Biography

An Abandoned Canal Hides Deep In The Adirondack Woods

October 22, 2020 by Mike Prescott 1 Comment

Farrand Benedict, surveyor and professor of mathematics and engineering at the University of Vermont in Burlington, wrote a proposal for a canal across the Adirondacks in 1846.

His plan was to use the Black River Canal with its connection to the Erie Canal at Rome and build a railroad from Boonville, on the Black River Canal, to Old Forge. He was then going to utilize the Fulton Chain of Lakes, Raquette Lake, Long Lake, the Raquette River and the Saranac Lakes with various lock systems, dams, and inclines to the Saranac River for canal boat traffic. [Read more…] about An Abandoned Canal Hides Deep In The Adirondack Woods

Mapping Empire in the Chesapeake

September 25, 2019 by Liz Covart Leave a Comment

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 (NYU Press, 2017). Christian has researched and written two books about the seventeenth-century Anglo-Dutch World go better understand empires and how they are made. He joins us in this episode of Ben Franklin’s World 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. [Read more…] about Mapping Empire in the Chesapeake

Biography And A Biographer’s Work

June 5, 2019 by Liz Covart Leave a Comment

Have you ever had one of those really interesting conversations where the person was so fascinating that you wished the conversation didn’t have to end?

In this episode of Ben Franklin’s World, 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. [Read more…] about Biography And A Biographer’s Work

Researching Biography: Runaway Slave Ona Judge

November 21, 2018 by Liz Covart Leave a Comment

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 episode of Ben Franklin’s World: A Podcast About Early American History, the final episode in 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 (Simon & Schuster, 2017), takes us into the archives to show us how she recovered the life of Ona Judge. You can listen to the podcast here: www.benfranklinsworld.com/212

Considering John Marshall (Conclusion)

November 14, 2018 by Liz Covart Leave a Comment

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 in this episode of Ben Franklin’s World: A Podcast About Early American History and explores these questions with Richard Brookhiser, author of John Marshall: The Man Who Made The Supreme Court (Basic Books, 2018). You can listen to the podcast here: www.benfranklinsworld.com/211

Considering John Marshall

November 7, 2018 by Liz Covart Leave a Comment

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 in this episode of Ben Franklin’s World: A Podcast About Early American History 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 (Riverhead Books, 2018), joins us to explore the life of John Marshall and how he wrote his biography. You can listen to the podcast here: www.benfranklinsworld.com/210

Considering Biography In Early American History

October 31, 2018 by Liz Covart Leave a Comment

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 of Ben Franklin’s World: A Podcast About Early American History marks the start of the Omohundro Institute’s four-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. You can listen to the podcast here: www.benfranklinsworld.com/209