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This 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.
- 627 - 456 How the Dutch Republic Helped Win the American Revolution
When we think about the foreign help that won American independence, most of us think of France. But in 1781, John Adams told the leaders of the Dutch Republic that the histories of their two nations seemed "but a transcript" of each other.
Why did Dutch merchants sell weapons to American revolutionaries before the war even began? How did a nobleman's leaked speech and a Leiden newspaper editor sway Dutch opinion toward the American cause? And why did that support pull the Dutch Republic into a disastrous war with Great Britain?
In the first of three episodes on Dutch involvement in the American Revolution, Dirk Alkemade of Leiden University and Matthijs Tieleman of Illinois State University, author of the forthcoming book The Patriot Atlantic, reveal how the Dutch helped the United States win its independence and how the American Revolution inspired a Dutch revolution of its own.
Dirk’s Website
Show Notes:https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/456
This episode was made possible with support from the New Netherland Institute and Dutch Culture, USA, a program of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in the United States to mark America 250.
EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00 Introduction
00:07:05 The Dutch Republic in the 18th Century
00:11:46 Dutch Wealth and the Anglo-Dutch Wars
00:20:05 Dutch Trade and Smuggling in British North America
00:26:07 The Dutch Respond to the American Revolution
00:33:12 Joan Derk van der Capellen and the Dutch Press
00:40:13 Charles Dumas, American Agent
00:45:24 The Fourth Anglo-Dutch War
00:50:08 John Adams in the Dutch Republic
00:54:39 The Dutch Patriots and the U.S. Constitution
01:04:03 1776 in Context: Why Americans Forgot the Dutch
01:12:35 Final Thoughts
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 121: The Dutch Moment in the 17th-Century Atlantic World
🎧 Episode 161: Smuggling and the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 351: Wealth and Slavery in New Netherland
🎧 Episode 433: Entangled Revolutions: France, Haiti, and the American War for Independence
🎧 Episode 438: The American Revolution and the Fate of the World
🎧 Episode 444: The Model Treaty
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Tue, 10 Nov 2026 - 1h 16min - 626 - The Occupied City: New York and the American Revolution
We talk about the 1776 New York Campaign as a series of Continental Army defeats, from Brooklyn in August to Fort Washington’s fall in November. But for New Yorkers, the campaign raised a harder question: How would they survive an occupation that lasted more than seven years?
What did the occupation look like when the Continental Army arrived in spring 1776? How did the British hold the city as they struggled to house, supply, and keep its people loyal? And what did New York City mean to the thousands of people who fled there to escape slavery?
Sarah Henry, Chief Curator Emerita at the Museum of the City of New York, and historian Blake McGready guide us through their exhibition, The Occupied City: New York and the American Revolution.
Museum of the City of New York Website| Exhibit
Show Notes:https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/455
EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00 Introduction
00:04:53 Meet Sarah Henry and Blake McGready
00:06:39 Why the British Wanted New York
00:13:57 New York's Revolutionary Politics
00:20:35 The Continental Army's Occupation of New York
00:26:47 The 1776 New York Campaign
00:31:37 Life in British-Occupied New York
00:42:06 Self-Emancipated People in Occupied New York
00:45:08 A Tour of the Occupied City Exhibition
00:56:30 Evacuation Day and Rebuilding New York
01:03:09 1776 in Context: New York's Revolutionary Legacy
01:07:46 Final Thoughts
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 113: Building the Empire State
🎧 Episode 189: The Little Ice Age
🎧 Episode 306: The Horse's Tail: Revolution & Memory in Early NYC
🎧 Episode 395: The Great New York Fire of 1776
🎧 Episode 437: Civilian Life in Revolutionary War Occupied Cities
🎧 Episode 454: Life Between Two armies: Westchester County and the American Revolution
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Tue, 03 Nov 2026 - 1h 14min - 625 - 454 Life Between Two Armies: Westchester County and the American Revolution
On October 28, 1776, the two armies of the American Revolutionary War met in White Plains, a small town about 30 miles north of New York City. Westchester County remained a wedge between the British Army to the south and the Continental Army to the north.
For the remaining seven years of the war, both British and American patrols monitored the roads of the county, tracking enemy movement and occasionally skirmishing. Locals leaned one way or the other, sometimes changed sides, and often found themselves at odds with their neighbors.
Char Weigel, a historian with Revolutionary Westchester 250, investigates how the county became a "neutral ground” and offers us a window into how, for residents, the Revolution felt like a civil war.
Show notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/454
EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00 Introduction
00:10:16 How Westchester Farmers Fed New York City
00:14:08 Dutch Influence in Westchester
00:22:30 The War Arrives in Westchester in 1776
00:30:50 What Local Families Saw during the Battle of White Plains
00:34:51 Life in the Neutral Ground between the Armies
00:38:24 Women, Native Americans, and Enslaved People in the Neutral Ground
00:51:22 The Benedict Arnold Plot and the Spy Caught in Westchester
00:58:23 Washington Irving and the American Revolution's Legacy
01:02:46 Lessons from a Divided County
01:08:49 Final Thoughts
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 055: John Jay: Forgotten Founder
🎧 Episode 065: Washington’s Spies: The Story of America’s First Spy Network
🎧 Episode 324: New Netherland and Slavery
🎧 Episode 332: Experiences of Revolution, Part 1: Occupied Philadelphia
🎧 Episode 333: Experiences of Revolution, Part 2: Disruptions in Yorktown
🎧 Episode 437: Civilian Life in Revolutionary War Occupied Cities
🎧 Episode 452: How Everyday Loyalists Experienced the American Revolution
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.
Tue, 27 Oct 2026 - 1h 11min - 624 - 453 Everyday LGBTQ+ Experiences in the American Revolution
All year, we’ve explored the American Revolution from many vantage points, from its politics and battles to the experiences of women, enslaved and free people of color, Native Americans, and Loyalists.
In this episode, we’re going to take an LBGTQ+ lens to the Revolution.
Three historians, Rachel Hope Cleves, Jen Manion, and John McCurdy bring together different stories to explore how everyday LGBTQ+ people took part in the American Revolution and how its legacy shaped LGBTQ+ lives in the new United States.
Rachel’s Book | Jen’s Book | John’s Book
Show notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/453
EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00 Introduction
00:05:02 Meet Our Guest Historians
00:06:51 LGBTQ+ Lives and Language in the Revolutionary Era
00:14:21 Finding a Same-Sex Marriage in the Archives
00:24:16 A British Army Chaplain Under Suspicion
00:28:33 Reading Through the Bias of Trial Transcripts
00:35:37 Fluid Identities and Historical Erasure
00:37:57 Military Service as a Path to Reinvention
00:47:40 War, Upheaval, and New Possibilities
00:54:24 LGBTQ+ People and the Culture of the New Nation
01:10:10 Final Thoughts
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 004: Sex and the Founding Fathers: The American Quest for a Relatable Past
🎧 Episode 013: Charity & Sylvia: A Same-Sex Marriage in Early America
🎧 Episode 278: Polygamy: An Early American History
🎧 Episode 359: Trans-ing Gender in Early America
🎧 Episode 414: Robert Newburgh’s Trials: Queerness & Reputation in Revolutionary America
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Tue, 20 Oct 2026 - 1h 13min - 623 - BFW Revisited: Religion and the American Revolution
In late spring 1776, 150 armed revolutionary soldiers marched into the Anglican Trinity Church to warn the reverend to stop praying for King George III and his family. The reverend read the prayers anyway. Later that year, another Anglican reverend faced the same choice but made the opposite decision.
Throughout our recent conversations about Loyalism, we’ve heard that religion shaped the loyalty choices many early Americans made. In this revisited episode, Kate Carté helps us explore how the British Empire was a Protestant Empire and how the Revolution broke religious bonds, as well as political bonds.
Kate’s Book
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 214: Skepticism & American Faith
🎧 Episode 317: Jewish colonists in Early America
🎧 Episode 356: The Moravian Church in North America
🎧 Episode 392: Religion and Race in Early America
🎧 Episode 399: Denmark Vesey’s Bible
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.
Tue, 13 Oct 2026 - 55min - 622 - 452 How Everyday Loyalists Experienced the Revolution
We often ask why some Americans chose to remain loyal to the British and why they did not want to seek independence. But the question some Americans asked at the time of the Revolution focused more on navigating daily life: How could they protect their families, property, and honor when neighbors, committees, and crowds decided what side they were on?
Today we’re joined by three guests who will help us investigate the American Revolution through Loyalist eyes and explore how Loyalists experienced the American Revolution.
Timothy Compeau, an Associate Professor of History at Huron University College at Western University in London, Ontario; Bonnie Huskins who teaches history at St. Thomas University in Fredericton, New Brunswick; and Kacy Tillman, a professor of English and Writing at the University of Tampa.
Timothy's Book | Bonnie's Work | Kacy's Book
Show notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/452
EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00 Introduction
00:06:07 The Origins and Definitions of the Term “Loyalist”
00:11:11 Common Misconceptions about Loyalists
00:22:52 How Communities Identified their Loyalist Neighbors
00:31:34 How Everyday Loyalists Experienced the Revolution
00:40:19 Women Loyalists and the Fear of Violence
00:50:40 Black Loyalists and the Search for Freedom
01:00:05 Post-War Animosities Between Loyalists and Revolutionaries
01:09:12 What We Still Get Wrong About the Revolution
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 085: American Loyalists in Canada
🎧 Episode 126: The Reintegration of American Loyalists
🎧 Episode 380: The Tory's Wife
🎧 Episode 421: Loyalism and Revolution in Georgia
🎧 Episode 441:The Escapes of David George
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.
Tue, 06 Oct 2026 - 1h 23min - 621 - BFW Revisited: The Reintegration of American Loyalists
What would it take for you to forgive a neighbor who sided against you in a civil war? And what would you say to win back a community that you had fought against?
In our last episode, we explored loyalism across the Atlantic World and met Loyalists who, as serious political actors, had their own ideas about how the British Empire should operate. But the story of Loyalism didn’t end with the founding of the United States, nor with the end of the war.
In this revisited episode, Rebecca Brannon explores how South Carolina’s War for Independence was a true civil war, one that pitted neighbor against neighbor and, in some instances, fathers against sons.
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 126: Reintegration of Loyalists in South Carolina
🎧 Episode 294: 1774: The Long Year of Revolution
🎧 Episode 330: Loyalism in the British Atlantic World
🎧 Episode 380: The Tory’s Wife
🎧 Episode 421: Loyalism and Revolution in Georgia
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Tue, 29 Sep 2026 - 48min - 620 - BFW Revisited: Loyalism in the British Atlantic World
In the late winter of 1775, colonists in a village outside of New York City hoisted the royal standard of King George III 75 feet into the air.
