frontier Politics in Early America

Tue, 13 Jun 2017 05:00:00 -0400

Did you know that Connecticut and Virginia once invaded Pennsylvania?

During the 1760s, Connecticut invaded and captured the northeastern corner of Pennsylvania just as Virginia invaded and captured parts of western Pennsylvania. And Pennsylvania stood powerless to stop them.

In this episode, Patrick Spero, the Librarian of the American Philosophical Society and author of Frontier Country: The Politics of War in Early Pennsylvania, takes us through these invasions and reveals why Pennsylvania proved unable to defend its territory.

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137 The Washingtons' Runaway Slave, Ona Judge

Tue, 06 Jun 2017 05:00:00 -0400

George Washington was an accomplished man. He served as a delegate to the First and Second Continental Congresses, Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, first President of the United States, and on top of all that he was also a savvy businessman who ran a successful plantation.

George Washington was also a slaveholder. In 1789, he and his wife Martha took 7 slaves to New York City to serve them in their new role as First Family. A 16 year-old girl named Ona Judge was one of the enslaved women who accompanied and served the Washingtons.

Erica Dunbar, a Professor of Black American Studies and History at the University of Delaware and author of Never Caught: The Washington’s Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave Ona Judge, leads us through the early American life of Ona Judge.  

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/137

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136 Material Culture and the Making of America

Tue, 30 May 2017 05:00:00 -0400

What do the objects we purchase and use say about us?

If we take the time to think about the material objects and clothing in our lives, we’ll find that we can actually learn a lot about ourselves and other people. The same holds true when we take the time to study the objects and clothing left behind by people from the past.

Jennifer Van Horn, an Assistant Professor of History and Art History at the University of Delaware and author of The Power of Objects in Eighteenth-Century British America, leads us on an exploration of the 18th-century British material world and how objects from that world can help us think about and explore the lives of 18th-century British Americans.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/136

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135 Moral Commerce: The Transatlantic Boycott of the Slave Labor Economy

Tue, 23 May 2017 05:00:00 -0400

If early Americans desired slaves mostly to produce sugarcane, cotton, rice, indigo, and tobacco, what would happen if Europeans and early Americans stopped purchasing those products? 

Would boycotting slave-produced goods and starving slavery of its economic sustenance be enough to end the practice of slavery in North America?

Julie Holcomb, an Associate Professor of Museum Studies at Baylor University and author of Moral Commerce: The Transatlantic Boycott of the Slave Labor Economy, helps us explore answers to these questions by leading us through the transatlantic boycott of slave produced goods.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/135

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134 Pulpit and Nation: Clergymen and the Politics of Revolutionary America

Tue, 16 May 2017 05:00:00 -0400

In Colonial America, clergymen stood as thought leaders in their local communities. They stood at the head of their congregations and many community members looked to them for knowledge and insight about the world around them.

So what happened to these trusted, educated men during the American Revolution? How did they choose their political allegiances? And what work did they undertake to aid or hinder the revolutionary cause?

Spencer McBride, an editor at the Joseph Smith Papers documentary editing project, joins us to explore some of the ways politics and religion intersected during the American Revolution with details from his book, Pulpit and Nation: Clergymen and the Politics of Revolutionary America.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/134

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133 The Nat Turner Revolt

Tue, 09 May 2017 05:00:00 -0400

The institution of African slavery in North America began in late August 1619 and persisted until the ratification of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States in December 1865.

Over those 246 years, many slaves plotted and conspired to start rebellions, but most of the plotted rebellions never took place. Slaveholders and whites discovered them before they could begin. Therefore, North America witnessed only a handful of slave revolts between 1614 and 1865. Nat Turner’s Rebellion in August 1831 stands as the most deadly.

Patrick Breen, an Associate Professor of History at Providence College and author of The Land Shall Be Deluged in Blood: A New History of the Nat Turner Revolt joins us to investigate the ins and outs of this bloodiest of North American slave revolts.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/133

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132 Indigenous London: Native Travelers at the Heart of the Empire

Tue, 02 May 2017 05:00:00 -0400

When we explore the history of early America, we often look at people who lived and the events that took place in North America. But what about the people who lived and worked in European metropoles?

What about Native Americans?

Today, we explore early American history through a slightly different lens, a lens that allows us to see interactions that occurred between Native American peoples and English men and women who lived in London. Our guide for this exploration is Coll Thrush, an Associate Professor of History at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver and author of Indigenous London: Native Travelers at the Heart of the Empire.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/132

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131 Thomas Jefferson's Empire of Liberty

Tue, 25 Apr 2017 05:30:00 -0400

The United States has a complicated history when it comes to ideas of empire and imperialism. Since it’s earliest days, the United States has wanted the power that came with being an empire even while declaring its distaste for them.

Therefore, it should not be surprising that the man who drafted the Declaration of Independence, which severed the 13 American colonies’ ties to the most powerful empire in the mid-to-late 18th-century world, also had strong views about empire: Thomas Jefferson wanted the United States to become a great and vast “Empire of Liberty.”

Frank Cogliano, a Professor of American History at the University of Edinburgh and author of Emperor of Liberty: Thomas Jefferson’s Foreign Policy, joins us to explore how Thomas Jefferson came to be a supporter and promoter of empires.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/131

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130 Paul Revere's Ride Through History (Doing History Rev)

Tue, 18 Apr 2017 05:00:00 -0400

So why is it that we remember Paul Revere’s ride to Lexington and not any of his other rides?

Why is it that we remember Paul Revere on the night of April 18, 1775 and nothing about his life either before or after that famous ride?

Why is it that Paul Revere seems to ride quickly into history and then just as quickly out of it?

In this episode we speak with four scholars to explore Paul Revere’s ride through history.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/130

About the Series

Episodes in this series will air beginning in Fall 2017.

The Doing History series is part of a partnership between Ben Franklin’s World and the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture.

Be sure to check out Doing History season 1: Doing History: How Historians Work.

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129 The Road to Concord, 1775

Tue, 11 Apr 2017 05:00:00 -0400

How did the colonists of Massachusetts go from public protests meant to shame government officials and destroy offending property, to armed conflict with British Regulars in Lexington and Concord?

John Bell, the prolific blogger behind Boston1775.net and the author of The Road to Concord: How Four Stolen Cannon Ignited the Revolutionary War, leads us on an investigation of what brought colonists and redcoats to the Battles of Lexington and Concord.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/129

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128 American Revolutions: A Continental History

Tue, 04 Apr 2017 05:00:00 -0400

Historians often portray the American Revolution as an orderly, if violent, event that moved from British colonists’ high-minded ideas about freedom to American independence from Great Britain and the ratification of the Constitution of 1787.

But was the American Revolution an orderly event that took place only between Great Britain and her North American colonists? Was it really about high-minded ideas?

Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Alan Taylor joins us to explore the American Revolution as a Continental event with details from his book, American Revolutions: A Continental History. 1750-1804.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/128

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127 American Enlightenments

Tue, 28 Mar 2017 05:00:00 -0400

In many ways, the Enlightenment gave birth to the United States. Enlightened ideas informed protests over imperial governance and taxation and over whether there should be an American bishop.

If we want to understand early America, we need to understand the Enlightenment.

Caroline Winterer, a Professor of History at Stanford University and author of American Enlightenments: Pursuing Happiness in the Age of Reason, takes us through her ideas about the Enlightenment and how it influenced early America.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/127

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126 The Reintegration of American Loyalists

Tue, 21 Mar 2017 05:00:00 -0400

What happened to the loyalists who stayed in the United States after the War for Independence?

After the war, 60,000 loyalists and 15,000 slaves evacuated the United States. But thousands more opted to remain in the new nation.

Rebecca Brannon, an Associate Professor of History at James Madison University and author of From Revolution to Reunion: The Reintegration of South Carolina Loyalists, joins us to explore what happened to the loyalists who stayed.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/126

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125 Death, Suicide, and Slavery in British North America

Tue, 14 Mar 2017 05:00:00 -0400

Early America was a diverse place. It contained many different people who had many different traditions that informed how they lived…and died.

How did early Americans understand death? What did they think about suicide?

Terri Snyder, a Professor of American Studies at California State University, Fullerton and author of The Power to Die: Slavery and Suicide in British North America, helps us answer these questions, and more, as she takes us on an exploration of slavery and suicide in British North America.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/125

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124 Making the Haitian Revolution in Early America

Tue, 07 Mar 2017 06:00:00 -0400

What did the American Revolution mean and achieve? What sort of liberty and freedom did independence grant Americans and which Americans should receive them?

