Mary Mildred Botts Williams (1847–1921) was a light-skinned Black child born into enslavement in Virginia. She became identified in the popular imagination with the character Ida May, the fictional kidnapped white child in Mary Hayden Pike’s novel, Ida May: A Story of Things Actual and Possible (1854). Mary was used as an example of a “white slave” in the years before the Civil War. [Read more…] about Slavery & Race: Mary Mildred Botts Williams, 1847–1921
Boston
America’s First Plague: The Deadly 1793 Yellow Fever Epidemic
During a 1793 outbreak of yellow fever in Philadelphia 5,000 of the city’s 50,000 residents died making it the worst epidemic in American history, with a death rate of 10%. As disease spread, the national government was slow to react but citizens soon donned protective masks and the authorities ordered quarantines. The streets emptied. Doubters questioned the science and disobeyed. [Read more…] about America’s First Plague: The Deadly 1793 Yellow Fever Epidemic
1820s Literary Rivalry: Manhattan Versus Boston
On November 2, 1820, the city of New York‘s Chamber of Commerce placed an advertisement in the Commercial Advertiser and other newspapers inviting merchant clerks to meet in Tontine Coffee House at 82 Wall Street and discuss forming of an organization that would be similar to Boston’s Mercantile Library (founded earlier that same year).
Nearly two hundred and fifty young men responded to the notice and joined the meeting which led to the creation of Manhattan’s Mercantile Library Association. [Read more…] about 1820s Literary Rivalry: Manhattan Versus Boston
A New Virtual Field Trip to Revolutionary Boston
In the 18th century, Boston was one of the most important cities in the British American colonies. It was known for its bustling port, numerous printshops, political ideals, and its lively taverns. In the 1760s and 70s Boston took on a new role of revolutionary host. Boston is the birthplace of the American War for Independence and was not just a key city in the American Revolution strategically, but also symbolically. [Read more…] about A New Virtual Field Trip to Revolutionary Boston
The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley: A Poet’s Journey
Admired by George Washington, ridiculed by Thomas Jefferson, published, and read far and wide, Phillis Wheatley led an extraordinary life. Seized in West Africa and forced into slavery as a child, she was sold to a merchant family in Boston, where she became a noted poet at a young age.
Mastering the Bible, Latin translations, and literary works, she celebrated political events, praised warriors, and used her verse to variously lampoon, question, and assert the injustice of her enslaved condition. [Read more…] about The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley: A Poet’s Journey
Allegiance: The Life and Times of William Eustis
The book Allegiance: The Life and Times of William Eustis (Riverhaven Books, 2021) by Tamsen Evans George creates the vivid portrait of William Eustis, a patriot witness to and participant in many of the major events that shaped American history from the Revolution to the country’s fiftieth anniversary. [Read more…] about Allegiance: The Life and Times of William Eustis
The Revolutionary Samuel Adams
In this episode of Ben Franklin’s World, 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 (Little Brown, 2022).
During this episode, Schiff reveals what we know about Samuel Adams’ life and education; How Adams made politics his career and his successes and failures in politics; And some of the work Adams did transform protests and debates over imperial taxation into a revolution for social and political change. [Read more…] about The Revolutionary Samuel Adams
Boston’s Black Workers in the Civil War Era
In her book No Right to an Honest Living (Basic Books, 2023), Jacqueline Jones reveals how Boston was the United States writ small: a place where the soaring rhetoric of egalitarianism was easy, but justice in the workplace was elusive.
Before, during, and after the Civil War, white abolitionists and Republicans refused to secure equal employment opportunity for Black Bostonians, condemning many of them to poverty. [Read more…] about Boston’s Black Workers in the Civil War Era
Henry Knox, Phillip Schuyler and Lake Champlain’s Cannon in Boston
One of the iconic stories of the American Revolution is the laborious trek of a contingent of newly-minted patriots, led by Henry Knox, lugging cannon from the fort at Crown Point and Fort Ticonderoga to Dorchester Heights, forcing the British to abandon Boston, an important early victory is our long fight for freedom.
Few may realize that important decisions while the expedition was in Saratoga County were key to the success of the mission. [Read more…] about Henry Knox, Phillip Schuyler and Lake Champlain’s Cannon in Boston
The Grimkes: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family
Sarah and Angelina Grimke are revered figures in American history, famous for rejecting their privileged lives on a plantation in South Carolina to become firebrand activists in the North. Yet retellings of their epic story have long obscured their Black relatives. [Read more…] about The Grimkes: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family