The standard raisers signed their names to a proclamation pledging to defend the king and his government. For them, defending the British crown did not mean surrender; it served as a clear statement of what it still meant to be British.
In Episode 451, we explored a court-martial trial that allowed us to see how early Americans thought about what it would mean to be an American after independence.
In this revisited episode, historian Brad Jones helps us take up the other half of that question: what did it mean to be British during the age of the American Revolution? And why did answers to this question take different forms around the Atlantic World?
Brad’s Book
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Tue, 22 Sep 2026 - 1h 06min - 619 - BFW Bonus: We Want More History
American history is in the news a lot these days. We see and hear about fights over monuments, textbooks, and the stories we should include or exclude from our museums and historic markers.
What these stories overshadow is the great demand for more history in the United States. A coalition of historians and history organizations noticed this demand and decided to feed it by organizing a new initiative: A We Want More History weekend, which takes place September 25-27.
In this bonus episode, we’re joined by Beth English, the Executive Director of the Organization of American Historians, and Kate Masur, the John D. MacArthur Professor of History at Northwestern University. The guest historians share more about the origins of the national, coordinated weekend of history programs, how we can get involved, and where to find more information.
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Fri, 18 Sep 2026 - 20min - 618 - 451 The Court-Martial That Put The American Revolution on Trial
In December 1777, Continental Army Colonel David Henley climbed off his horse to discipline a drunk British prisoner of war who was screaming epithets about Americans and vowing to fight for his king. Henley struck the prisoner, one of 6,000 in his care, with his sword.
The wound was minor, but Major General John Burgoyne cited this incident when he accused Henley of plotting to murder British prisoners of war. Burgoyne demanded a formal court-martial.
Professor Timothy Breen joins us to examine Henley’s trial with details from his new book, The American Revolution on Trial. Timothy asks a question most grand narratives of the American Revolution skip past: What did it actually feel like, in real towns among real people, to stop being British? What did it mean to be American?
Timothy’s Book
Show notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/451
EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00 Introduction
00:04:43 The 250th Anniversary and the Limits of Grand Narratives
00:09:31 How Timothy Found the Henley Court-Martial Transcript
00:13:26 Major General John Burgoyne and Aristocratic Privilege
00:23:00 Competing Ideas of Honor During the Revolution
00:29:53 Inside the Cambridge Prisoner of War Camps
00:36:23 The Two Incidents that Led to the Court-Martial
00:45:25 The Verdict and What Happened Next for Henley and Burgoyne
00:48:37 How Early Americans Judged the Revolution and the New Nation
00:53:41 What Happened to the British and German POWs in Cambridge
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 048: Dangerous Guests: Enemy Captives During the War for Independence
🎧 Episode 122: The Men Who Lost America
🎧 Episode 374: The American Revolutionary War in the West
🎧 Episode 414: Robert Newburgh’s Trials: Queerness & Reputation in Revolutionary America
🎧 Episode 434: The Frank Brothers: Freeborn Black Soldiers in the American Revolution
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Tue, 15 Sep 2026 - 1h 05min - 617 - BFW Revisited: The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution
What caused the American Revolution?
Taxation without representation? Colonies that had outgrown their dependence on the British Empire? Or something harder to see: a quarrel about power itself and about what a government may rightly do to the people it governs?
In 1967, Bernard Bailyn published The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, a book he built out of more than 400 pamphlets, and one historians have been arguing with ever since.
In this revisited conversation from Episode 152, Professor Bailyn explains why he never accepted a purely economic explanation for the Revolution, where the revolutionaries' ideas actually came from, and why colonists rationally concluded that the British government was concealing a conspiracy against their liberties.
Bernard Bailyn’s Wikipedia Page | Book|
Show Notes:https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/152
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 294: 1774: The Long Year of American Revolution
🎧 Episode 311: Religion and the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 307: History and the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 325: Everyday People of the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 407: Patrick Henry
🎧 Episode 434: The Frank Borthers: Freeborn Black Soldiers in the American Revolution
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.
Tue, 08 Sep 2026 - 51min - 616 - 450 Whose Revolution? The Delaware and the War for Independence
In December 1776, a Delaware Chief named White Eyes stood before the Second Continental Congress. He had not come to declare himself a revolutionary, nor had he come to pledge his loyalty to King George III. White Eyes came to test a promise.
What does the American Revolution look like to people for whom independence was never a question? For the Delaware, also known as the Lenape, the War for Independence raised older and harder questions:
Whose word could be trusted? What choices can we make about whether to fight, stay neutral, or flee that might let our community remain itself on the land we know?
Jeremy Johnson, Cultural Education Director for the Delaware Tribe of Indians, traces Lenape and Delaware history from long before European contact through the American Revolution. He also introduces us to the September 1778 Treaty of Fort Pitt, the first treaty the United States made with a Native Nation and which promised a 14th Native state.
Delaware Tribe of Indians’ Website
Show Notes:https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/450
EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00 Introduction
00:02:35 The Lenape Experience of the American Revolution
00:07:56 Lenape History and Indigenous Origin Stories
00:10:52 Diplomacy in Lenape Traditions
00:15:32 Evolution of Lenape Diplomacy Through European Contact
00:20:00 The Walking Purchase of 1737
00:24:55 Lenape Experiences of the Seven Years' War
00:32:13 Lenape Participation in Pontiac's Rebellion
00:37:17 The Delaware and the American Revolution
00:46:32 Negotiating the Treaty of Fort Pitt
00:50:16 The Hope for Delaware Sovereignty
00:52:53 The Delaware People & America's 250th
01:00:02 Time Warp
01:02:41 Resources
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 163: The American Revolution in North America
🎧Episode 264: The Treaty of Canandaigua
🎧 Episode 286: Elections in Early America: Native Sovereignty
🎧 Episode 323: American Expansion and the Political Economy of Plunder
🎧 Episode 397: Native Nations: A Millennium in North America
🎧 Episode 449: Stealing America: Indigenous Enslavement & the American Revolution
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Tue, 01 Sep 2026 - 1h 08min - 615 - BFW Revisited: The Brafferton Indian School, Part 1
In 1723, the College of William & Mary opened the Brafferton building, a permanent home for an Indian School the college had been chartered to run and struggled to fill for its first 30 years. The premise of the Brafferton: take Native boys and strategically teach them in ways that would make them more useful to the British Empire.
So what actually happened inside the Brafferton Indian School?
In this revisited episode, the first of a two-part series, our three guests investigate why the Brafferton School existed, how the English filled Brafferton with students even as Native families refused to send their children, and what the Indigenous students did with the knowledge the English taught them.
We’ll also explore how a school built on a colonial college campus during the reign of King George I connected to schools like the Carlisle School, which were still separating Indigenous children from their families in the 1950s.
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/367
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES:
🎧 Episode 158: The Revolutionaries' Army
🎧 Episode 290: The World of the Wampanoag, Pt. 1
🎧 Episode 291: The World of the Wampanoag, Pt. 2
🎧 Episode 353: Women and the Making of Catawba Identity
🎧 Episode 368: The Brafferton Indian School, Part 2: Legacies
🎧 Episode 449: Stealing America
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.
Tue, 25 Aug 2026 - 1h 23min - 614 - 449 Stealing America: Indigenous Slavery and the American Revolution
More than half a million Indigenous people were enslaved within the present-day borders of the United States.
Historian Linford Fisher spent fifteen years in archives across North America, the Caribbean, and Britain to investigate this forgotten history. What he found was not a second story running alongside African slavery. It was something different in kind. Europeans and early Americans enslaved people who lived on land they intended to possess. This practice made slavery a tool of dispossession.
The American Revolution is where this process accelerated. Lin and Lorén Spears, a Narragansett tribal citizen and the executive director of the Tomaquag Museum, trace how the Revolution opened space for captive raiding on the western frontier, how Native nations weighed which side to take during the war, and how their Stolen Relations digital project is recovering the names of the Natives early Americans enslaved.
Show Notes:https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/449
EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:23 The Declaration's Overlooked Grievance Against Indigenous People
00:02:29 The Other Revolutionary War
00:03:20 Investigating the Hidden History of Indigenous Enslavement
00:07:07 Uncovering the Scale of Indigenous Enslavement
00:13:43 Building Stolen Relations Through Archival and Tribal Collaboration
00:20:51 Decolonizing Archival Records
00:30:40 Connection Between Indigenous Enslavement & Land Dispossession
00:33:53 How Native Nations Navigated the American Revolution
00:37:16 From Colonial Experimentation to Revolutionary Expansion
00:41:15 How the American Revolution Expanded Indigenous Slavery
00:45:20 How Indigenous Nations Weighed Neutrality, Alliance, & Survival
00:52:51 The Declaration of Independence's Impact on Indigenous Communities
01:01:10 The Treaty of Paris, 1783 and the Continuation of Indigenous Dispossession
01:03:51 The Uncertain End of Indigenous Enslavement
01:11:59 Commemorating the American Revolution Through Indigenous History
01:24:36 Revolution to Freedom Through Indigenous Sovereignty
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 163: The American Revolution in North America
🎧 Episode 264: The Treaty of Canadaigua
🎧 Episode 323: American Expansion & the Political Economy of Plunder
🎧 Episode 367: The Brafferton Indian School, Part 1
🎧 Episode 368: The Brafferton Indian School, Part 2
🎧 Episode 406: Threads of Power
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Tue, 18 Aug 2026 - 1h 32min - 613 - BFW Revisited: American Expansion & the Political Economy of Plunder
The Declaration of Independence proclaimed that all men are endowed with the unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
But what did liberty and equality mean for the peoples the Declaration never named—the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi nations who had governed the vast Great Lakes homeland they called Anishinaabewake for generations before a single European sailed its waters?
In this revisited conversation, historian Michael Witgen, Professor of History at Columbia University and a citizen of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe, takes us inside the Anishinaabe world and reveals how the new United States set about transforming it.
The answer, Witgen shows us, wasn't simple conquest. It was something more elaborate, more profitable, and in some ways more insidious: what he calls the political economy of plunder—a system engineered to strip Indigenous peoples of their homelands while funneling the wealth of that dispossession directly into the settler colonial economy.