Americans grappled with these questions soon after the American Revolution. They debated these issues during the Constitutional Convention of 1787, in the first congresses, and as they followed events in revolutionary France and Haiti during the 1790s and early 1800s.

James Alexander Dun, an Assistant Professor of History at Princeton University and author of Dangerous Neighbors: Making the Haitian Revolution in Early America, joins us to explore the ways the Haitian Revolution shaped how Americans viewed their own revolution.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/124

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123: Revolutionary Allegiances (Doing History Rev)

Tue, 28 Feb 2017 06:00:00 -0400

In December 1773, the Cape Cod Tea Crisis revealed that the people of “radical” Massachusetts were far from united in their support for the American Revolution. An observation that leads us to wonder: How many Americans supported the Patriot cause?

In this episode we speak with four scholars to explore the complexities of political allegiance during the American Revolution.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/123

About the Series

Episodes in this series will air beginning in Fall 2017.

The Doing History series is part of a partnership between Ben Franklin’s World and the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture.

Be sure to check out Doing History season 1: Doing History: How Historians Work.

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122 The Men Who Lost America

Tue, 21 Feb 2017 06:00:00 -0400

Did the Americans win the War for Independence? Or did the British simply lose the war?

The history of the American War for Independence is complicated. And history books tell many different versions of the event, which is why we need an expert to guide us through the intricacies of whether we should look at the war as an American victory, a British defeat, or in some other light.

Andrew O’Shaughnessy, author of The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire, joins us to explore British viewpoints of the American War for Independence.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/122

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121 The Dutch Moment in the 17th-Century Atlantic World

Tue, 14 Feb 2017 06:00:00 -0400

The Spanish, French, and English played large roles in the origins of colonial America. But so too did the Dutch. During the 17th century, they had a “moment" in which they influenced European colonization and development of the Atlantic World.

Wim Klooster, a Professor of History at Clark University and author of The Dutch Moment: War, Trade, and Settlement in the Seventeenth Century Atlantic World, guides us through Dutch contributions to the Atlantic World.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/121

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120 A History of Mail Order Brides in Early America

Tue, 07 Feb 2017 06:00:00 -0400

How do you build colonies without women?

Most of the colonial adventurers from England and France who set out for Jamestown, New France, and colonial Louisiana were men. But how do you build and sustain societies and spread European culture—in essence, fulfill the promises of a colonial program—without women?

You can’t. Which is why Marcia Zug, a Professor of Law at the University of South Carolina Law School and author of Buying a Bride: An Engaging History of Mail Order Matches, joins us to explore one of the solutions that England and France used to build their North American colonies: mail order bride programs.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/120

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119 The Heart of the Declaration

Tue, 31 Jan 2017 06:00:00 -0400

On June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia moved that the Second Continental Congress resolve “that these United Colonies are, and of right out to be, free and independent States…”

The Second Continental Congress adopted Lee’s motion and on June 11, 1776, it appointed a committee to draft a declaration of independence.

Today, Steve Pincus, the Bradford Durfee Professor of History at Yale University and author of The Heart of the Declaration: The Founders’ Case for an Activist Government, leads us on an investigation of the Declaration of Independence and the context in which the founders drafted it.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/119

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118 The Business of Slavery in Rhode Island

Tue, 24 Jan 2017 06:00:00 -0400

How did the smallest colony and smallest state in the union became the largest American participant in the slave trade?

Christy Clark-Pujara, an Assistant Professor in the Department of African-American Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of Dark Work: The Business of Slavery in Rhode Island, joins us to explore the history of Rhode Island and New England’s involvement with slavery.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/118

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117 The Life and Ideas of Thomas Jefferson

Tue, 17 Jan 2017 06:00:00 -0400

Thomas Jefferson wrote about liberty and freedom and yet owned over six hundred slaves during his lifetime.

He’s a founder who many of us have a hard time understanding.

This why we need an expert to lead us through his life, so we can better understand who Jefferson was and how he came to his seemingly paradoxical ideas about slavery and freedom.

Annette Gordon-Reed, a professor of history and legal history at Harvard University and the winner of the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize for her work on Thomas Jefferson and the Hemings Family, leads us on an exploration through the life and ideas of Thomas Jefferson. 

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/117

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116 Disease & The Seven Years' War

Tue, 10 Jan 2017 06:00:00 -0400

When we think of the French and Indian, or Seven Years’ War, we often think of battles: The Monongahela, Ticonderoga, Québec. Yet, wars aren’t just about battles. They’re about people and governments too.

In this episode, we explore a very different aspect of the French and Indian or Seven Years’ War. We explore the war through the lens of disease and medicine and how disease prompted the British government to take steps to keep its soldiers healthy.

Our guide for this investigation is Erica Charters, an Associate Professor of the History of Medicine at the University of Oxford and author of Disease, War, and the Imperial State: The Welfare of British Armed Forces during the Seven Years’ War.

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115 The Early American History of Texas

Tue, 03 Jan 2017 06:00:00 -0400

Like many states in the south and west, Texas has an interesting early American past that begins with Native American settlement followed by Spanish colonization. It's also a state that was an independent nation before being admitted to the United States.

Today we explore Texas’ intriguing early American history with Andrew Torget, an Assistant Professor of History at the University of North Texas and author of Seeds of Empire: Cotton, Slavery, and the Transformation of the Texas Borderlands, 1800-1850.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/115

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Bonus: History & Historians in the Public (Doing History)

Fri, 30 Dec 2016 06:00:00 -0400

Throughout the “Doing History: How Historians Work” series we’ve explored how historians find and research historical topics, how they identify and read historical sources for information, and how they publish their findings so others can know what they know about the past.

But not all historians work to publish their findings about history in books and articles. Some historians work to convey knowledge about history to the public in public spaces and in public ways.

Therefore, we conclude the “Doing History: How Historians Work” series with a look at how historians do history for the public with guest historian Lonnie Bunch, the Founding Director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.

About the Series

“Doing History” episodes will introduce you to historians who will tell you what they know about the past and reveal how they came to their knowledge.

Each episode will air on the last Tuesday of each month in 2016.

This series is part of a partnership between Ben Franklin’s World and the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture.

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Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/museums

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114 The History of Genealogy (Doing History)

Tue, 27 Dec 2016 06:00:00 -0400

History has a history and genealogy has a history. And the histories of both affect how and why we study the past and how we understand and view it.

Today, we explore why it’s important for us to understand that the practices and processes of history and genealogy have histories by exploring what the history of genealogy reveals about the early American past.

Our guide for this exploration is Karin Wulf, a Professor of History at the College of William & Mary and the Director of the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture.

About the Series

“Doing History” episodes will introduce you to historians who will tell you what they know about the past and reveal how they came to their knowledge.

Each episode will air on the last Tuesday of each month in 2016.

This series is part of a partnership between Ben Franklin’s World and the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/114

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113 Building the Empire State

Tue, 20 Dec 2016 06:00:00 -0400

After seven, long years of occupation, Americans found New York City in shambles after the British evacuation on November 25, 1783.

Ten to twenty-five percent of the city had burned in 1776. The British used just about every building that remained to billet officers, soldiers, refugees, and their horses. Plus more refugees and animals crammed into vacant lots, streets, and alleyways. New York City stood in need of a lot of repair.

Which raises the question: How did New Yorkers rebuild New York City? Where did they get the money to rebuild, improve, and encourage the economic development that would transform the city into the thriving metropolis and economic hub that it would be come?

Brian Murphy, an Associate Professor of History at Rutgers University-Newark, takes us through part of this amazing story with details from his book Building the Empire State: Political Economy in the Early Republic.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/113

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112 The Tea Crisis of 1773 (Doing History Revolution)

Tue, 13 Dec 2016 06:00:00 -0400

On December 16, 1773, the colonists of Boston threw 342 chests of English East India Company tea into Boston Harbor, an act we remember as the “Boston Tea Party.”

Have you ever wondered what drove the Bostonians to destroy the tea? Or whether they considered any other less destructive options for their protest?

Mary Beth Norton, the Mary Donlon Alger Professor of American History at Cornell University, takes us through the Tea Crisis of 1773.

About the Series

Episodes in the “Doing History: To the Revolution” series explore the American Revolution and how what we know about it and how our view of it has changed over time.

