History, Natural History & the Arts
This episode of Ben Franklin’s World is the final of a 5-episode series about music in Early America.
Jon Beebe, a Jazz pianist, professional musician, and an interpretive ranger at the New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park, leads listeners 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. [Read more…] about Jazz & African and African American Musical History
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? This episode of Ben Franklin’s World is the fourth of a 5-episode series about music in Early America.
The exploration continues with 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 (UNC Press, 2020), joins Liz Covart to investigate the role music played in early American politics. [Read more…] about Music and Politics in the Early United States
The exploration continues with Amateur Musicians in the Early 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 (Oxford University Press, 2020) joins Liz Covart to investigate the role of music in the lives of wealthy white Americans during the earliest days of the early American republic. [Read more…] about Amateur Musicians in the Early United States
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? This episode of Ben Franklin’s World is the second of a 5-episode series about music in Early America.
The exploration continues with Anglo-American music in British North America. Liz’s guest is David Hildebrand is a musicologist and an expert on early American music. [Read more…] about Music in British North America
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? This episode of Ben Franklin’s World is the first of a 5-episode series about music in Early America.
The exploration begins with music in Native America. Chad Hamill, an ethnomusicologist who studies Native American and Indigenous music, guides Liz through Native North America’s musical landscapes before European colonization. [Read more…] about Music and Song in Native North America
In 1943 Henry Alexander Murray, a psychologist at Harvard University, was commissioned by William Joseph Donovan (“Wild Bill Donovan”) – founding father of the CIA – to prepare an investigative report on behalf of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS).
Designated as the “Analysis of the Personality of Adolph Hitler,” it became a ground-breaking study in the fields of offender profiling and political psychology. The inquiry into the malignant and narcissistic personality of the Führer was an effort to understand the “charismatic” nature of his leadership and an attempt to “predict” patterns of his behavior and actions. [Read more…] about Bayreuth & New York; Wagner & Bernstein
The weekend of August 24th to 26th in 1979 was supposed to be a significant one in Sullivan County, NY history. Plans had been made for some of the top musical acts in the business to appear at the site of the defunct and burned out Columbia Hotel in Hurleyville for a three-day festival that was envisioned as the precursor to an upscale performance venue that would have reversed the area’s sagging economic fortunes. [Read more…] about The Doomed 1979 Hurleyville Music Festival
Before the arrival of European settlers, the flatland area that would become Harlem (originally: Nieuw Haarlem after the Dutch city of that name) was inhabited by the indigenous Munsee speakers, the Lenape. The first settlers from the Low Countries arrived in the late 1630s.
Harlem was an agricultural center under British rule (attempts to change the name of the community to “Lancaster” failed and the authorities reluctantly adopted the Anglicised name of Harlem). During the American Revolutionary War in September 1776 it was the site of the Battle of Harlem Heights. Later, rich elites built country houses there in order to escape from the city’s dirt and epidemics (Alexander Hamilton built his Harlem estate in 1802). [Read more…] about Harlem on Fire: Langston Hughes & Wallace Henry Thurman
The 30th Annual Finger Lakes Grassroot Festival, featuring over 80 performers on 5 stages over the course of 4 days, has been set for July 21st through 24th, at the Trumansburg Fairgrounds in Trumansburg, in Tompkins County, NY. [Read more…] about 30th Annual Finger Lakes GrassRoots Festival
Albany’s first museum was started in 1798 in a building on the corner of Green and Beaver streets. In the summer of 1808, two royal tigers were housed at the Thespian Hotel, a circus pitched its tent, and Ralph Letton started the Albany Museum.
The Albany Museum was located in the Old City Hall (Stadt Huys) on the northeastern corner of South Market Street and Hudson Avenue (today’s Broadway and Hudson Avenue). The Old City Hall was built in 1741 and was the site of the 1754 Albany Congress meeting where Benjamin Franklin first proposed the Albany Plan, a plan of union of the colonies that later was a basis for the U.S. Constitution. On its steps, the Declaration of Independence was first read to Albany on July 19, 1776 by the order of the Provincial Congress. With the construction of the new building on Eagle Street in 1808, the Old City Hall was converted into the Albany Museum. [Read more…] about The Albany Museum: Curiosities, Circus & Performing Arts