Show Notes:https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/323
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 051: A History of Early Detroit
🎧 Episode 064: Native American Slavery in New France
🎧 Episode 163: The American Revolution in North America
🎧 Episode 223: A Native American History of the Ohio River Valley & Great Lakes Region
🎧 Episode 286: Native Sovereignty
🎧 Episode 310: History of the Blackfeet
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Tue, 11 Aug 2026 - 1h 18min - 612 - 448 The Declaration of Independence as American Scripture
The engrossed copy of the Declaration of Independence is on display at the National Archives building in Washington, DC. Millions of visitors flock to see it and the other Charters of Freedom. But how did it end up there and why do people approach it with religious reverence?
In this episode, we explore how the Declaration took on its symbolic role as the founding text of the United States.
Pauline's Book
Show Notes:https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/403
EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00 Introduction
00:06:30 Introducing Mary Beth Norton
00:07:17 American Scripture: Pauline Maier
00:10:00 Graduate School with Pauline Maier
00:13:36 The State of Historians' Thinking in the 1990s
00:15:23 Other Declarations of Independence
00:21:08 Thomas Jefferson's Drafting of the Declaration
00:23:44 Why Create a Parchment Copy of the Declaration?
00:28:24 How the Declaration Became American Scripture
00:30:32 The Impact of American Scripture
00:32:10 Situating the Declaration in the American Revolution
00:35:39 The Role of the Parchment Copy Today
00:40:12 Closing Thoughts on Pauline Maier
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 141: A Declaration in Draft
🎧 Episode 155: Pauline Maier's American Revolution
🎧 Episode 294: 1774: The Long Year of Revolution
🎧 Episode 325: Everyday People of the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 415: The Many Declarations of Independence
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Tue, 04 Aug 2026 - 45min - 611 - BFW Revisited Threads of Power
For the Haudenosaunee, the Six Nations People, the American Revolution brought not liberty, but land loss, displacement, and the dismantling of their world. The new United States seized land from Haudenosaunee nations regardless of which side they supported during the Revolution. And yet the Haudenosaunee survived, and Haudenosaunee women are central to this story.
In this revisited episode, Maeve Kane, Associate Professor of History at the University at Albany and author of Shirts Powdered Red, reveals how Haudenosaunee women used cloth, trade, and cultural creativity as tools of sovereignty and survival across three centuries of colonial pressure.
Show Notes:https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/406
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 021: Smuggling in Colonial America & Living History
🎧 Episode 163: The American Revolution in North America
🎧 Episode 223: A native American History of the Ohio River Valley & Great Lakes Region
🎧 Episode 264: The Treaty of Canandaigua
🎧 Episode 353: Women and the Making of Catawba Identity
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Tue, 28 Jul 2026 - 53min - 610 - 447 The Other Committee Members: Robert R. Livingston, Roger Sherman, and the Declaration of Independence
Five men served on the Continental Congress’s Declaration Committee. We know three of them well: Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin. But who were the other two?
In this episode, we explore the lives and contributions of Robert R. Livingston of New York and Roger Sherman of Connecticut.
Historians Geoff Benton and Michael Morand join us as we uncover the stories of the other Committee members.
Clermont State Historic Site: Website
Show Notes:https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/447
EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00 Introduction
00:04:46 The Lee Resolution and the Committee of Five
00:05:26 Robert R. Livingston's Early Life
00:06:56 Colonial New York Politics
00:11:02 Livingston's Appointment to the Second Continental Congress
00:15:20 Why Livingston Chosen for Declaration Committee
00:18:44 Livingston's feud with John Adams
00:19:18 Livingston Misses the Vote for Independence
00:20:50 Livingston Becomes Chancellor of New York State
00:24:06 Livingston's Role in Steam Navigation
00:26:15 Clermont State Historic Site
00:32:35 Roger Sherman's Early Life
00:36:47 Sherman's Family and Life in New Haven
00:37:43 Sherman's Involvement in the Imperial Crisis
00:40:38 Sherman's Role in the Second Continental Congress
00:42:28 Why Sherman Chosen For Declaration Committee
00:43:42 Sherman's Role in Drafting the Declaration
00:46:16 The Connecticut Compromise, 1787
00:50:28 What Made Sherman Effective in Legislatures
00:53:47 1776 in Context
00:58:10 Conclusion
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 141: A Declaration in Draft
🎧 Episode 193: Partisans: The Friendship and Rivalry of Adams & Jefferson
🎧 Episode 245: Celebrating the Fourth of July
🎧 Episode 277: Whose Fourth of July?
🎧 Episode 415: The Many Declarations of Independence
🎧 Episode 439: When the Declaration of Independence Was News
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Tue, 21 Jul 2026 - 1h 01min - 609 - BFW Revisited: A Declaration in Draft, 2026
Every American knows Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, but was he really its sole architect?
In this revisited episode, we sit down with three scholars to pull back the curtain on how the Declaration came to be written. Danielle Allen of Harvard University, Patrick Spero of the American Philosophical Society, and Peter Onuf of the University of Virginia reveal that the Declaration was never one man's work.
Together, they show how John Adams — not Jefferson — was the intellectual architect behind "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." How Benjamin Franklin changed the Declaration with just four or five surgical edits. And what the Second Continental Congress cut from Jefferson's original draft, including his striking grievance blaming King George III for the international slave trade.
Originally recorded in 2017 as part of Ben Franklin's World's Doing History to the Revolution series, this episode pairs with Episode 446 and Episode 447 to mark the Declaration's 250th anniversary.
Show Notes:https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/141
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 018: Our Declaration
🎧 Episode 440: Jefferson's Cut Grievance
🎧 Episode 443: How Independence Happend, Pt 1: The Lee Resolution, 1776
🎧 Episode 444: How Independence Happened, Pt 2: The Model Treaty
🎧 Episode 445: How Independence Happened, Pt 3: Articles of Confederation
🎧 Episode 446: The Declaration of Independence at 250
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Tue, 14 Jul 2026 - 1h 20min - 608 - 446 The Declaration of Independence at 250
250 years after its signing, the Declaration of Independence remains an unfinished document. Its famous assertion "that all men are created equal" and endowed with unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness stands not as a settled truth, but as a call every generation of Americans must answer on its own terms.
What did the founders mean by "all men are created equal?" Who did they believe was eligible to pursue life, liberty, and happiness? And how are the generations living in the United States today thinking through their own answers?
Four historians join us to explore these questions. Robert Parkinson and Steve Sarson draw on their new books to help us understand what it meant in 1776. Anthea Hartig and Virginia Scharff show us how two 250th anniversary museum exhibitions use objects to make the Declaration's living legacy tangible, and to remind us that its promises have always been claimed not just in words, but in action.
Rob's Book | Steve's Book | Smithsonian Exhibit | Autry Exhibit
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/403
EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00 Introduction
00:00:44 Celebrating the Declaration of Independence
00:03:50 The Declaration As An Ongoing Experiment
00:04:14 Anthea Hartig on the National Museum of American History
00:05:30 Virginia Scharff on the Autry Museum of the American West
00:07:58 Robert Parkinson on Understanding the Declaration
00:19:17 Steve Sarson on the Declaration's Philosophical Argument
00:21:10 The Original Meaning of the Declaration
00:34:47 Conclusion
00:41:16 The Massachusetts Historical Society's Declaration Exhibit
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 018: Our Declaration
🎧 Episode 141: A Declaration in Draft
🎧 Episode 394: The Pursuit of Happiness
🎧 Episode 415: The Many Declarations of Independence
🎧 Episode 439: When the Declaration of Independence Was News in 1776
🎧 Episode 440: Jefferson's Cut Grievance
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Tue, 07 Jul 2026 - 43min - 607 - 445 How Independence Happened, Pt 3: The Articles of Confederation
The man Congress chose to draft the United States’ first constitution refused to vote for independence.
John Dickinson wrote a bold plan, one with a strong central government, religious liberty protections that included women, and a question in the margins about whether Congress should abolish slavery. Congress stripped out nearly all of these ideas and provisions. What replaced it sparked a debate over federal vs. state power that has never gone away.
This is the third episode in our How Independence Happened series. In Part 1, we explored Richard Henry Lee's Virginia Resolution of June 7, 1776. In Part 2, we examined the Model Treaty and how the new United States made foreign alliances. In this third part, we're joined by historians Jane Calvert and Jonathan Gienapp so we can investigate the Articles of Confederation, the third element of independence.
Jane's Website | Book
Jonathan's Website | Book
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/445
EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00 Introduction
00:03:34 The Articles of Confederation
00:08:29 Why A Confederation Was Important
00:12:49 Why the Second Continental Congress Create A Formal Union
00:21:44 Drafting the Articles of Confederation
00:22:38 John Dickinson's Role in Drafting the Articles
00:45:50 The Founding Generation's Ideas About Government
01:05:40 Viewing the Articles of Confederation in Context
01:13:07 The Unwritten Constitution of the People
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 179: Governance During the Critical Period
🎧 Episode 258: John Dickinson, Life, Religion, & Politics
🎧 Episode 323: American Expansion and the Political Economy of Plunder
🎧 Episode 366: James Wilson & the U.S. Constitution
🎧 Episode 443: How Independence Happened, Pt 1: The Lee Resolution
🎧 Episode 444: How Independence Happened, Pt 2: The Model Treaty
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 30 Jun 2026 - 1h 23min - 606 - 444 How Independence Happened, Part 2: The Model Treaty
Declaring independence on July 2, 1776 was only the beginning. To actually become a nation, the United States needed something else: foreign allies, international recognition, and the credibility to negotiate as an equal among the world's great powers.
Five days after Richard Henry Lee introduced his famous Virginia Resolution, the Continental Congress appointed a committee of five — John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, John Dickinson, Robert Morris, and Benjamin Harrison — to figure out how to achieve international recognition. The result was the Model Treaty: a document we almost never discuss today, but one that Adams considered his most important contribution to Congress and the nation.
Historians Sara Georgini and Eliga Gould guide us through Adams's revolutionary blueprint for American foreign policy and how the founders understood that the United States would need to become a "treaty worthy" nation before France would take them seriously.
This is the second episode in a three-part series.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 23 Jun 2026 - 1h 16min - 605 - 443 How Independence Happened, Part 1: The Lee Resolution
Declaring independence on July 2, 1776, was only the beginning.
To actually become a nation, the United States needed something else: foreign allies, international recognition, and the credibility to negotiate as an equal among the world's great powers.