Episodes will air in 2017.

The “Doing History” series is part of a partnership between Ben Franklin’s World and the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture. Be sure to check out season 1, “Doing History: How Historians Work.”

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111 India in the Making of Britain and America, 1700-1830

Tue, 06 Dec 2016 06:00:00 -0400

Neither colonial North America nor the United States developed apart from the rest of the world. Since their founding, both the colonies and the United States have participated in the politics, economics, and cultures of the Atlantic World.

And every so often, the politics, economics, and cultures of lands in the Pacific and Indian Oceans intersected with and influenced those of the Atlantic World. That’s why today, we’re going to explore the origins of the English trade with India and how that trade connected and intersected with the English North American colonies.

Our guide for this investigation is Jonathan Eacott, an Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Riverside and author of Selling Empire: India in the Making of Britain and America, 1700-1830.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/111

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110 How Genealogists Research (Doing History)

Tue, 29 Nov 2016 06:00:00 -0400

History tells us who we are and how we came to be who we are.

Like history, genealogy studies people. It’s a field of study that can tell us who we are in a more exact sense by showing us how our ancestral lines connect from one generation to the next.

In this episode of the “Doing History: How Historians Work” seres, we investigate the world of genealogical research with Joshua Taylor, President of the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society and a professional genealogist.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/110

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About the Series

“Doing History” episodes will introduce you to historians who will tell you what they know about the past and reveal how they came to their knowledge.

Each episode will air on the last Tuesday of each month in 2016.

This series is part of a partnership between Ben Franklin’s World and the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture.

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109 The American Enlightenment & Cadwallader Colden

Tue, 22 Nov 2016 06:00:00 -0400

We’ve heard that the American Revolution took place during a period called “the Enlightenment.” But what was the Enlightenment?

Was it an intellectual movement? A social movement? A scientific movement?

Today, John Dixon, an Assistant Professor of History at CUNY-College of Staten Island, leads us on an exploration of the Enlightenment by taking us through the life of Cadwallader Colden, the subject of his book The Enlightenment of Cadwallader Colden: Empire, Science, and Intellectual Culture in British New York.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/109

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108 The Many Captivities of Esther Wheelwright

Tue, 15 Nov 2016 06:00:00 -0400

Colonial America comprised many different cultural and political worlds. Most colonial Americans inhabited just one world, but today, we’re going to explore the life of a woman who lived in THREE colonial American worlds: Frontier New England, Northeastern Wabanaki, and Catholic New France.

Ann Little, an Associate Professor of History at Colorado State University and the author of The Many Captivities of Esther Wheelwright, leads us through the remarkable life of Esther Wheelwright, a woman who experienced colonial America as a Puritan New English girl, Wabanaki daughter, and Ursuline nun in Catholic New France.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/108

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107 Madison's Hand: Revising the Constitutional Convention

Tue, 08 Nov 2016 06:00:00 -0400

When politicians, lawyers, and historians discuss the Constitutional Convention of 1787, they often rely on two sources: The promotional tracts collectively known as the Federalist Papers and James Madison’s Notes of the Constitutional Convention.

But what do we really know about Madison’s Notes?

Did Madison draft them to serve as a definitive account of the Constitutional Convention?

Today, we explore James Madison’s Notes on the Constitutional Convention with award-winning legal historian Mary Sarah Bilder, the Founders Professor of Law at Boston College and author of Madison’s Hand: Revising the Constitutional Convention.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/107

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106 The World of John Singleton Copley

Tue, 01 Nov 2016 05:00:00 -0400

What can the life of an artist reveal about the American Revolution and how most American men and women experienced it?

Today, we explore the life and times of John Singleton Copley with Jane Kamensky, a Professor of History at Harvard University and the author of A Revolution in Color: The World of John Singleton Copley.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/106

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105 How Historians Publish History (Doing History)

Tue, 25 Oct 2016 05:00:00 -0400

What do historians do with their research once they finish writing about it?

How do historians publish the books and articles we love to read?

This episode of our “Doing History: How Historians Work” series, takes us behind-the-scenes of how historians publish their writing about history. Our guide through the world of history publications is Joshua Piker, a Professor of History at the College of William and Mary, and the Editor of the William and Mary Quarterly, the leading journal of early American history and culture.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/105

About the Series

“Doing History” episodes will introduce you to historians who will tell you what they know about the past and reveal how they came to their knowledge.

Each episode will air on the last Tuesday of each month in 2016.

This series is part of a partnership between Ben Franklin’s World and the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture.

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104 The Saltwater Frontier

Tue, 18 Oct 2016 05:00:00 -0400

When we think of Native Americans, many of us think of inland dwellers. People adept at navigating forests and rivers and the skilled hunters and horsemen who lived and hunted on the American Plains.

But did you know that Native Americans were seafaring mariners too?

Today, Andrew Lipman, an Assistant Professor of History at Barnard College, Columbia University and author of The Saltwater Frontier: Indians and the Contest for the American Coast, leads us on an exploration of the northeastern coastline and of the Native American and European peoples who lived there during the seventeenth century.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/104

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103 James Monroe & His Estate Highland

Tue, 11 Oct 2016 05:00:00 -0400

On April 30, 1789, George Washington became the first President of the United States. Between 1789 and 1825, five men would serve as president. Four of them hailed from Virginia.

Many of us know details about the lives and presidencies of Washington, Jefferson, and Madison. But what do we know about the life and presidency of the fourth Virginia president, James Monroe?

Today, we explore the public and private life of James Monroe with Sara Bon-Harper, Executive Director of James Monroe’s Highland, the 535-acre farm and home of James Monroe.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/103

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102 George Rogers Clark

Tue, 04 Oct 2016 05:00:00 -0400

In the Treaty of Paris, 1783, Great Britain offered the new United States generous terms that included lands in between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River.

Why did the biggest empire with the greatest army and navy concede so much to a new nation?

Because George Rogers Clark and his men seized the Illinois Country and held it during the American War for Independence.

Today, William Nester, a Professor of Government and Politics at St. John’s University and author of George Rogers Clark: ‘I Glory in War,’ leads us on an exploration of the life and deeds of George Rogers Clark.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/102

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101 How Historians Write About History (Doing History)

Tue, 27 Sep 2016 05:00:00 -0400

How do historians write about the people, places, and events they’ve studied in historical sources?

We continue our “Doing History: How Historians Work” series by investigating how historians write about history. Our guide for this investigation is John Demos, the Samuel Knight Professor of History Emeritus at Yale University and an award-winning historian.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/101

About the Series

“Doing History” episodes will introduce you to historians who will tell you what they know about the past and reveal how they came to their knowledge.

Each episode will air on the last Tuesday of each month in 2016.

This series is part of a partnership between Ben Franklin’s World and the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture.

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100 Behind-the-Scenes with Liz Covart & Ben Franklin's World

Tue, 20 Sep 2016 05:00:00 -0400

Wow! Ben Franklin’s World has made it to episode 100.

How do we celebrate and mark this special occasion?

By your request, host Liz Covart answers your questions about history, podcasting, and time travel.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/100

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099 Pirates & Pirate Nests in the British Atlantic World

Tue, 13 Sep 2016 05:00:00 -0400

Pirates are alive and well in our popular culture. Thanks to movies like Pirates of the Caribbean and television shows like Black Sails, we see pirates as peg-legged, eye-patch wearing, rum-drinking men.

But are these representations accurate?

What do we really know about pirates?

In this episode, Mark Hanna, an Associate Professor of History at the University of California, San Diego, and author of the award-winning book Pirate Nests and the Rise of the British Empire, 1570-1740, helps us fill in the gaps in our knowledge to better understand who pirates were and why they lived the pirate’s life.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/099

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098 Birth of the American Tax Man

Tue, 06 Sep 2016 05:00:00 -0400

Could customs collectors, the tax men of early America, be the unsung founders of the early United States?

Today, we explore the creation of the United States customs service and its contributions to the establishment of the federal government with Gautham Rao, an Assistant Professor of History at American University and author of National Duties: Custom Houses and the Making of the American State.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/098

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097 How to Organize Your Research (Doing History)

Tue, 30 Aug 2016 05:00:00 -0400

What do historians do with all of the information they collect when they research?

How do they access their research in a way that allows them to find the information they need to write the books and articles we enjoy reading?

Billy Smith, a Professor of History at Montana State University, joins us as part of our “Doing History: How Historians Work” series to lead us on an exploration of how historians organize and access their research.

