Stay ConnectedThis is a multiple award-winning podcast about early American history. It’s a show for people who love history and who want to know more about the historical people and events that have impacted and shaped our present-day world.
Each episode features conversations with professional historians who help shed light on important people and events in early American history.
Copyright: © Liz Covart 2024
Have you ever wondered about how early American men, women, and slaves worshipped?
Religion played a large role in why some Europeans settled in British North America.
The Puritans of New England, the German Protestants of the Mid-Atlantic region, and the Catholics of Maryland all migrated to North America to worship freely, to name but a few religious groups in colonial North America.
Kyle T. Bulthuis, Assistant Professor of History at Utah State University and author of Four Steeples Over the City Streets: Religion and Society in New York’s Early Republic Congregations, takes us on an exploration of early American religious life.
Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/020
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Have you ever wondered where colonial Americans purchased their food?
Although many colonial Americans lived in rural areas or on farms where they could grow fruits, vegetables, and herbs, graze their livestock, or hunt wild game, many others lived in early American cities like Boston, Philadelphia, and Charleston.
Where did these colonial city-dwellers get their food?
Kenneth Turino, the Manager of Community Relations and Exhibitions for Historic New England, joins us to explore the colonial Boston marketplace.
Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/019
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Do you know who authored the Declaration of Independence?
If you answered “Thomas Jefferson,” you would be wrong. Jefferson merely wrote the first draft of a document others created.
In this episode, Danielle Allen, a Professor at Harvard University and author of Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality, leads us on an exploration of the Declaration of Independence.
Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/018
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Parlez-vous Français?
Do you speak French?
Believe it or not in the 1790s many Americans spoke French. They may not have spoken the French language, but they understood and embraced French culture, art, and culinary traditions.
Early Americans experimented with and adopted many forms of French culture as they sought to define their new identity as Americans.
François Furstenberg, Associate Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University and author of When the United States Spoke French: Five Refugees Who Shaped a Nation, joins us to explore how and why the United States spoke French during the 1790s.
Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/017
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The United States claimed victory in the War of 1812, but did you know that the British nearly won the war by promising freedom to escaped slaves in Virginia and Maryland?
Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Alan Taylor, author of The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832, reveals how Virginia’s “Internal Enemy” almost cost the United States its second war for independence.
Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/016
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In 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue as part of the great European quest to find new routes and shortcuts to the spice islands and territories of Asia.
Spain and Portugal led this quest during the 15th and 16th centuries and their race to access the Asian spice trade caused Columbus to sail unwittingly into the Caribbean and North America.
Columbus’ “discovery” caused European peoples to colonize North and South America. It also encouraged Europeans to keep up their search for new ways to access Asia via water routes through or around these continents.
Joyce E. Chaplin, the James Duncan Phillips Professor of Early American History at Harvard University and author of Round About the Earth: Circumnavigation from Magellan to Orbit, leads us on an exploration of the early history of around-the-world voyages and the impact those voyages had on the peoples and places of the Americas, the Pacific Islands, Asia, and Europe.
Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/015
Helpful Show Links
*Books purchased through this link will help support the production of Ben Franklin's World.
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Did you know that Russian activities in North America caused the Spanish to colonize California?
When we think of North America in 1776, our minds take us to the Atlantic seaboard where inhabitants in thirteen colonies fought Great Britain for independence.
However, as the American Revolution and its War for Independence raged, events occurred elsewhere in North America that would have important implications for the development of the later United States.
Claudio Saunt, the Richard B. Russell Professor of History at the University of Georgia and author of West of the Revolution: An Uncommon History of 1776, joins us to explore events that took place west of the American Revolution.
Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/014
Helpful Show Links
*Books purchased through this link will help support the production of Ben Franklin's World.
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We tend to view gay marriage as a cultural and legal development of the 21st century.
But did you know that some early Americans lived openly in same-sex marriages?
Rachel Hope Cleves, an Associate Professor of History at the University of Victoria in British Columbia and author of Charity & Sylvia: A Same-Sex Marriage in Early America, will reveal the story of Charity Bryant and Sylvia Drake, women who lived openly as a married couple in Weybridge, Vermont between 1807 and 1851.
Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/013
Helpful Show Links
*Books purchased through this link will help support the production of Ben Franklin's World.
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Did you know that Americans undertook their first trade mission to China in February 1784?
In fact, a mercantile partnership led by Robert Morris sent the Empress of China, a 360 ton ship to Canton, China one month and eight days after the Congress of the United States ratified the Treaty of Paris, 1783.
Why did these merchants look so far east to secure a profitable trade? And why did they attempt such a venture not long after the United States secured its independence from Great Britain?
Dane Morrison, Professor of History at Salem State University and author of True Yankees: The South Seas and the Discovery of American Identity helps us discover the answers to these questions and more as he leads us on an exploration of the early American trade with China.
Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/012
Helpful Show Links
*Books purchased through this link will help support the production of Ben Franklin's World.
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Philadelphia, Pennsylvania plays host to many historic sites associated with our early American history: Carpenters Hall, Independence Hall, and the Betsy Ross House represent just a few of this city's historic holdings.
But have you ever heard about, or visited, The Woodlands?
The Woodlands and its founder/developer, William Hamilton played an important role in the architectural and botanical development of Philadelphia and the young United States.
Jessica Baumert, Executive Director of The Woodlands historic site in West Philadelphia, guides us through The Woodlands and its significant architectural and botanical history.
Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/011
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