Five days after Richard Henry Lee introduced his famous Virginia Resolution, the Continental Congress appointed a committee of five — John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, John Dickinson, Robert Morris, and Benjamin Harrison — to figure out how to achieve international recognition. The result was the Model Treaty: a document we almost never discuss today, but one that Adams considered his most important contribution to Congress and the nation.
Historians Sara Georgini and Eliga Gould guide us through Adams's revolutionary blueprint for American foreign policy and the founders' understanding that the United States would need to become a "treaty-worthy" nation before France would take it seriously.
This is the second episode in a three-part series.
Lige's Website | Book
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/444
EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00 Introduction
00:00:21 Three Legs of Independence
00:01:17 The Second Continental Congress Votes Independence
00:02:58 The Second Leg of Independence: Foreign Alliances
00:03:28 The Model Treaty
00:07:12 Why the Virginia Resolution Included Foreign Alliances
00:19:00 Specifics of the Model Treaty
00:21:30 Founders' Goals for the Model Treaty
00:28:21 The Model Treaty Drafting Committee
00:41:20 The Model Treaty as a Document
00:39:15 The Story of Common Sense
00:50:07 Commercial Alliances
01:04:42 The Model Treaty's Place in the American Revolution
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 007: John Adams & the Adams Papers Documentary Project
🎧 Episode 128: American Revolutions: A Continental History
🎧 Episode 193: Partisans: The Friendship & Rivalry of Jefferson & Adams
🎧 Episode 432: How France & Spain Helped Save the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 433: Entangled Alliances: Haiti, France, & the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 443: How Independence Actually Happened, Pt 1: The Lee Resolution
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 16 Jun 2026 - 1h 15min - 604 - BFW Revisited: Reading the Declaration of Independence for Equality
On July 4th, 2026, the United States marks 250 years since the Declaration of Independence announced a new nation to the world. But how well do we actually know the document we're celebrating?
Most of us can recite "We hold these truths to be self-evident," but how many of us have read all 1,337 words, and traced the argument the Declaration actually makes?
Danielle Allen, the James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University and author ofOur Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality, reveals how New Hampshire's desperate need for a functioning government set the Continental Congress on the path toward independence, why the Declaration was authored by many voices — not just Thomas Jefferson — and how a slow, careful reading of the document uncovers a powerful argument that freedom and equality are entwined. You cannot have one without the other.
This is the essential starting point for Ben Franklin's World's Independence at 250 series.
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/018
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 119: The Heart of the Declartion
🎧 Episode 141: A Declaration in Draft
🎧 Episode 415: The Many Declarations of Independence
🎧 Episode 438: The American Revolution and the Fate of the World
🎧 Episode 439: When the Declartion of Independence War News in 1776
🎧 Episode 440: Jefferson's Cut Grievance and the British Monarchy's Role in Slavery
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 09 Jun 2026 - 48min - 603 - 442 Everyday Military Life in the American Revolution
When we picture the American Revolution, we picture battles. But for the men and women who actually lived and fought in it, the Revolution was also a job with mess rotations, night watches, short rations, and children underfoot.
Historians Eugene Procknow, Gabriel Neville, and Thomas Sobol pull back the curtain on everyday military life during the War for Independence. They discuss how the armies were structured, what soldiers actually ate, what camp followers endured, and how soldiers found humanity amid grinding hardship.
You'll hear about a Black Continental soldier who had eaten nothing but bread for eleven days, and was still writing letters home that went unanswered. A Georgia soldier who agreed to fight for the British just to escape a prison ship, then deserted and marched across two states to rejoin Nathanael Greene's army. And you'll discover why John Adams believed the most dangerous moment of the Revolution wasn't a battle at all.
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/403
EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00 Introduction
00:05:44 Structure of the British and Continental Armies
00:10:33 Militia, German Soldiers, and Indian Allies
00:20:43 Everyday Life in the American War for Independence
00:25:80 Camp Followers
00:33:10 Downtime in the Army
00:36:59 Soldiers' Letters
00:46:00 Food Procurement & Supply Chains
00:50:27 Supplementing Rations
00:55:34 War Mementoes & Plunder
00:58:36 Medical Care in the Army
01:08:07 The Revolution in Context
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 158: The Revolutionaries' Army
🎧 Episode 122: The Men Who Lost America
🎧 Episode 252: The Highland Soldier in North America
🎧 Episode 302: From Inoculation to Vaccination, Pt 2
🎧 Episode 348: Valley Forge
🎧 Episode 374: The Revolutionary War in the West
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 02 Jun 2026 - 1h 21min - 602 - BFW Revisited: Valley Forge
Most of us learned the same story: During the winter at Valley Forge, George Washington's army suffered and endured. Ragged soldiers huddled together in frozen huts and gnawed on shoe leather for food.
But what if that story is mostly myth?
Military historian Ricardo Herrera, author of Feeding Washington's Army: Surviving the Valley Forge Winter of 1778, reveals what was really happening during the winter of 1777–1778.
Valley Forge wasn't a place of frozen inactivity, it was a hub of military operations. The army's survival depended not on virtue and willpower alone, but on the armed foraging columns Washington sent into the Pennsylvania countryside to seize food, horses, and supplies from the civilians he was fighting to protect.
Rick’s Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/348
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 158: The Revolutionaries' Army
🎧 Episode 189: The Little Ice Age
🎧 Episode 301: Innoculation to Vaccination, Part 1
🎧 Episode 302: Innoculation to Vaccination, Part 2
🎧 Episode 332: Occupied Philadelphia
🎧 Episode 333: Occupied Yorktown
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 26 May 2026 - 1h 05min - 601 - 441 The Escapes of David George
When David George lay sick with smallpox in Savannah during the Revolutionary War, he faced three possible outcomes: death, re-enslavement, or freedom.
Greg O'Malley, Professor of History at UC Santa Cruz, follows David George across six decades and three continents, from enslaved Virginia to the Muscogee Creek nation, and from British-occupied Georgia to Nova Scotia to Sierra Leone, in his new book, The Escapes of David George: An Odyssey of Slavery, Freedom, and the American Revolution. It's a story that will change how you think about what the Revolution actually delivered, and for whom.
Greg’s Website | Book
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/403
EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:14 Welcome to Ben Franklin's World
00:02:31 Introducing Greg O'Malley and David George
00:05:43 David George's Odyssey Begins
00:08:12 The Rare Narrative of David George
00:11:07 Authenticating David George's Voice
00:13:39 David George's Multiple Escapes from Slavery
00:20:30 David George's Conversion to Christianity
00:24:53 Why Baptist? The Appeal of Evangelical Faith
00:29:52 David George's Family and Name
00:37:12 Life in Nova Scotia as a Refugee Preacher
00:42:03 Journey to Sierra Leone
00:54:44 Piecing Together David George's Later Years
00:59:49 Discovering the Silver Bluff Baptist Church
01:06:24 Time Warp: What If David George Stayed?
01:10:29 Reflections and Takeaways
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 008: Final Passages: The Intercolonial Slave Trade
🎧 Episode 322: Running from Bondage in Revolutionary America
🎧 Episode 424: Dunmore's Proclamation
🎧 Episode 434: The Frank Brothers: Freeborn Black Soldiers
🎧 Episode 440: Brooke Newman, Jefferson's Cut Grievance and the British Monarchy's Role in Slavery
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 19 May 2026 - 1h 13min - 600 - BFW Revisited: Running from Bondage in the American Revolution
She fled on horseback in the thick of war. Her six-year-old son rode with her. The white tailor at her side would pass, when anyone asked, as her husband.
Her name was Sarah. She was one of tens of thousands of enslaved people who self-emancipated during the American Revolution, and one of the many women earlier histories barely noticed.
In this Revisited episode, Karen Cook-Bell, author ofRunning from Bondage: Enslaved Women and the Remarkable Fight for Freedom in Revolutionary America, recovers their stories.
We learn how Lord Dunmore's 1775 proclamation reshaped the landscape of resistance, why motherhood drove women to flee rather than keeping them in place, and what creative, subversive strategies they used to slip out of bondage and into freedom.This is the companion conversation to Ep. 440's exploration of Jefferson's cut grievance. If Brooke Newman gave us the view from the throne, Karen Cook-Bell gives us the view from the ground. And it changes what the proclamations look like.
Karen's Website | Book |
Show Notes:https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/322
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧Episode 137: The Washingtons' Runaway Slave, Ona Judge
🎧 Episode 157: The Revolution's African American Soldiers
🎧 Episode 162: Dunmore's New World
🎧 Episode 312: The Domestic Slave Trade
🎧 Episode 424: Dunmore's Proclamation and the American Revolution in Virginia
🎧 Episode 440: Jefferson's Cut Grievances and the British Monarchy's Role in Slavery
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 12 May 2026 - 55min - 599 - 440 Jefferson's Cut Grievance and the British Monarchy's Role in Slavery
Thomas Jefferson's draft of the Declaration of Independence contained 28 grievances against King George III — not 27.
The final grievance, the one Congress cut before signing, accused the British king of waging cruel war against human nature by trafficking enslaved Africans across the Atlantic, forcing slavery onto unwilling American colonists, and then inciting those same enslaved people to rise up and kill their enslavers.
Did King George III and the British monarchy actually bear responsibility for slavery in the 13 colonies? Or was Jefferson's grievance a strategic sleight of hand — an attempt to pin a uniquely American system onto the crown he wanted to escape?
Historian Brooke Newman, author of The Crown's Silence: The Hidden History of the British Monarchy and Slavery, joins us to find out. She traces the British monarchy's involvement in the transatlantic slave trade from Queen Elizabeth I through King George III, examines what Jefferson got right and what he got wrong, and delivers her verdict on one of the most explosive what-ifs in United States history.
Brooke's Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/440
EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:24 Episode Welcome and Jefferson's Cut Grievance
00:03:15 Guest Introduction: Brooke Newman
00:04:58 Jefferson's Claim and Brooke's Research Origins
00:09:28 Timeline of Monarchies and Terminology
00:12:03 England Enters the Slave Trade under Elizabeth I
00:17:41 Crown Investments and Royal African Company
00:30:15 Colonies Structured for Slavery
00:37:02 Logistics of the Slave Trade by Revolution
00:47:01 King George III's Views on Slavery
00:52:20 Virginia's 1772 Slave Trade Ban and Royal Veto
00:57:35 Dunmore's Proclamation: Not a Royal Act
01:01:17 Was George III to Blame? Jefferson's Strategy
01:04:26 Time Warp: If George III Abolished Slavery
01:10:56 Conclusion
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 141: A Declaration in Draft
🎧 Episode 206: Christian Slavery
🎧 Episode 351: Wealth and Slavery in New Netherland
🎧 Episode 360: Slavery & Freedom in Massachusetts
🎧 Episode 394: The Pursuit of Happiness
🎧 Episode 438: The American Revolution and the Fate of the World
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 05 May 2026 - 1h 14min - 598 - BFW Revisited: Whose Fourth of July?