About the Series

“Doing History” episodes will introduce you to historians who will tell you what they know about the past and reveal how they came to their knowledge.

Each episode will air on the last Tuesday of each month in 2016.

This series is part of a partnership between Ben Franklin’s World and the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/097

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096 The Origins of Racial Segregation in the United States

Tue, 23 Aug 2016 05:00:00 -0400

Ever wonder how the United States’ problem with race developed and why early American reformers didn’t find a way to fix it during the earliest days of the republic?

Today, Nicholas Guyatt, author of Bind Us Apart: How Enlightened Americans Invented Racial Segregation, leads us on an exploration of how and why the idea of separate but equal developed in the early United States.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/096

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095 A Tale of Two Bostons

Tue, 16 Aug 2016 05:00:00 -0400

The City Upon a Hill. The Athens of America. The Cradle of Liberty.

Boston has many names because it has played important roles in the history of North America. But how did Boston, or “The Hub,” come to be?

Why did the Puritans who sailed from England in 1630, choose to settle in Massachusetts Bay on the Shawmut Peninsula?

What were their early days like?

Today, we explore answers to those questions by exploring the history of the two Bostons—Boston, England & Boston, New England— during the 17th century with Rose Doherty, President of the Partnership of Historic Bostons.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/095

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094 Founding Friendships

Tue, 09 Aug 2016 05:00:00 -0400

Who are you friends with?

Why are you friends with your friends?

In the early American republic, men and women formed and maintained friendships for many of the same reasons we make friends today: companionship, shared interests, and, in some cases, because they helped expand thinking and social circles.

Today, we explore friendship in the early American republic. Specifically, we investigate what it was like for men and women to form and maintain friendships with each other. Our guide for this exploration is Cassandra Good, author of Founding Friendships: Friendships Between Men & Women in the Early American Republic.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/094

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093 Harvard University & Colonial North America

Tue, 02 Aug 2016 05:00:00 -0400

What can the collections of the Harvard University Libraries teach us about our early American past?

It turns out, quite a lot.

Taylor Stoermer, a Visiting Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, takes us through the Harvard Libraries’ new digital and free-to-use history archive: the Colonial North American Project.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/093

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092 How to Research History Online (Doing History)

Tue, 26 Jul 2016 05:00:00 -0400

How do historians conduct research online? This is your second-most asked question after how did everyday people live their day-to-day lives in early America.

As the “Doing History” series explores how historians work, it offers the perfect opportunity to answer your question.

Sharon Block, a Professor of History at the University of California-Irvine, has made use of computers and digital resources to do history for years, which is why she serves as our guide for how to research history online.

About the Series

“Doing History” episodes will introduce you to historians who will tell you what they know about the past and reveal how they came to their knowledge.

Each episode will air on the last Tuesday of each month in 2016.

This series is part of a partnership between Ben Franklin’s World and the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/092

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091 Rumors, Legends, & Hoaxes in Early America

Tue, 19 Jul 2016 05:00:00 -0400

Did you know that George Washington’s favorite drink was whiskey?

Actually, it wasn’t.

Washington preferred Madeira, a fortified Portuguese wine from the island of Madeira. Why the false start to today’s exploration of history?

Gregory Dowd, a Professor of History and American Culture at the University of Michigan, leads us on an exploration of rumors, legends, and hoaxes that circulated throughout early America.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/091

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090 Age of American Revolutions

Tue, 12 Jul 2016 05:00:00 -0400

The American Revolution inspired revolutions in France, the Caribbean, and in Latin and South America between the late 18th and mid-19th centuries.

Naturally, Spanish and Portuguese American revolutionaries turned to the United States for assistance with their fights. How did Americans in the United States respond to these calls for assistance? What did they make of these other “American Revolutions?”

Caitlin Fitz, an Assistant Professor of History at Northwestern University and the author of Our Sister Republics: The United States in an Age of American Revolutions, helps us investigate answers to these questions.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/090

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089 Slavery & Freedom in Early Maryland

Tue, 05 Jul 2016 05:00:00 -0400

How do you uncover the life of a slave who left no paper trail?

What can her everyday life tell us about slavery, how it was practiced, and how some slaves made the transition from slavery to freedom?

Today, we explore the life of Charity Folks, an enslaved woman from Maryland who gained her freedom in the late-18th century. Our guide through Charity’s life is Jessica Millward, an Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Irvine and author of Finding Charity’s Folk: Enslaved and Free Black Women in Maryland.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/089

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088 The History of History Writing (Doing History)

Tue, 28 Jun 2016 05:00:00 -0400

Historians rely on secondary historical sources almost as much as they rely on primary historical sources.

But what are secondary historical sources and how do they help historians know what they know about the past?

Michael McDonnell, an Associate Professor of History at the University of Sydney, guides us through how he used secondary historical sources to investigate the pivotal role Native Americans played in the history of the Great Lakes region and early North America.

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This episode is part of the "Doing History: How Historians Work" series.

“Doing History” episodes will introduce you to historians who will tell you what they know about the past and reveal how they came to their knowledge.

Each episode will air on the last Tuesday of each month in 2016.

This series is part of a partnership between Ben Franklin’s World and the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/088

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087 Shays' Rebellion

Tue, 21 Jun 2016 05:00:00 -0400

After achieving independence from Great Britain, the new United States and its member states had to pay war debts. As the national government lacked the power to tax its citizens, the problem of paying war debts fell to the states.

Many states tried to solve the post-war debt problem by paying state debts before national debts. But Massachusetts tried to pay both. Its strategy created hardship for many Bay Staters and ultimately sparked a rebellion.

Sean Condon, a Professor of History at Merrimack College and author of Shays's Rebellion: Authority and Distress in Post-Revolutionary America, joins us to investigate the rebellion, which we remember today as Shays’ Rebellion.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/087

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086 Benjamin Franklin in London

Tue, 14 Jun 2016 05:00:00 -0400

Over the course of his long life, Benjamin Franklin traveled to and lived in London twice. The first time he went as a teenager. The second as a man and colonial agent. All told he spent nearly 18 years living in the heart of the British Empire.

How did Franklin’s experiences in London shape his opportunities and view of the world?

George Goodwin, author of Benjamin Franklin in London: The British Life of America’s Founding Father, leads us on an exploration of Franklin’s life in London.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/086

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085 American Loyalists in Canada

Tue, 07 Jun 2016 05:00:00 -0400

The War for Independence was a conflict between Great Britain and her 13 North American colonies. It was also a civil war.

Not only did the war pit Briton against Briton when the conflict began in 1775, but it also pitted American against American.

But what happened to the Americans who lost?

Today, Bonnie Huskins, coordinator of Loyalist Studies at the University of New Brunswick, joins us to explore the experiences of the American Loyalists.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/085

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084 How Historians Read Historical Sources (Doing History)

Tue, 31 May 2016 05:00:00 -0400

What do historians do with historical sources once they find them?

How do they read them for information about the past?

Today, Zara Anishanslin, an Assistant Professor of History at CUNY’s College of Staten Island, leads us on an exploration of how historians read historical source by taking us through the documents and objects left behind by four, everyday people.

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This episode is part of the "Doing History: How Historians Work" series.

“Doing History” episodes will introduce you to historians who will tell you what they know about the past and reveal how they came to their knowledge.

Each episode will air on the last Tuesday of each month in 2016.

This series is part of a partnership between Ben Franklin’s World and the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/084

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083 Unfreedom: Slavery in Colonial Boston

Tue, 24 May 2016 05:00:00 -0400

Colonial Bostonians practiced slavery. But slavery in Boston looked very different than slavery in the American south or in the Caribbean.

Today, Jared Hardesty, an Assistant Professor of History at Western Washington University and author of Unfreedom: Slavery and Dependence in Eighteenth-Century Boston, takes us on a tour of slavery, and the lives enslaved people lived, in colonial Boston.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/083

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082 Information & Communication in the Early American South

Tue, 17 May 2016 05:00:00 -0400

We live in an age of information. The internet provides us with 24/7 access to all types of information—news, how-to articles, sports scores, entertainment news, and congressional votes.

But what do we do with all of this knowledge? How do we sift through and interpret all it all?

We are not the first people to ponder these questions.

Today, Alejandra Dubcovsky, an Assistant Professor at Yale University and author of Informed Power: Communication in the Early South, takes us through the early American south and how the Native Americans, Europeans, and enslaved Africans who lived there acquired, used, and traded information.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/082

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081 After Yorktown: The Final Struggle for American Independence

Tue, 10 May 2016 05:00:00 -0400

When did the fighting of the American War for Independence end?

