New York Almanack

History, Natural History & the Arts

Liz Covart

Liz Covart is the Digital Projects Editor at the Omohundro Institute at the College of William and Mary. She holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of California, Davis. For more information about Liz and her podcast visit lizcovart.com.

The Horse’s Tail: Revolution & Memory in Early New York City

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ben_franklins_worldThe 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 horses’s tail – a remnant of a grand equestrian statue of King George III, which stood in New York City’s Bowling Green park.

This episode of the Ben Franklin’s World podcast investigates 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. [Read more…] about The Horse’s Tail: Revolution & Memory in Early New York City

Speaking with the Dead in Early America

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ben_franklins_worldDeath 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, author of the award-winning book, Speaking with the Dead in Early America (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019), joins the Ben Franklin’s World podcast to investigate how white, American Protestants made their peace with death during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries.

[Read more…] about Speaking with the Dead in Early America

The Origins of Juneteenth (Podcast)

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ben_franklins_worldJuneteenth is a state holiday that commemorates June 19th, 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?

In this episode of the Ben Franklin’s World podcast, 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 (Liveright, 2021).

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An Early History of the Mississippi Gulf Coast

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ben_franklins_worldThe 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.

In this episode of Ben Franklin’s World: A Podcast About Early American History, 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. [Read more…] about An Early History of the Mississippi Gulf Coast

Smallpox in North America: Inoculation to Vaccination, Part 2

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ben_franklins_worldBefore 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 the Ben Franklin’s World podcast series, “From Inoculation to Vaccination.”

[Read more…] about Smallpox in North America: Inoculation to Vaccination, Part 2

Smallpox in North America: Inoculation to Vaccination

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ben_franklins_worldSmallpox 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 of the Ben Franklin’s World podcast, 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. [Read more…] about Smallpox in North America: Inoculation to Vaccination

Vast Early America: The 300th Episode of Ben Franklin’s World

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ben_franklins_worldWhat 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, a podcast about early American history, we posed these questions to more than 30 scholars.

What do they think? Join the celebration to learn more about Early America and take a behind-the-scenes tour of the podcast. [Read more…] about Vast Early America: The 300th Episode of Ben Franklin’s World

The Colonial Virginia Portraits Digital Project (Podcast)

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ben_franklins_worldIn this episode of the Ben Franklin’s World podcast, Janine Yorimoto Boldt,  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.  [Read more…] about The Colonial Virginia Portraits Digital Project (Podcast)

History of the Indian Removal Act of 1830

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ben_franklins_worldThe Indian Removal Act of 1830 is deeply rooted in early American history. In this episode of the Ben Franklin’s World podcast, Claudio Saunt, author of the book Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory (W.W. Norton, 2020), 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. [Read more…] about History of the Indian Removal Act of 1830