On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass stood before the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society and asked one of the most searing questions in American history: "What, to the slave, is the Fourth of July?"
To answer Douglass's question, we have to go back to the Revolution itself; to the choices Black Americans made in wartime, to the ways they read, used, and interrogated the Declaration of Independence, and to the alternative celebrations they created when the Fourth of July felt like someone else's holiday.
Historians Christopher Bonner and Martha S. Joneshelp us explore what the Fourth of July meant for African Americans in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and how their experiences with the Fourth contributed to the larger history of the nation's founding.
Christopher's Website | Book
Martha's Website | Book
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/277
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 157: The Revolution's African American Soldiers
🎧 Episode 166: Freedom and the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 245: Celebrating the Fourth of July
🎧 Episode 255: Birthright Citizens
🎧 Episode 434: The Frank Brothers, Freeborn Black Soldiers in the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 439: When the Declaration of Independence Was News
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 28 Apr 2026 - 1h 12min - 597 - 439 When the Declaration of Independence Was News
The Second Continental Congress voted for independence on July 2, 1776, but it had absolutely no plan for telling the world about it.
Congress sent just one copy of the Declaration to France. It was lost at sea. Printers ran the text however they liked. And the first formal acknowledgment of American independence came not from a European court, but from a Native American chief responding to a verbal translation of the Declaration in the middle of a treaty negotiation.
Historian and Declaration expert Emily Sneff joins us to explore what the Declaration of Independence looked like when it was just news — urgent, imperfect, and far beyond anyone's control.
Emily’s Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/439
EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00 Introduction
00:04:07 The Declaration as a Congressional Product
00:06:28 Jefferson's humble signature
00:11:10 Congress Has No Plans for Circulation
00:16:22 News of the Declaration Breaks
00:24:36 Pubilc Readings of the Declaration
00:27:27 Ministers Spread News of the Declaration
00:32:57 German-American Translation of the Declaration
00:42:04 French Translation Failures
00:46:42 Verbal Translations of the Declaration
00:51:52 No Official Copy Sent to King George III
00:58:43 The Declaration of Independence as News
01:02:17 Time Warp
01:07:48 Upcoming 250th Exhibitions
01:11:24 Conclusion
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 018: Our Declaration
🎧 Episode 119: The Heart of the Declaration
🎧 Episode 141: A Declaration in Draft
🎧 Episode 388: John Hancock
🎧 Episode 415: The Many Declarations of Independence
🎧 Episode 431: Thomas Paine's Common Sense at 250
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 21 Apr 2026 - 1h 15min - 596 - BFW Revisited: Age of Revolutions
Between 1763 and 1848, revolutions swept across four continents. We tend to remember three of them — the American, the French, and the Haitian Revolutions. But what about all the rest? And what connected them to each other?
In this episode, we're bringing back our conversation with Janet Polasky, Presidential Professor of History Emerita at the University of New Hampshire and author of Revolutions Without Borders: The Call to Liberty in the Atlantic World, and Paul Mapp, Associate Professor of History at William & Mary, who helps us understand why historians are increasingly looking at the American Revolution through an international lens.
Together, they reveal why the Age of Revolutions happened when it did, how the American Revolution fit within this larger Atlantic-wide moment of upheaval, and how revolutionary ideas traveled across borders through people, print, and rumor.
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/165
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 161: Smuggling and the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 428: Canal Dreamers
🎧 Episode 432: How France & Spain Helped Win American Independence
🎧 Episode 433: Haiti, France, and the American War for Independence
🎧 Episode 438: The American Revolution and the Fate of the World
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 14 Apr 2026 - 1h 17min - 595 - 438 The American Revolution & the Fate of the World
What if the American Revolution didn't just create the United States, but also created Australia?
Most of us learned about the Revolution as a story of thirteen North American colonies pushing back against a distant king. But this episode reveals something far wilder: a genuinely global war whose consequences rippled across every inhabited continent — reshaping empires, forcing migrations, and planting the seeds of more than a hundred declarations of independence that would follow over the next two and a half centuries.
Joseph Adelman joins historian Richard Bell to explore the American Revolution as a world war. They discuss:
Why the Declaration of Independence was really a Declaration of Interdependence How Hyder Ali, the Muslim ruler of Mysore in southern India, became George Washington's ally by the logic of wartime coalitions How Spain's campaign to recapture Florida tied down thousands of British troops How Britain's convict crisis, caused by losing access to Maryland and Virginia, led to the founding of Australia at Botany Bay.Rick's Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/438
EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00 Introduction
00:06:28 Differences in Perception of the American Revolution
00:09:00 Reframing the Declaration of Independence
00:17:32 Molly Brandt and Haudenosaunee Diplomacy
00:24:38 Baron von Steuben: A Mercenary's Tale
00:29:15 The American Revolution: Myth vs. Reality
00:35:02 The American Revolution and Florida
00:43:39 The American Revolution's Impact on India
00:50:24 The Connection Between the American Revolution and Australia
00:56:50 Themes of the American Revolution
00:59:16 The Time Warp
00:62:00 Conclusion
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 141: A Declaration in Draft
🎧 Episode 163: The American Revolution in North America
🎧 Episode 238: Benedict Arnold
🎧 Episode 348: Valley Forge
🎧 Episode 325: Everyday People of the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 437: The Home Front
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 07 Apr 2026 - 1h 08min - 594 - BFW Revisited: British-Occupied Philadelphia, 1777–1778
In September 1777, just fourteen months after declaring independence, Philadelphia fell to the British Army. For nearly nine months, the new nation's capital was occupied territory.
But what did that actually mean for the people who lived there?
Not the generals, not the Congress: ordinary Philadelphians who had to decide whether to flee or stay, share their homes with British officers, watch their fences get chopped up for firewood, and figure out which neighbors to trust when it was all over.
In this episode, Aaron Sullivan, a professor of History at Rider University, George Boudreau, a public historian and Executive Director of the Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion Museum in Germantown, PA, and historical interpreter Kalela Williams, now the Director of the Virginia Center for the Book, take us inside occupied Philadelphia.
Together, they reveal how a city that was never fully committed to independence experienced nine months of British rule, and what the occupation cost everyone who lived through it: Quaker women negotiating with soldiers at their back gates, merchants whose fortunes rose on British hard currency while their neighbors went hungry, and Black Philadelphians who looked at the upheaval and asked whether it might open a door to freedom.
Plus: the most extravagant party thrown in eighteenth-century America, staged while the city's almshouses overflowed.
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/332
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 050: Betsy Ross & the Making of America
🎧 Episode 306: The Horse's Tail
🎧 Episode 325: Everyday People of the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 333: Life in Occupied Yorktown
🎧 Episode 380: The Tory's Wife
🎧 Episode 437: Civilian Life in America's Occupied Cities
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 31 Mar 2026 - 1h 07min - 593 - 437 Civilian Life in America's Occupied Cities
The British Army is at your door. They need a room. What do you do?
For thousands of civilians living in cities occupied during the American War for Independence — Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Newport, Charleston, Savannah — this wasn't a hypothetical. It was a reality that upended daily life and revealed a side of the revolution we rarely talk about.
Lauren Duval, author of The Home Front: Revolutionary Households, Military Occupations, and the Making of American Independence, joins us to explore what the War for Independence actually looked like from inside the household. Women who negotiated quartering terms and held their ground. Men who came to blows over who controlled the parlor. Enslaved people who used the chaos of occupation to reunite families and reach British lines.
The revolution didn't just happen on battlefields. It happened at kitchen tables, in back gardens, and on doorsteps.
Lauren's Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/403
EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:38 The Home Front of the American Revolution
00:05:24 The Gensis of the Revolutionary Household
00:10:49 Why Focus on Urban Port Cities
00:19:46 The British Occupation's Impact on City Life
00:25:55 Quartering a British Officer: The Drinker Household
00:33:38. Quartering Experiences in Male-Headed Households
00:39:22 Lower-Class Experiences During British Occupation
00:40:55 The Impact of British Hard Currency on Urban Labor Markets
00:44:21 Black Experiences During British Occupation
00:51:21 The Overall American Experience of the War for Independence
00:54:01. The Time Warp
00:59:47 Conculsion
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 050: Betsy Ross & the Making of America
🎧 Episode 175: The War in Ben Franklin's House
🎧 Episode 306: The Horse's Tail
🎧 Episode 332: Experiences of Revolution: Occupied Philadelphia
🎧 Episode 333: Experiences of Revolution: Occupied Yorktown
🎧 Episode 380: The Tory's Wife
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 24 Mar 2026 - 1h 02min - 592 - BFW Revisited: Longfellow House-Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site
250 years ago, the British evacuated Boston: driven out by cannon that had traveled 300 miles from Fort Ticonderoga. But where did the plan for those cannons take shape?
In this Revisited episode, we return to our conversation with Garrett Cloer, now Program Manager for Interpretation and Visitor Experience at Saratoga National Historical Park, to explore the Longfellow House–Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
This Georgian mansion served as George Washington's home and headquarters for nearly nine months during the Siege of Boston. In this house, Washington forged the Continental Army and plotted the moves that liberated the city. Garrett reveals the house's Loyalist origins, life inside during the siege, and how poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow later transformed it into a literary landmark.
A companion to Episode 436 on Henry Knox's Noble Train of Artillery.
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/194
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 112: The Tea Crisis of 1773
🎧 Episode 228: The Boston Massacre
🎧 Episode 296: The Boston Massacre: A Family History
🎧 Episode 409: The Battles of Lexington & Concord
🎧 Episode 413: Dr. Joseph Warren & the Battle of Bunker Hill
🎧 Episode 436: Fort Ticonderoga & Henry Knox's Noble Train of Artillery
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 17 Mar 2026 - 58min - 591 - 436 Fort Ticonderoga & Henry Knox's Noble Train of Artillery
On March 17, 1776, the British evacuated Boston, driven out by cannon hauled 300 miles through winter wilderness from a crumbling fort in upstate New York.
Join Matthew Keagle, Curator at Fort Ticonderoga, as we trace the fort's dramatic history from its French origins in the Seven Years' War, its chaotic capture by Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold in May 1775, and Henry Knox's legendary expedition to move nearly 60 tons of artillery to George Washington's army. Discover the logistics, rivalries, and resourcefulness behind one of the Revolution's most remarkable feats.