In school we learn that the war came to an end at Yorktown. But, this lesson omits all of the fighting that took place after Charles, Earl Cornwallis’ surrender in October 1781.

Today, Don Glickstein, author of After Yorktown: The Final Struggle for American Independence, takes us on a whirlwind and global tour of the fighting that took place after Yorktown.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/081

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080 Liberty's Prisoners: Prisons & Prison Life in Early America

Tue, 03 May 2016 05:00:00 -0400

American prisons are overcrowded. The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world and nearly 2.5 million Americans are serving prison sentences.

Nearly all politicians agree that we need to reform the American prison system, but they disagree on how to do it.

Can gaining historical perspective on this present-day problem help us solve it?

Today, we investigate early American prisons and prison life with Jen Manion, an Assistant Professor of History at Connecticut College and author of Liberty’s Prisoners: Carceral Culture in Early America.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/080

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079 What is a Historical Source? (Doing History)

Tue, 26 Apr 2016 05:00:00 -0400

Historians research the past through historical sources.

But what are the materials that tell historians about past peoples, places, and events?

Today, James Horn, the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Jamestown Rediscovery Foundation, helps us investigate historical sources by taking us on an exploration of historic Jamestown and the types of sources that inform what we know about it.

Doing History Series

This episode is part of the "Doing History: How Historians Work" series.

“Doing History” episodes will introduce you to historians who will tell you what they know about the past and reveal how they came to their knowledge.

Each episode will air on the last Tuesday of each month in 2016.

This series is part of a partnership between Ben Franklin’s World and the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/079

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078 Washington Brotherhood: Politics, Social Life, and the Coming of the Civil War

Tue, 19 Apr 2016 05:00:00 -0400

The United States is in midst of a political and cultural divide.

The last time the United States faced this deep of a division, the nation descended into Civil War.

Can history help us solve our present-day political and cultural crisis?

Today, we investigate whether the past might help us with the present with Rachel Shelden, author of Washington Brotherhood: Politics, Social Life, and the Coming of the Civil War.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/078

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077 The Oregon Trail

Tue, 12 Apr 2016 05:00:00 -0400

Do you have what it takes to be a pioneer?

If offered the opportunity, would you undertake a journey across the Oregon Trail in a mule-pulled covered wagon?

Today, we explore the Oregon Trail past and present with Rinker Buck, author of The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/077

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076 Citizen Sailors: Becoming American in the Age of Revolution

Tue, 05 Apr 2016 05:00:00 -0400

What did it mean to be a citizen during the late-18th and early-19th centuries?

Why and how did early American sailors seem intent on proving their citizenship to the United States?

In this episode, we explore citizenship and maritime life during the Age of Revolutions with Nathan Perl-Rosenthal, an Assistant Professor of History and Spatial Sciences at the University of Southern California and author of Citizen Sailors: Becoming American in the Age of Revolution.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/076

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075 How Archives Work (Doing History)

Tue, 29 Mar 2016 05:00:00 -0400

Historians research history in archives.

But how do you gain access to one? And how do you use an archive once you find that it likely contains the information you seek?

In this third episode of our “Doing History: How Historians Work” series, we investigate how archives work with Peter Drummey, an archivist and the Stephen T. Riley Librarian at the Massachusetts Historical Society.

Doing History Series

This episode is part of the "Doing History: How Historians Work" series.

“Doing History” episodes will introduce you to historians who will tell you what they know about the past and reveal how they came to their knowledge.

Each episode will air on the last Tuesday of each month in 2016.

This series is part of a partnership between Ben Franklin’s World and the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/075

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074 Martha Washington

Tue, 22 Mar 2016 05:00:00 -0400

George Washington stands as one of the most famous Americans in history, but what do we know of his helpmeet and partner, Martha?

Who was the woman who stood beside and encouraged Washington?

How did she assist him as he led the Continental Army and governed a new nation?

Today, we investigate the life of Martha Washington with Mary Wigge, Research Editor at the Martha Washington Papers Project.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/074

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073 The Bible in Early America

Tue, 15 Mar 2016 05:00:00 -0400

What role did the Bible play in the development of British North America and the early United States?

How did the settlement of numerous religious groups in the thirteen American colonies affect the politics and religion of both the colonies and early United States?

Today, we address these questions by exploring the place of the Bible in early America. Our guide for this exploration is Mark Noll, the Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame and the author of In the Beginning Was the Word The Bible in American Public Life, 1492-1783.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/073

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072 The American Civil War

Tue, 08 Mar 2016 06:00:00 -0400

The American Civil War took place over 150 years ago.

The war claimed over 600,000 American lives and its legacy affects the way present-day Americans view civil rights and race relations.

The Civil War stands as an important, watershed event in United States history, which is why, in today’s episode, we will discuss the event with Civil War historian Ari Kelman, Professor of History at the Pennsylvania State University.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/072

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071 Saratoga and Hubbardton, 1777

Tue, 01 Mar 2016 06:00:00 -0400

Historians refer to the Battle of Saratoga as the “turning point” of the American Revolution.

They argue the Patriot Army’s defeat of British General John Burgoyne’s forces convinced the French to enter the War for Independence. Together, the Franco and American forces cornered Charles, Earl Cornwallis at Yorktown in 1781 and ended the war.

This is the quick version of Saratoga, but as we know, history is more complicated.

Today, we explore the Saratoga Campaign of 1777 in more depth with Bruce M. Venter, author of The Battle of Hubbardton: The Rear Guard Action that Saved America.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/071

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070 How Historians Research (Doing History)

Tue, 23 Feb 2016 06:00:00 -0400

How did enslaved African and African American women experience slavery?

What were their daily lives like?

And how do historians know as much as they do about enslaved women?

Today, we explore the answers to these questions with Jennifer L. Morgan, a Professor of History and Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University and our guide for an investigation into how historians research history.

Doing History Series

This episode is part of the "Doing History: How Historians Work" series.

“Doing History” episodes will introduce you to historians who will tell you what they know about the past and reveal how they came to their knowledge.

Each episode will air on the last Tuesday of each month in 2016.

This series is part of a partnership between Ben Franklin’s World and the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/070

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069 Law, Order, and Sexual Misconduct in Colonial New England

Tue, 16 Feb 2016 06:00:00 -0400

Law and order stood as a sign of civilization for many 17th-century Europeans, which is why some of the first European settlers in North America created systems of law and order in their new homeland.

Today, we explore the legal history of colonial New England with Abby Chandler, author of Law and Sexual Misconduct in New England 1650-1750.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/069

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068 Founders' Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln

Tue, 09 Feb 2016 06:00:00 -0400

Abraham Lincoln grew up as the son of a poor farmer. Yet, he became the 16th President of the United States.

How did the son of a poor farmer achieve election to the presidency?

Today, we investigate the life of Abraham Lincoln and his journey to the presidency with Richard Brookhiser, author of Founders' Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/068

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067 An Environmental History of Early California & Hawaii

Tue, 02 Feb 2016 06:00:00 -0400

Aside from nice weather, what do California and Hawaii have in common?

Spanish longhorn cattle.

Today, we explore how Spanish longhorn cattle influenced the early American and environmental histories of California and Hawaii with John Ryan Fischer, author of Cattle Colonialism: An Environmental History of the Conquest of California and Hawaii.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/067

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066 How Historians Find Their Research Topics (Doing History)

Tue, 26 Jan 2016 06:00:00 -0400

How did average, poor, and enslaved men and women live their day-to-day lives in the early United States?

Today, we explore the answers to that question with Simon P. Newman, a Professor of History at the University of Glasgow and our guide for an investigation into how historians choose their research topics.

Doing History Series

This episode is part of the "Doing History: How Historians Work" series.

“Doing History” episodes will introduce you to historians who will tell you what they know about the past and reveal how they came to their knowledge.

Each episode will air on the last Tuesday of each month in 2016.

This series is part of a partnership between Ben Franklin’s World and the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/066

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Bonus: Why Historians Study History (Doing History)

Fri, 22 Jan 2016 06:00:00 -0400

History is about people, but what do we know about the people behind history’s scenes?

Who are the people who tell us what we know about our past?

How do they come to know what they know?

Today, we begin our year-long “Doing History” series with a special bonus episode about historians and why they do the work that they do.

