In this episode of the Ben Franklin’s World Podcast, David Schmidt, a senior producer at Florentine Films and a senior producer on Ken Burns’ Benjamin Franklin, joins Liz to investigate documentary filmmaking and the life of Benjamin Franklin. [Read more…] about Ken Burns’ Benjamin Franklin Documentary with Producer David Schmidt
Greek Fire: The Greek Revolution in Early America
In this episode of the Ben Franklin’s World Podcast, Maureen Connors Santelli, an Associate Professor of History at Northern Virginia Community College and author of The Greek Fire: American-Ottoman Relations and Democratic Fervor in the Age of Revolutions (Cornell Univ. Press, 2020), joins Liz to investigate the Greek Revolution and early Americans’ reactions to it. [Read more…] about Greek Fire: The Greek Revolution in Early America
Everyday People of the American Revolution
In this episode of the Ben Franklin’s World podcast, 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 (Simon Schuster, 2021), discusses with Liz how we can better see and understand the American Revolution as a whole event.
Holton’s widely acclaimed book describes the origins and crucial battles of the American Revolution from Lexington and Concord to the British surrender at Yorktown, always focusing on marginalized Americans — enslaved Africans and African Americans, Native Americans, women, and dissenters — and on overlooked factors such as weather, North America’s unique geography, chance, misperception, attempts to manipulate public opinion, and (most of all) disease. [Read more…] about Everyday People of the American Revolution
New Netherland: Slavery and Resistance in Dutch New York
In this episode of the Ben Franklin’s World Podcast, 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 (Cornell Univ. Press, 2021), 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. [Read more…] about New Netherland: Slavery and Resistance in Dutch New York
American Expansion and the Political Economy of Plunder
In this episode, Michael Witgen, a Professor of History and a Professor at the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race 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 (Omohundro Institute & Univ. of No. Carolina Press, 2022). [Read more…] about American Expansion and the Political Economy of Plunder
Running From Bondage in Revolutionary America
In this episode of the Ben Franklin’s World podcast, 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 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2021), joins us to investigate the experiences of enslaved women who fled their bondage for the British Army’s promise of freedom. [Read more…] about Running From Bondage in Revolutionary America
Whose Fourth of July?
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 of Ben Franklin’s World, 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 help us 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? [Read more…] about Whose Fourth of July?
Ben Franklin’s Life In London
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. [Read more…] about Ben Franklin’s Life In London
Cuba: An Early American History
One of the places that Christopher Columbus stopped at during his 1492 voyage was an alligator-shaped island at the mouth of the Gulf of Mexico, between the Yucatán and Florida peninsulas – the 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? [Read more…] about Cuba: An Early American History
New France: Ste. Genevieve National Historical Park (Podcast)
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.
In this episode of the Ben Franklin’s World podcast, 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. [Read more…] about New France: Ste. Genevieve National Historical Park (Podcast)