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/436
EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00 Introduction
00:06:26 British Withdrawl from Boston
00:07:55 Fort Ticonderoga's Origins
00:25:05 British Capture of Fort Ticonderoga, 1756
00:28:04 British Improvements to Fort Ticonderoga
00:32:44 American Capture of Fort Ticonderoga, 1775
00:49:06 Henry Knox's Expedition
01:04:46 Cannon on Dorchester Heights
01:10:36 British Evacuation of Boston
01:13:43 Legacy of Knox's Noble Train of Artillery
01:17:36 Visiting Fort Ticonderoga
01:24:65 Conclusion
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 130: Paul Revere's Ride Through History
🎧 Episode 194: Longfellow House-Washington's Headquarters, NHS
🎧 Episode 238: Benedict Arnold
🎧 Episode 296: The Boston Massacre: A Family History
🎧 Episode 409: The Battles of Lexington & Concord
🎧 Episode 413: Dr. Joseph Warren & the Battle of Bunker Hill
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 10 Mar 2026 - 1h 25min - 590 - 435 Common Sense at 250: The Unfinished Work of Democracy, A Live Conversation
In January 1776, Thomas Paine told the American colonies to break free from their king. But what was supposed to come next? 250 years later, that question still doesn't have a good answer.
To mark the anniversary of *Common Sense*, we traveled to Lewes, England, the town where Paine lived before he ever set foot in America, and recorded our first-ever LIVE episode inside Bull House, the building where Paine honed his ideas about citizens and their government.Joseph Adelman chairs a panel with scholars Leanne O'Boyle, Nicole Mahoney, and Jeanne Sheehan Zainoas they dig into the legacy of *Common Sense*: democracy's "day two problem," the women Paine wrote out of his own story, why "the law is king" keeps showing up on protest signs, and what a 15th-century building in a small English town can teach us about where democratic ideas actually take root.
Recorded live in partnership with the Institute for Thomas Paine Studies at Iona University.
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/435
EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:06 What Happened After the Revolution?
00:02:59 Live from the Bull House in Lewes, England
00:04:49 A Template for Common Sense and Civic Life
00:07:12 Thomas Paine's Legacy in Lewes, England
00:10:24 Thomas Paine's Legacy in New Rochelle, New York
00:16:04 Democracy's "Day Two Problem"
00:22:50 Local Civic Engagement in Lewes
00:27:46 Women and Common Sense
00:34:54 Paine's Family Life in Lewes
00:35:31 Reconstituting Government
00:42:44 Violence and Change
00:49:31 "No Kings" Protest and 'The Law is King'
00:56:29 Thomas Paine's Legacy
00:58:10 Audience Q&A
01:18:20 Episode Wrap-Up
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 144: The Common Cause of the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 156: The Power of the Press in the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 243: Revolutionary Print Networks
🎧 Episode 287: Elections in Early America: Presidential Elections & the Electoral College
🎧Episode 431: Thomas Paine's Common Sense at 250
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 03 Mar 2026 - 1h 21min - 589 - 434 Freeborn Black Soldiers in the American Revolution
What would you fight for if you were free but still not equal? In 1777, brothers William and Benjamin Frank answered that question by enlisting in the Second Rhode Island Regiment of the Continental Army. Freeborn men of color, they gambled that military service would earn them what freedom alone had not: equality, land, and a better future.
Historian Shirley Green, author of Revolutionary Blacks: Freeborn Men of Color, Soldiers of Independence, joins us to tell their story. Drawing on genealogical research rooted in her own family history, Green reveals what daily life looked like for free Black families in Revolutionary Rhode Island, how the Frank Brothers fought at the Battles of Red Bank, Monmouth, and Rhode Island, and how the Revolution ultimately divided them—one brother serving through Yorktown, the other crossing to the British side and resettling in Nova Scotia as a Black Loyalist.
Their story is a window into the full range of Black experiences during the Revolution, and a reminder that for men like William and Benjamin Frank, choosing a side was never simple. It was a calculated gamble, shaped by promises made—and promises broken.
Shirley’s Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/434
EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:19 The Frank Brothers' Revolutionary Choices
00:05:14 Discovering the Frank Brothers Through Family Oral History
00:09:01 Blending Genalogy and Microhistory
00:15:22 Life for Free Black Families in Early Rhode Island
00:20:50 Why Free Black Men Joined the Continental Army
00:24:00 Motivations: Land, Pay, and Equality
00:29:15 The Gamble of Military Service Amid Policy Shifts
00:41:13 Daily Life and Combat in the Integrated Regiments
00:44:46 Ben Frank's Desertion
00:52:51 The Book of Negroes
01:00:02 Postwar Outcomes: Did Promises of Land, Pay, and Equality Hold?
01:02:47 Lessons from Black Soldiers' Experiences
01:07:26 Conclusion
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 118: The Business of Slavery in Rhode Island
🎧 Episode 157: African American Soldiers in the Continental Army
🎧 Episode 301: From Inoculation to Vaccination, Part 1
🎧 Episode 333: Disruptions in Yorktown
🎧 Episode 348: Valley Forge
🎧 Episode 413: Dr. Joseph Warren & the Battle of Bunker Hill
🎧 Episode 424: Dunmore's Proclamation & the American Revolution in Virginia
🎧 Episode 427: How States Are Planning the 250th of the American Revolution
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 24 Feb 2026 - 1h 10min - 588 - BFW Revisited: The American Revolution's African American Soldiers
More than 6,000 Black men—free and enslaved—served in the Continental Army during the American Revolution. Yet their stories remain some of the least told of the war.
In this revisited episode, we rejoin Judith Van Buskirk, Professor Emerita of History at SUNY Cortland and author of Standing in Their Own Light: African American Patriots in the American Revolution, to explore what motivated African American men to fight for the Revolutionary cause, how the Continental Army's policies toward Black enlistment shifted over the course of the war, and what life and service looked like in units like the First Rhode Island Regiment.
Judy's Book
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/403
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 016: The Internal Enemy
🎧 Episode 118: The Business of Slavery in Rhode Island
🎧 Episode 123: Revolutionary Allegiances
🎧 Episode 433: Haiti, France, and the American War for Independence
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📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 17 Feb 2026 - 50min - 587 - 433 Entangled Revolutions: Haiti, France, and the American Revolution
What if the American Revolution was never just an American story?
Historian Ronald Angelo Johnson helps us uncover the deep connections between the American and Haitian Revolutions to reveal how both revolutions emerged from the same Atlantic imperial struggle for empire, racialized power, and war.
Using details from his book Entangled Alliances, Ron will guide us from the Treaty of Paris in 1763 to the Siege of Savannah in 1779, where hundreds of Black soldiers from French Saint Domingue landed on Georgia’s shores—not as enslaved laborers, but as uniformed volunteers ready to fight for American Independence.
Ron's Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/433
EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:08 Episode Overview
00:04:50 The Treaty of Paris 1763 and its Impact
00:09:09 Consequences of the Seven Years' War for Saint Domingue
00:18:39 Saint Domingue Society Post-Seven Years' War
00:24:32 French Imperial Reaction vs. Local Resentment
00:28:36 Circulation of News Between British North America & Saint Domingue
00:39:22 France's Strategy to Assist American Revolutionaries
00:50:42 Reception of the Chasseurs Volontaires Regiment in Georgia
00:54:42 Re-evaluating the American Revolution
00:57:32 Time Warp
01:05:38 Conclusion
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 052: Diplomacy in Black and White
🎧 Episode 151: Defining the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 228: The Boston Massacre (King Street Riot)
🎧 Episode 325: The Everyday People of the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 361: The Fourth of July in 2026
🎧 Episode 421: Loyalism & Revolution in Georgia
🎧 Episode 432: How France & Spain Helped Win the American Revolution
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 10 Feb 2026 - 1h 06min - 586 - BFW Revisited: The Marquis de Lafayette
What does it take to become a revolutionary in more than one revolution? In this revisited conversation with Mike Duncan, we explore the life of the Marquis de Lafayette—an ambitious young Frenchman who crossed the Atlantic to fight for the American cause and later carried those lessons into the political storms of France. From early idealism to a complicated role in two upheavals, Lafayette’s story reveals how ideas, alliances, and personal relationships shaped the Age of Revolutions.
You’ll hear how Lafayette became close to George Washington, what he learned in America, and why his legacy makes the most sense when you follow him across borders.
Mike’s Instagram | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/313
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Bonus: The Marquis de Lafayette & the Hermione
🎧 Episode 071: Saratoga & Hubbardton, 1777
🎧 Episode 203: Alexander Hamilton
🎧 Episode 363: Ste. Genévieve National Historical Park
🎧 Episode 365: 300 Years of French Settlment at Île Sait-Jean
🎧 Episode 432: How France & Spain Helped Win the American Revolution
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📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 03 Feb 2026 - 1h 06min - 585 - 432 How France and Spain Helped Win the American Revolution
The American Revolution wasn’t just a colonial rebellion; it was a global conflict shaped by European rivalries and high-stakes diplomacy. Without the help of foreign allies like France and Spain, the United States might never have won its independence.
Historian John Ferling joins us to explore the international dimensions of the Revolutionary War. Drawing from his new book Shots Heard Round the World, Ferling reveals how secret aid, political gambles, and naval power from Europe (especially France) influenced the outcome of the war, and nearly derailed it.
John’s Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/432
EPISODE OUTLINE
00:01:06 Introduction
00:01:52 Why European Powers Intervened
00:08:02 International Interest in the American Revolution
00:14:20 French Reaction to the Outbreak of War
00:19:28 Initiation of Foreign Aid
00:23:46 British Expectations of a Quick Victory
00:25:35 Saratoga as a Turning Point
00:31:46 French Naval and Military Support
00:37:36 Spain's Ambitions and Entry into the War
00:42:55 Britain's War Fatigue and Missed Opportunities
00:51:31 Outcomes for France and Spain
00:54:53 Time Warp
00:59:20 Conclusion
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 046: The American Revolution and the War that Won It
🎧 Episode 112: The Tea Crisis of 1773
🎧Episode 122: The Men Who Lost America
🎧 Episode 208: Turning Points of the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 313: The Marquis de Lafayette
🎧 Episode 421: Loyalism & Revolution in Georgia
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 27 Jan 2026 - 1h 02min - 584 - BFW Revisited: The Common Cause
Before Common Sense could ignite a revolution, colonists had to be convinced they shared a cause worth fighting for. So how did Revolutionary leaders turn thirteen very different colonies into “Americans”—and what stories did they tell to make that unity feel real?