Doing History Series

This episode is part of the "Doing History: How Historians Work" series.

“Doing History” episodes will introduce you to historians who will tell you what they know about the past and reveal how they came to their knowledge.

Each episode will air on the last Tuesday of each month in 2016.

This series is part of a partnership between Ben Franklin’s World and the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/historians

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065 Washington's Spies: The Story of America's First Spy Network

Tue, 19 Jan 2016 06:00:00 -0400

Today, we explore espionage during the American Revolution and the origins and operations of the Culper Spy Ring with Alexander Rose, author of Washington’s Spies: The Story of America’s First Spy Ring and a historian, writer, and producer for AMC’s television drama TURN.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/065

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064 Native American Slavery in New France

Tue, 12 Jan 2016 06:00:00 -0400

Most early Americans practiced chattel slavery: the practice of treating slaves as property that people could buy, sell, trade, and use as they would draught animals or real estate.

But, did you know that some early Americans practiced a different type of slavery?

Today, we investigate the practice of Native American or indigenous slavery, a little-known aspect of early American history, with Brett Rushforth, author of Bonds of Alliance: Indigenous and Atlantic Slaveries in New France.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/064

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063 Ruin Nation: Destruction and the American Civil War

Tue, 05 Jan 2016 06:00:00 -0400

The American Civil War claimed more than 620,000 American lives.

Did you know that it also cost American forests, landscapes, cities, and institutions?

Today, we explore the different types of ruination wrought by the American Civil War with Megan Kate Nelson, author of Ruin Nation: Destruction and the American Civil War.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/063

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062 The Bill of Rights

Tue, 29 Dec 2015 06:00:00 -0400

Did you know that when James Madison originally proposed the Bill of Rights, it consisted of 36 amendments and that the House of Representatives did not want to consider or debate Madison’s proposed amendments to the Constitution?

Today, we explore the Bill of Rights and its ratification with Carol Berkin, author of The Bill of Rights: The Fight to Secure America’s Liberties.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/062

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061 George Washington in Retirement

Tue, 22 Dec 2015 06:00:00 -0400

If you had only six years to enjoy retirement what would you do?

Would you improve your plantation? Build canals? Or work behind-the-scenes to unite your country by framing a new central government?

These were just some of the activities undertaken by George Washington during his brief retirement from public service between 1783 and 1789.

Today, we explore the brief retirement of George Washington with Edward Larson, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in history and author of The Return of George Washington, 1783-1789.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/061

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060 Braddock's Defeat: The Battle of the Monongahela and the Road to Revolution

Tue, 15 Dec 2015 06:00:00 -0400

Did Washington really start the French and Indian War?

Why should we remember a battle that took place over 260 years ago?

In this episode, we investigate the answers to those questions as we explore the Battle of the Monongahela with David Preston, author of Braddock’s Defeat: The Battle of the Monongahela and the Road to Revolution.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/060

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059 Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad

Tue, 08 Dec 2015 06:00:00 -0400

Between the 1830s and 1860s, a clandestine communications and transportation network called the “Underground Railroad” helped thousands of slaves escape to freedom.

Today, we will investigate and explore this secret network with Eric Foner, a Pulitzer Prize winning historian and author of Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/059

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058 Fighting over the Founders: How We Remember the American Revolution

Tue, 01 Dec 2015 06:00:00 -0400

Why do we refer to the men who founded the United States as the “founding fathers?”

Why do we choose to remember the American Revolution as a glorious event that had almost universal, colonial support when in fact, the Revolution’s events were bloody, violent, and divisive?

Today, we explore our memory of the American Revolution and how our memory of the event and its participants evolved with Andrew Schocket, author of Fighting over the Founders: How We Remember the American Revolution.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/058

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057 War, Money, and the American State, 1783-1867

Tue, 24 Nov 2015 06:00:00 -0400

Do you know what we have in common with our early American forebears?

Taxes.

As Benjamin Franklin stated in 1789, “nothing is certain but death and taxes.” Given the certainty of taxes it seems important that we understand how the United States’ fiscal system developed.

Today, we explore the development of the early American fiscal system with Max Edling, Professor of History at King’s College, London and author of A Hercules in the Cradle: War, Money, and the American State, 1783-1867.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/057

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056 The Anglo-Cherokee War, 1759-1761

Tue, 17 Nov 2015 06:00:00 -0400

Between 1754 and 1763, North Americans participated in the French and Indian War; a world war Europeans call the Seven Years’ War.

As this world war raged, many South Carolinians, Virginians, Britons, and Cherokee people also fought a war for land, trade, and respect.

Today, we explore the Anglo-Cherokee War with Daniel Tortora, author of Carolina in Crisis: Cherokees, Colonists, and Slaves in the American Southeast.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/056

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055 John Jay: Forgotten Founder

Tue, 10 Nov 2015 06:00:00 -0400

Who was John Jay?

Jay played important and prominent roles during the founding of the United States and yet, his name isn’t one that many would list if asked to name founding fathers.

Today, we explore John Jay and his contributions to the founding of the United States with Robb Haberman, associate editor of The Selected Papers of John Jay documentary editing project.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/055

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054 American Exceptionalism: The History of an Idea

Tue, 03 Nov 2015 06:00:00 -0400

The United States is a diverse nation of immigrants and their ancestors. With such diversity, and no one origination point for its people, how do we describe what the United States is and what its people stand for?

What is the underlying ideological current that links Americans together regardless of their ancestral or regional diversity?

We explore “American Exceptionalism” and the ideas it embodies with John D. Wilsey, author of American Exceptionalism and Civil Religion: Reassessing the History of an Idea.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/054

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053 The Salem Witch Trials of 1692

Tue, 27 Oct 2015 05:00:00 -0400

Do you believe in the supernatural? In ghosts, zombies, or perhaps witches?

Today we celebrate All Hallows Eve with an exploration of the specters and witches that haunted 17th-century Massachusetts.

Our guide for this exploration is Emerson W. Baker, author of A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/053

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052 Diplomacy in Black and White: Early United States-Haitian Relations

Tue, 20 Oct 2015 05:00:00 -0400

Much like the United States, the colonists of Saint Domingue (present-day Haiti) sought their independence from France by fighting a war and waging a revolution. However, unlike the Americans, the San Dominguans who fought the war and waged the revolution were predominantly African and Caribbean-born slaves.

We explore the Haitian Revolution and the quest of both the United States and Saint Domingue to establish diplomatic and trade relations with each other. Our guide for this exploration is Ronald A. Johnson, a history professor at Texas State University and author of Diplomacy in Black and White: John Adams, Toussaint L’Ouverture, and Their Atlantic World Alliance.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/052

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051 Frontier Seaport: A History of Early Detroit

Tue, 13 Oct 2015 05:00:00 -0400

Located 600 miles inland from Philadelphia and over 700 miles from Québec City, early Detroit could have been a backwater, a frontier post that Europeans established to protect colonial settlements from Native American attacks.

Yet Detroit emerged as a cosmopolitan entrepôt filled with many different peoples and all of the goods you would expect to find in early Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, or Charleston.

Today, we explore the early history of Detroit with Catherine Cangany, an associate professor of history at the University of Notre Dame and author of Frontier Seaport: Detroit’s Transformation into an Atlantic Entrepôt.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/051

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050 Betsy Ross and the Making of America

Tue, 06 Oct 2015 05:00:00 -0400

How did every day men and women experience life in colonial America?

How did the American Revolution transform their work and personal lives?

Today, we explore the answers to those questions by investigating the life of Betsy Ross with Marla Miller, professor of history at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and author of Betsy Ross and the Making of America.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/050

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049 How the English Became American

Tue, 29 Sep 2015 05:00:00 -0400

Why did England want to establish colonies in North America and how did Englishmen go about establishing them?

We explore the early days of English settlement in North America with Malcolm Gaskill, Professor of History at the University of East Anglia and author of Between Two Worlds: How the English Became American.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/049

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048 Dangerous Guests; Enemy Captives During the War for Independence

Tue, 22 Sep 2015 05:00:00 -0400

When we think about the War for American Independence many of us conjure images of Washington crossing the Delaware, Cornwallis’ surrender at Yorktown, or perhaps the freezing winters at Valley Forge or Jockey Hollow.

What we don’t tend to think about are enemy prisoners of war, the British and German soldiers the patriot militia and Continental Army units captured during and after battles.

