History, Natural History & the Arts
The Fort Plain Museum and Historical Park has announced the finalists for the 2026 James Kirby Martin Book Prize.
The award honors the memory and scholarly contributions of the late historian James Kirby Martin, the Hugh Roy and Lilli Cranz Cullen University Professor of History at the University of Houston and a member of the Fort Plain Museum board. [Read more…] about James Kirby Martin Book Prize Finalists Announced
When we think about the American Revolution, textbooks, documentaries, and historic sites have trained most of us to think about American triumphs in battles or events when American revolutionaries overcame moments of despair, when all seemed lost, to triumph in the cause of American independence. [Read more…] about Instruments of War: The Great New York Fire of 1776
In this episode of Ben Franklin’s World, Jean Pfaelzer, a Californian and a Professor Emerita of English, Asian Studies, and Women and Gender Studies at the University of Delaware, joins us to lead us through some of California’s long 250-year history of slavery with details from her book, California: A Slave State (Yale University Press, 2023).
When we think of California, we might think about sunny weather, Hollywood, beaches, wine country, and perhaps the Gold Rush. What we don’t usually think about when we think about California is the state’s long history of slavery. [Read more…] about California’s Long History of Slavery
As millions of Irish immigrants and their descendants created community in the United States over the centuries, they neither remained Irish nor simply became American. Instead, they created a culture and defined an identity that was unique to their circumstances, a new people that they would continually reinvent: Irish Americans. [Read more…] about Becoming Irish American: Making and Remaking a People
When we explore the history of early America, we often look at people who lived and the events that took place in North America. But what about the people who lived and worked in European metropoles?
What about Native Americans?
In this episode of Ben Franklin’s World: A Podcast About Early American History, we explore early American history through a slightly different lens, a lens that allows us to see interactions that occurred between Native American peoples and English men and women who lived in London. Our guide for this exploration is Coll Thrush, an Associate Professor of History at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver and author of Indigenous London: Native Travelers at the Heart of the Empire (Yale University Press, 2016). You can listen to the episode here: www.benfranklinsworld.com/132
[Read more…] about Native Travelers at the Heart of the Empire
When we think of Native Americans, many of us think of inland dwellers. People adept at navigating forests and rivers and the skilled hunters and horsemen who lived and hunted on the American plains.
But did you know that Native Americans were seafaring mariners too?
In this episode of the Ben Franklin’s World podcast, Andrew Lipman, an Assistant Professor of History at Barnard College, Columbia University and author of The Saltwater Frontier: Indians and the Contest for the American Coast (Yale University Press, 2016), leads us on an exploration of the northeastern coastline and of the Native American and European peoples who lived there during the seventeenth century. You can listen to this episode here: http: www.benfranklinsworld.com/104
[Read more…] about Saltwater Frontier: Contest for the American Coast
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