In this Ben Franklin’s World Revisited episode, historian Robert Parkinson returns to explore how newspapers and wartime messaging helped forge the Revolution’s “common cause”—and how that campaign leaned on fear, race, and exclusion to build a new national identity.
Rob’s Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/144
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 016: The Internal Enemy
🎧 Episode 122: The Men Who Lost America
🎧 Episode 141: A Declaration in Draft
🎧 Episode 243: Revolutionary Print Networks
🎧 Episode 375: Misinformation Nation: Fake News in Early America
🎧 Episode 431: Common Sense at 250: The Pamphlet That Sparked A Revolution
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📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 20 Jan 2026 - 55min - 583 - 431 Common Sense at 250: The Pamphlet That Sparked a Revolution
Thomas Paine’s Common Sense turned a colonial rebellion into a full-blown revolution. But how did one pamphlet move so many minds in 1776—and why does it still matter 250 years later?
To commemorate the 250th anniversary of Common Sense, historian and Director of the Institute for Thomas Paine Studies at Iona University, Nora Slonimsky, joins us to explore Paine’s life, the pamphlet’s explosive impact, and what this revolutionary text still teaches us about democracy, communication, and civic life.
ITPS Website
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/403
EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:06 Thomas Pain's Early Life and Influences
00:05:53 The Institute for Thomas Paine Studies
00:07:51 Thomas Paine as an English Excise Man
00:13:34 Paine's Ideas for Reform of the British Government
00:19:27 Reception of Paine's First Pamphlet
00:21:48 Paine's Intellectual Life in England
00:27:30 Thomas Paine and Benjamin Franklin
00:31:44 Paine's Migration to Philadelphia
00:35:55 Paine's View of the American Revolution
00:39:15 The Story of Common Sense
00:50:34 Measuring the Reach of Common Sense
00:59:34 The Legacy of Common Sense and Thomas Paine
01:02:54 Time Warp
01:05:02 Commemorating the 250th Anniversary of Common Sense
01:08:17 Conclusion
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 127: American Enlightenments
🎧 Episode 141: A Declaration in Draft
🎧 Episode 144: The Common Cause
🎧 Episode 156: The Power of the Press in the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 243: Revolutionary Print Networks
🎧 Episode 394: The Pursuit of Happiness
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 13 Jan 2026 - 1h 11min - 582 - BFW Revisited: The Power of the Press in the American Revolution
Common Sense didn’t just make an argument for independence—it moved through a world of newspapers, pamphlets, and personal networks that carried revolutionary ideas from one doorstep to the next. So how did political news travel in 1776, and what made print such a powerful engine of persuasion?
As we approach the 250th anniversary of Common Sense, Ben Franklin’s World Revisited returns to Episode 156 to explore how early Americans shared, debated, and embraced revolutionary ideas. You’ll discover how print and networks spread the Revolution, what made Common Sense a publishing phenomenon, and how media shaped political debate and public opinion.
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/156
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 091: Rumors, Legends, and Hoaxes in Early America
🎧 Episode 153: Committees and Congresses: Governments of the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 144: The Common Cause
🎧 Episode 243: Revolutionary Print Networks
🎧 Episode 375: Misinformation Nation: Fake News in Early America
🎧 Episode 428: America's Forgotten Quest to Link Two Oceans
SUPPORT OUR WORK
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📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 06 Jan 2026 - 1h 22min - 581 - 430 The Founding Father of American Medicine: Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Rush was one of early America’s most fascinating figures. He was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, a leading Philadelphia physician, and a thinker who believed that a healthy body was the foundation of a healthy republic.
In this episode, historian Sarah Naramore, author of Benjamin Rush, Civic Health and Human Illness in the Early American Republic, introduces us to Rush as both doctor and political philosopher.We’ll explore:
How Rush developed an “American system” of medicine His groundbreaking ideas on mental health and addiction And why he believed the human body modeled the ideal form of government.Rush may be what Sarah calls a “B-list Founding Father,” but his influence on early American science, politics, and public health was anything but minor.
Sarah’s Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/430
EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:06 Episode Introduction
00:04:48 Who Was Benjamin Rush
00:13:52 Benjamin Rush's Medical Practice
00:17:01 The American System of Medicine
00:22:30 Rush's Ideas about Civic Health
00:29:07 Rush's Approach to Mental Health
00:33:53 Rush's Views on Addiction
00:48:00 Rush's Legacy
00:52:13 Time Warp
00:55:00 Conclusion
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 174: Yellow Fever in the Early American Republic
🎧 Episode 193: Partisans: The Friendship & Rivalry of Adams & Jefferson
🎧 Episode 263: The Medical Imagination
🎧 Episode 279: Benjamin Rush, Founding Father
🎧 Episode 301: From Inoculation to Vaccination, Part 1
🎧 Episode 302: From Inoculation to Vaccination, Part 2
SUPPORT OUR WORK
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 30 Dec 2025 - 57min - 580 - BFW Revisited: Smuggling and the American Revolution
British officials had a problem: Their American colonists wouldn't stop smuggling. Even after Parliament slashed tea prices and passed laws to make legal imports cheaper, colonists kept buying Dutch and French goods on the black market.
So what was really going on? If it wasn't just about saving money, what drove thousands of merchants and consumers to risk fines, seizure, and worse?
In this revisited episode, we follow the illicit trade networks that connected colonial port cities to the "Golden Rock,” Sint Eustatius, a tiny Dutch island that became the Atlantic World's busiest smuggling hub.
You'll discover why American merchants risked everything to trade there, how these underground networks shaped revolutionary resistance, and what Britain's crackdown on smuggling reveals about the deeper economic and political tensions that ignited the Revolution.
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/161
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 021: Smuggling in Colonial America & Living History
🎧 Episode 112: The Tea Crisis of 1773
🎧 Episode 121: The Dutch Moment in the 17th-Century Atlantic World
🎧Episode 159: Dangerous Economies
🎧 Episode 160: The Politics of Tea
🎧 Episode 288: Smugglers & Pirates in the 18th-Century Atlantic World
SUPPORT OUR WORK
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 23 Dec 2025 - 1h 21min - 579 - 429 Coffee in Early America: Why Americans Really Drink Coffee
Think the Boston Tea Party made America a coffee-drinking nation? Historian Michelle McDonald reveals the truth: colonists were already choosing coffee over tea because it was cheaper.
Michelle Craig McDonald, the Librarian/Director of the Library & Museum at the American Philosophical Society and author of Coffee Nation: How One Commodity Transformed the Early United States, explains how coffee shaped American identity long before the Revolution.
You'll hear about Revolutionary-era women storming a Boston warehouse to seize hoarded coffee and sell it at regulated prices. You'll discover why Parliament protected coffee while taxing tea. And you'll learn how enslaved Caribbean laborers made America's favorite beverage possible.
From colonial coffee houses to debates about caffeine addiction in the early republic, discover how one imported commodity became distinctly American.
Michelle's Website | Book |
00:00:00 Introduction 00:03:20 Meet our Guest 00:04:35 Coffee vs. Tea in Early America 00:06:50 Coffeehouses and How Coffee Was Served 00:08:04 Medical Concerns About Coffee 00:09:12 Coffee Production 00:12:35 Attempts to Grow Coffee in North America 00:14:04 The Use of Enslaved Labor in Coffee Cultivation 00:19:50 The Early American Market for Coffee 00:22:21 Early American Coffee Connoisseurs 00:29:57 Early American Coffeehouses 00:34:48 Coffee and the American Revolution 00:36:40 The Boston Coffee Riot, 1777 00:42:48 Coffee in the Early Republic 00:45:00 Coffee and the Haitian Revolution 00:47:53 Early Republic Attempts to Grow Coffee 00:50:55 Early Republic Coffee Culture 00:53:56 Time Warp 00:58:31 Conclusion
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/429
EPISODE OUTLINE
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 160: The Politics of Tea
🎧Episode 161: Smuggling and the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 288: Smugglers & Patriots in the 18th-Century Atlantic World
🎧 Episode 294: 1774, The Long Year of American Revolution
🎧 Episode 319: Cuba: An Early American History
🎧 Episode 401: Tea, Boycotts, & Revolution
SUPPORT OUR WORK
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 16 Dec 2025 - 1h 00min - 578 - 428 America's Forgotten Quest to Link Two Oceans
In the 1820s, American entrepreneurs, engineers, and politicians dared to dream big. They believed they could cut a canal, not through Panama, but through the wild, rain-soaked terrain of Nicaragua. Their goal: To link the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and transform global trade forever.
But what inspired these ambitious "canal dreamers?” And why did they believe Nicaragua held the key to controlling the future of commerce?
Jessica Lepler, Associate Professor of History at the University of New Hampshire and author ofCanal Dreamers: The Epic Quest to Connect the Atlantic and Pacific in the Age of Revolutions, joins us to explore this nearly forgotten story of innovation, illusion, and international ambition in early American history.
Jessica’s Website | Book
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/428
EPISODE OUTLINE
00:01:00 Introduction
00:04:05 Desire to Build a Canal Across Central America
00:08:01 Political Landscape of Central America During the 1820s
00:09:55 Creating a Stable Central American Government
00:11:55 Geography of the Nicaraguan Canal Route
00:16:03 Economic Opportunities of an Interoceanic Canal
00:17:57 Individual vs. State Interest in a Nicaraguan Canal
00:21:58 Why Americans Sought A Private Canal Contract
00:26:44 Information Canal Dreamers Relied On to Build a Canal
00:33:12 Competitive Advantages of American Canal Dreamers
00:35:40 American Surveys of a Central American Canal Route
00:39:12 Influence of the Erie Canal
00:42:32 Why the Nicaraguan Canal Failed
00:44:50 What Canal Dreamers Reveal About the Early United States0046:40 Overview of the Panama Canal
00:49:50 Time Warp
00:56:00 Conclusion
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 028: Building the Erie Canal
🎧 Episode 090: The Age of American Revolutions
🎧 Episode 113: Building the Empire State
🎧 Episode 165: The Age of Revolutions
🎧 Episode 186: The New Map of Empire
🎧 Episode 329: Freemasonry in Early America
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 09 Dec 2025 - 58min - 577 - 427 How States Are Planning the 250th: Commemorating the American Revolution in 2026
As we look ahead to the 250th anniversary—the semiquincentennial—of the Declaration of Independence in 2026, communities and commissions across the United States are asking big questions:
How should we commemorate this historic milestone? What’s the right balance between celebration and education? And how can this moment bring people together across political divides, generational gaps, and complex histories?