Today, we explore the day-to-day experiences of British and German POWs during the War for Independence with Ken Miller, Associate Professor of History at Washington College and author of Dangerous Guests: Enemy Captives and Revolutionary Communities during the War for Independence.

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047 Christian Imperialism: Converting the World in the Early American Republic

Tue, 15 Sep 2015 05:00:00 -0400

Where did the United States fit within the world between 1810 and 1847?

After the United States secured its independence from Great Britain, many Americans looked at the world and wondered about their place within it.

What role would early Americans play in shaping the world around them?

Today, we explore early American conceptions of the world with Emily Conroy-Krutz, an Assistant Professor of History at Michigan State University and author of Christian Imperialism: Converting the World in the Early American Republic.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/047

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046 Whirlwind: The American Revolution & the War That Won It

Tue, 08 Sep 2015 05:00:00 -0400

What caused the American Revolution?

Can we use the term “American Revolution” to describe both the revolution and the War for Independence?

What was the greatest challenge that George Washington and his Continental Army faced during the War for Independence?

In this listener-requested episode, we dive deep into the American Revolution with John Ferling, professor emeritus at the University of West Georgia and author of Whirlwind: The American Revolution and the War That Won It.

Show Notes Page: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/046

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045 Joseph Smith and the Founding of Mormonism

Tue, 01 Sep 2015 05:00:00 -0400

Many Americans associate the state of Utah with Mormons.

But did you know the Mormons almost settled in Texas?

Spencer McBride, an editor with the Joseph Smith Papers Documentary Editing Project, joins us to explore the life of Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism and the Church of Latter Day Saints.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/045

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044 The Vegetarian Crusade: The Rise of an American Reform Movement

Tue, 25 Aug 2015 05:00:00 -0400

Do you know which early American reform movement pushed for abolition, women’s rights, pacifism, and economic growth?

Today, Adam Shprintzen, Assistant Professor of History at Marywood University and author of The Vegetarian Crusade: The Rise of an American Reform Movement, 1817-1921, takes us on a journey through the origins of vegetarianism and the Vegetarian reform movement in the United States.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/044

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043 Rum Maniacs: Alcoholic Insanity in the Early Republic

Tue, 18 Aug 2015 05:00:00 -0400

How and when did doctors become respected professionals in American society?

The answer lies in early Americans’ fascination with delirium tremens, or alcoholic insanity, and the Temperance Movement of the early-to-mid 19th century.

Matthew Osborn, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and author of Rum Maniacs: Alcoholic Insanity in the Early Republic, leads us on an exploration of early American medical history and reform movements.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/043

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Bonus: The Boston Stamp Act Riots

Fri, 14 Aug 2015 05:00:00 -0400

“No Taxation Without Representation!”

August 14, 2015 marks the 250th anniversary of the first Boston Stamp Act riot.

Today’s bonus episode commemorates the anniversary with a conversation about the Stamp Act, the Boston riots, and the American Revolution with J.L. Bell, proprietor of Boston1775.net.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/stampact

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042 A History of the Republican Party

Tue, 11 Aug 2015 04:30:00 -0400

Is the Republican Party, the party of Abraham Lincoln?

The United States has entered presidential primary season, which means it won’t be long before a Republican presidential candidate or a reporter mentions the birth of the ‘Grand Old Party’ in 1854 and its association with Lincoln.

We explore the history of the Republican Party with Heather Cox Richardson, Professor of History at Boston College and author of To Make Men Free: A History of the Republican Party.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/042

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041 Canada and the American Revolution

Tue, 04 Aug 2015 05:00:00 -0400

Did Canada almost join the American Revolution?

In September 1775, Major-General Philip Schuyler launched the Patriot’s invasion into Canada. The Patriots hoped to end the threat of a British invasion from the north by occupying Canada and bringing the colony into the American Revolution.

Did the Patriots’ plans work?

Today, we discuss Canada and how the American Revolution played out there with Bruno Paul Stenson, an historian and musicologist with the Château de Ramezay historic site in Montréal. Château de Ramezay served as the headquarters for the American forces between 1775 and 1776.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/041

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040 For Fear of an Elective King: George Washington & the Presidential Title Controversy of 1789

Tue, 28 Jul 2015 05:00:00 -0400

Today we address the President of the United States as “Mr. President.” But did you know that the proper title for the office was almost “His Highness the President?”

Kathleen Bartoloni-Tuazon, author of For Fear of an Elective King, leads us on an exploration of the presidential title controversy of 1789, the first controversy to wrack the United States Congress.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/040

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039 The Royalist Revolution: Monarchy and the American Founding

Tue, 21 Jul 2015 05:00:00 -0400

The American Revolution was a revolution against Parliament not a king.

This is the idea offered by Eric Nelson in his new book The Royalist Revolution: Monarchy and the American Founding.

We explore the royalist revolution and how it affected the American Revolution with Eric Nelson, Professor of Government at Harvard University.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/039

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038 Magna Carta & Its Gifts to North America

Tue, 14 Jul 2015 04:30:00 -0400

Are you ready to time travel?

2015 marks the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta, a document created to limit the powers of King John of England and his successors in 1215.

Today, Magna Carta and its four key principles continue to influence and inspire the governments of English-speaking countries around the world, including the United States and Canada.

We explore Magna Carta and its long legacy with Carolyn Harris, author of Magna Carta and Its Gifts to Canada: Democracy, Law, and Human Rights.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/038

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037 Independence Lost: Lives on the Edge of the American Revolution

Tue, 07 Jul 2015 05:00:00 -0400

What battle proved to be the turning point of the American War for Independence?

If you answered Saratoga, you are in general agreement with most scholars of the American Revolution.

General John Burgoyne’s surrender to the Continental Army on October 17, 1777 demonstrated to France that the American had what it took to defeat the British Army and France entered the war on the behalf of the United States.

And with France came Spain.

Today, we explore the consequences of Spanish involvement in the War for American Independence with Kathleen DuVal, professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and author of Independence Lost: Lives on the Edge of the American Revolution.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/037

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036 Competing Visions of Empire

Tue, 30 Jun 2015 05:00:00 -0400

How and where did the colonies of North America and the Caribbean fit within the British Empire?

The answer to this question depends on whether you explore the views of a British imperial officer, such as the King of England, or a colonist who lived in one of the North American or Caribbean colonies.

In today’s episode, Abigail Swingen, professor of history at Texas Tech University and author of Competing Visions of Empire: Labor, Slavery, and the Origins of the British Atlantic Empire, leads us on an exploration of how colonists and British imperial officers viewed the colonies and their place within the British Empire during the late 17th and early 18th centuries.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/036

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Bonus: Lafayette & the Hermione

Fri, 26 Jun 2015 05:00:00 -0400

Who was the Marquis de Lafayette? How did he make the Patriots’ success in the American Revolution possible? And why did a group known as the Friends of Hermione-Lafayette in America build an exact replica of the French frigate that brought Lafayette to the United States?

These are just some of the questions that Miles Young, President of the Friends of Hermione-Lafayette in America, will answer in this listener-requested episode.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/lafayette

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035 Historic Hudson Valley and Washington Irving

Tue, 23 Jun 2015 05:00:00 -0400

Washington Irving was an historian and writer. Some historians and biographers have called him the first great American author.

Today, Michael Lord, Director of Education at Historic Hudson Valley, joins us to explore the life of Washington Irving, his home, Sunnyside, and the historic Hudson Valley region that he immortalized in stories such as Diedrich Knickerbocker’s History of New York, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” and “Rip Van Winkle.”

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/035

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034 Andrew Jackson, Southerner

Tue, 16 Jun 2015 05:30:00 -0400

The Hero of New Orleans. Old Hickory. General. President of the United States. Andrew Jackson held and embodied all of these titles and nicknames.

During his lifetime, Jackson served as one of the most popular presidents and yet, today we remember him as a controversial figure given his views on slavery, Native Americans, and banks.

Mark R. Cheathem, professor of history at Cumberland University and author of Andrew Jackson, Southerner, leads us on an exploration of the life and times of Andrew Jackson.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/034

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033 George Washington and His Library

Tue, 09 Jun 2015 05:00:00 -0400

When you think about George Washington, what image comes to mind?

Washington the general?

Washington the president?

Perhaps, Washington the gentleman farmer of Mount Vernon?

But did you know that George Washington loved to read?

In this episode, we chat with Douglas Bradburn, the Founding Director of the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington, which serves as the George Washington Presidential Library.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/033

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032 One Colonial Woman's World

Tue, 02 Jun 2015 05:00:00 -0400

What was everyday life like for average men and women in early America?

Listeners ask this question more than any other question and today we continue to try to answer it.

Michelle Marchetti Coughlin, author of One Colonial Woman's World: The Life and Writings of Mehetabel Chandler Coit, joins us to explore the life of an average woman who lived in early New England.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/032

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031 Benjamin Franklin and the Papers of Benjamin Franklin Editorial Project

Tue, 26 May 2015 05:00:00 -0400

Benjamin Franklin’s life spanned almost the entire 18th century.

Between his birth on January 17, 1706 and his death on April 17, 1790, Franklin lived well-traveled and accomplished life.

Michael D. Hattem, research assistant for the Papers of Benjamin Franklin documentary editing project, leads us on an exploration of the life and deeds of Benjamin Franklin.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/031

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030 Rally the Scattered Believers: Northern New England's Religious Geography

Tue, 19 May 2015 05:00:00 -0400

You may know the stereotype of the “busibody New Englander,” the person who knows all about their neighbors’ private affairs.

This stereotype comes from the New England town-church ideal: The idea that ministers and congregants of the town church had a responsibility to maintain civic and moral order in their town.

Shelby M. Balik, Assistant Professor of History at Metropolitan State University of Denver and author of Rally the Scattered Believers: Northern New England’s Religious Geography, joins us to explore the New England town-church ideal, how it helped New Englanders organize their towns, and why the post-Revolution migration into northern New England forced New Englanders to change and adapt how they maintained civic and moral order in their towns.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/030

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029 The Victory with No Name: The Native American Defeat of the First American Army

Tue, 12 May 2015 05:00:00 -0400

Can you name the battle that took place between the United States Army and the Miami Confederacy on November 4, 1791?

It's a trick question. You can’t name the battle because the victory has no name.

Colin Calloway, Professor of History and Native American History at Dartmouth College, joins us to discuss how American settlement in the Ohio Valley led to The Victory with No Name: The Native American Defeat of the First American Army.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/029

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Bonus: We Are One: Mapping America's Road from Revolution to Independence

Fri, 08 May 2015 05:00:00 -0400

What can maps tell us about the past?

How do maps affect the way we view events such as the American Revolution?

The Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library has a new, traveling exhibition called We Are One: Mapping America’s Road from Revolution to Independence, which seeks to help us change the way we look at and explore the tumultuous events that led thirteen colonies to break away from Great Britain and forge a new nation.

Michelle LeBlanc, Director of Education and Public Programming at the Leventhal Map Center joins us to explore maps as historical documents and this amazing new exhibit.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/maps

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028 Building the Erie Canal

Tue, 05 May 2015 05:00:00 -0400

A “little short of madness.” That is how Thomas Jefferson responded when two delegates from New York approached him with the idea to build the Erie Canal in January 1809.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/028

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027 A History of Stepfamilies in Early America

Tue, 28 Apr 2015 05:00:00 -0400

What do George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Abraham Lincoln have in common?

They all grew-up in blended or stepfamilies.

Lisa Wilson, the Charles J. MacCurdy Professor of American History at Connecticut College and author of A History of Stepfamilies in Early America, leads us on an exploration of blended and stepfamilies in early America.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/027

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026 Washington's Revolution

Tue, 21 Apr 2015 05:00:00 -0400

What drove George Washington to become a Patriot during the American Revolution?

How did he overcome the ill-trained and inexperienced troops, inadequate pay, and supply problems that plagued the Continental Army to win the War for American Independence?

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/026

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025 Inventing George Whitefield

Tue, 14 Apr 2015 05:00:00 -0400

Do you know who George Whitefield was?

George Whitefield stood as one of the most visible figures in British North America between the 1740s and 1770. He was a central figure in the trans-Atlantic revivalist movement and a man whose legacy remains influential to evangelical Christians today.

Historian Jessica Parr, author of Inventing George Whitefield: Race, Revivalism, and the Making of a Religious Icon, introduces us to the Reverend George Whitefield.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/025

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Bonus: Longfellow's Wayside Inn

Fri, 10 Apr 2015 05:00:00 -0400

In this bonus episode, we explore a listener requested topic of colonial inns and taverns by investigating the history of the oldest inn still in operation: Longfellow’s Wayside Inn.

The Wayside Inn served as the inspiration for Henry Wadsworth Longfellows poetry collection "Tales of a Wayside Inn," in which you will find his poem "The Landlord's Tale," better known as "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere."

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/wayside

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024 18th-Century Fashion and Material Culture

Tue, 07 Apr 2015 05:00:00 -0400

What can John Hancock’s suit tell you about the man who wore it?

The clothing a person wears tells you a lot about them: Whether they are rich or poor, what kind of work they do, what colors they like, and what they value.

We know that John Hancock was a wealthy merchant and prominent politician, but did you know that his suit reveals even more about his life and personality than the documents and portraits he left behind?

Museum professional and textiles expert Kimberly Alexander joins us to explore the world of 18th-century fashion and material culture and what objects like John Hancock's suit communicate about the past.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/024

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023 Early American History with the JuntoCast

Tue, 31 Mar 2015 05:00:00 -0400

Have you ever wondered what happens when four historians get together to talk about early American history?

In this episode, we chat with three young and promising historians of early America: Michael Hattem, Roy Rogers, and Ken Owen. All three scholars discuss history at the Junto Blog, A Group Blog on Early American History and as regular panelists on the JuntoCast, a monthly podcast about Early American History.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/023

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022 Deborah Read Franklin & Sally Franklin Bache: Benjamin Franklin's Women

Tue, 24 Mar 2015 05:00:00 -0400

Have you heard the saying that behind every great man stands a great woman?

Vivian Bruce Conger, the Robert Ryan Professor in the Humanities at Ithaca College, joins us to explore the two great women that Benjamin Franklin had standing behind and beside him: his wife, Deborah Read Franklin, and his daughter, Sally Franklin Bache.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/022

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021 Smuggling in Colonial America & Living History

Tue, 17 Mar 2015 05:00:00 -0400

Do you know that John Hancock was a smuggler?

Smuggling presented a large problem for the imperial governments of Great Britain and France during the colonial period.

Eugene Tesdahl, an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville, joins us to discuss the early American business of smuggling and his involvement with living history as a French and Indian War-era re-enactor.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/021

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020 Four Steeples Over the City Streets

Tue, 10 Mar 2015 05:00:00 -0400

Have you ever wondered about how early American men, women, and slaves worshipped?

Religion played a large role in why some Europeans settled in British North America.

The Puritans of New England, the German Protestants of the Mid-Atlantic region, and the Catholics of Maryland all migrated to North America to worship freely, to name but a few religious groups in colonial North America.

Kyle T. Bulthuis, Assistant Professor of History at Utah State University and author of Four Steeples Over the City Streets: Religion and Society in New York’s Early Republic Congregations, takes us on an exploration of early American religious life.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/020

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019 The Colonial Boston Marketplace

Tue, 03 Mar 2015 06:00:00 -0400

Have you ever wondered where colonial Americans purchased their food?

Although many colonial Americans lived in rural areas or on farms where they could grow fruits, vegetables, and herbs, graze their livestock, or hunt wild game, many others lived in early American cities like Boston, Philadelphia, and Charleston.

Where did these colonial city-dwellers get their food?

Kenneth Turino, the Manager of Community Relations and Exhibitions for Historic New England, joins us to explore the colonial Boston marketplace.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/019

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018 Our Declaration

Tue, 24 Feb 2015 06:00:00 -0400

Do you know who authored the Declaration of Independence?

If you answered “Thomas Jefferson,” you would be wrong. Jefferson merely wrote the first draft of a document others created.

In this episode, Danielle Allen, a Professor at Harvard University and author of Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality, leads us on an exploration of the Declaration of Independence.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/018

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017 When the United States Spoke French

Tue, 17 Feb 2015 06:00:00 -0400

Parlez-vous Français?

Do you speak French?

Believe it or not in the 1790s many Americans spoke French. They may not have spoken the French language, but they understood and embraced French culture, art, and culinary traditions.

Early Americans experimented with and adopted many forms of French culture as they sought to define their new identity as Americans.

François Furstenberg, Associate Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University and author of When the United States Spoke French: Five Refugees Who Shaped a Nation, joins us to explore how and why the United States spoke French during the 1790s.

Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/017