To explore these questions, I’ve invited my friend, colleague, and Clio Digital Media co-founder Karin Wulf to guest host a special conversation with two people who are leading the way: Gregg Amore, Chair of the Rhode Island 250 Commission, and Carly Fiorina, Chair of the Virginia 250 Commission.
Together, they reveal how their states are planning commemorative programs that center civic engagement, local storytelling, and inclusive history—and how the 250th can be more than a moment. It can be a spark.Karin’s Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/427
EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:10 Welcome & Episode Overview
00:04:45 Guest Introductions
00:07:32 Virginia & Rhode Island's Commemorative Plans
00:11:21 State Efforts and Collaborations
00:16:32 Engaging Young People
00:20:11 Educational Initiatives
00:22:13 Ken Burns's The American Revolution
00:24:30 Navigating the Political Climate
00:32:05 Reflections on the Bicentennial
00:35:00 Challenges to Achieving Commemorative Goals
00:42:51 Conclusion and Future Opportunities
00:46:53 Final Thoughts
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 250: Virginia, 1619
🎧 Episode 373: The Gaspee Affair
🎧 Episode 417: Roger Williams, Rogue Puritan
🎧 Episode 416: Lineage: Genealogy in Early America
🎧 Episode 424: Dunmore's Proclamation & the American Revolution in Virginia
🎧 Episode 425: Ken Burns's The American Revolution
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 02 Dec 2025 - 49min - 576 - BFW Revisited: The Mayflower
Each November, we Americans come together to celebrate Thanksgiving, a holiday that invites us to reflect on gratitude, community, and the stories we tell about our past.
But what do we really know about the origins of this holiday? What did the “First Thanksgiving” look like, and who were the people who made it happen?
In honor of Thanksgiving, we’re revisiting our 2018 conversation with Rebecca Fraser, author of The Mayflower: The Families, The Voyage, and the Founding of America. This rich conversation offers a look at the English Separatists or Pilgrims who settled in Massachusetts. It explores who they were, why they came to North America, and what their life was like in the early years of Plymouth Colony.
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/213
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 095: A Tale of Two Bostons
🎧Episode 104: The Saltwater Frontier
🎧 Episode 121: The Dutch Moment in the 17th-Century Atlantic World
🎧 Episode 182: The Great Awakening in New England
🎧 Episode 290: The World of the Wampanoag, Part 1
🎧 Episode 291: The World of the Wampanoag, Part 2
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 25 Nov 2025 - 57min - 575 - 426 Indigenous Agriculture and the Hidden Science of Native Foodways
As Thanksgiving approaches, many Americans are gathering to reflect on gratitude, family—and of course—food.
It's the time of year when we may think about the so-called "First Thanksgiving" and imagine scenes of Pilgrims and Native peoples gathering in Massachusetts to share in the bounty of their fall harvests.
But how much do we really know about the food systems and agricultural knowledge of Indigenous peoples of North America? In what ways were the Wampanoag people able to contribute to this harvest celebration—and what have we gotten wrong about their story?
Michael Wise, Associate Professor of History at the University of North Texas and author of Native Foods: Agriculture, Indigeneity, and Settler Colonialism in American History, joins us to challenge four persistent myths about Indigenous food practices. Discover how Native communities shaped and stewarded the land and its agriculture long before European colonists arrived—and why this history matters more than we might think.Michael’s Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/426
EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:10 Episode Introduction
00:03:43 Guest Introduction
00:04:30 Myths about Indigenous Agriculture
00:11:29 Indigenous and European Gender Roles
00:15:56 Wampanoag Agriculture
00:17:29 Wampanoag Corn Cultivation
00:25:59 Wampanoag Cuisine
00:27:52 Indigenous Disspossession in New England
00:32:58 Cherokee Agriculture
00:37:13 The Cherokee Hunter Myth
00:40:53 The Origin of the Myths about Native American Agriculture
00:45:40 Future Projects
00:47:13 Closing Thoughts & Resources
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 131: Thomas Jefferson's Empire of Liberty
🎧 Episode 189: The Little Ice Age
🎧 Episode 278: Polygamy: An Early American History
🎧 Episode 290: The World of the Wampanoag, Pt 1
🎧 Episode 291: The World of the Wampanoag, Pt 2
🎧 Episode 323: American Expansion and the Political Economy of Plunder
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.
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Tue, 18 Nov 2025 - 50min - 574 - 425 Ken Burns' The American Revolution
What does it take to bring the American Revolution to life?
How can an event that took place 250 years ago be conveyed to us through modern-day film?
Ken Burns and his team worked to answer these questions in their new, epic six-part documentary,Ken Burns’ The American Revolution. Their work promises to deepen, complicate, and transform our understanding of the Revolution over 12 hours of film.
But how did Burns and his team make this film? What stories did they choose to tell? And what challenges did they face in telling those stories?
Sarah Botstein and David Schmidt, the two co-directors of Ken Burns’ The American Revolution, join us for a behind-the-scenes tour of their film and how they made it.
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/425
EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00 Introduction
00:03:09 Guest Introduction
00:04:42 Becoming Involved in the Documentary
00:07:57 Approach to Telling the Story of the Revolution
00:18:57 Images and Representation
00:21:53 Challenges Faced
00:27:03 Choosing Which Stories to Include
00:39:00 Relevance and Meaning of the Revolution
00:45:45 Time Warp
00:52:15 Conclusion
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 307: History and the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 314: Native Americans in Early American Cities
🎧 Episode 327: Ken Burns' Benjamin Franklin
🎧 Episode 352: James Forten and the Making of the United States
🎧 Episode 382: Hessians
🎧 Episode 408: The Memory of 1776
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 11 Nov 2025 - 52min - 573 - 424 Dunmore's Proclamation & the American Revolution in Virginia
In November 1775, as tensions between the British Empire and its rebellious colonies continued to escalate, Virginia’s royal governor made a radical—and to some, terrifying—proclamation: Any enslaved person who fled a revolutionary enslaver and joined the British Army would gain their freedom.
Known to history as Dunmore’s Proclamation, this single decree changed the course of the American Revolution in the South. It offered a lifeline to thousands of enslaved men, women, and their families, ignited fierce debates about loyalty and liberty, and revealed deep contradictions at the heart of a revolution that claimed to fight for freedom.
In honor of the 250th anniversary of Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation, we’re taking a deeper look at the man behind it: John Murray, Fourth Earl of Dunmore, and at the Revolution in Virginia, which he helped fuel.
Our guide for this exploration is Andrew Lawler, an award-winning journalist and author of A Perfect Frenzy: A Royal Governor, His Black Allies, and the Crisis that Spurred the American Revolution.
Andrew's Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/424
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 109: The American Enlightenment & Cadwallader Colden
🎧 Episode 162: Dunmore's New World
🎧 Episode 252: The Highland Soldier in North America
🎧 Episode 322: Running From Bondage in Revolutionary America
🎧 Episode 333: Disruptions in Yorktown
🎧 Episode 398: The Shawnee-Dunmore War, 1774
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.
=Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 04 Nov 2025 - 1h 03min - 572 - BFW Revisited: Disruptions in Yorktown
What did it take to end the War for Independence?
When we think of the American Revolution’s final chapter, we think of the Siege of Yorktown.
Between September 28 and October 19, 1781, British forces endured a siege by the Franco-American forces that ultimately led to a triumphant Franco-American victory, British recognition of American independence, and the birth of a new nation.
But the real story of the Yorktown victory is far more layered. It involved international alliances, enslaved people seeking freedom, and years of hardship.
Today, we’re revisiting the events of October 1781 as we revisit Episode 333.
In this episode, we join three historians–Marcus Nevius, Ed Ayers, and Gretchen Johnson– who help us uncover:
How American, French, and British forces converged at Yorktown The vital role of the French army and navy in securing victory And what this final battle looked like on the ground for soldiers, civilians, and Black Virginians alikeShow Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/333
EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00 Introduction
00:03:59 Siege of Yorktown
00:05:13 The British Military Approach
00:08:50 The Importance of Virginia's Regions
00:18:57 The Impact of War on Yorktown
00:28:03 Dunmore's Proclamation and the British Strategy
00:33:44 The British Invasion of Virginia
00:48:00 Aftermath and Legacy
00:55:49 Conclusion
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 162: Dunmore's New World
🎧 Episode 208: Turning Points of the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 250: Virginia, 1619
🎧Episode 289: Maroonage in the Great Dismal Swamp
🎧 Episode 306: The Horse's Tail
🎧 Episode 332: Occupied Philadelphia
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 28 Oct 2025 - 59min - 571 - 423 The Forgotten Artists of the American Revolution
Have you ever noticed how conversations about the American Revolution often center on great battles, founding documents, and famous statesmen?
What if, instead, we explored that world through the eyes—and the hands—of everyday people who shaped it through art?
Zara Anishanslin, Associate Professor of History and Art History at the University of Delaware and Director of its Museum Studies and Public Engagement Program, joins us to uncover the hidden world of artists, artisans, and makers who painted, stitched, and crafted the Revolution into being. Drawing from her book The Painter’s Fire: A Forgotten History of the Artists Who Championed the American Revolution, Zara helps us see how creativity and craftsmanship tell a fuller—and more human—story of America’s founding.
Zara’s Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/423
EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00 Introduction
00:41.79 Welcome & Episode Overview
00:02:59 Meet Our Guest
00:07:11 The Transatlantic Network of Revolutionary Artists
00:11:28 Why Revolutionary Artwork Didn't Survive
00:14:13 Prince Demah & His Mother Daphny
00:21:21 How Art Patronage Worked in the 18th Century
00:24:01 Finding Prince Demah a Teacher in London
00:27:40 Life as a Black Artist in London
00:41:22 Prince Demah's Life in Revolutionary Boston
00:49:24 Robert Edge Pine: The English Artist Who Supported America
00:59:24 How Revolutionary Art Differs from Later Commemorative Art
01:04:55 What Artists Reveal About the Revolution
01:07:29 Closing Thoughts & Resources
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 084: How Historians Read Historical Sources
🎧 Episode 106: The World of John Singleton Copley
🎧 Episode 201: Art, Politics, and Everyday Life in Early America
🎧 Episode 299: Colonial Virginia Portraits
🎧 Episode 390: Objects of Revolution
🎧 Episode 422: Plantation Goods
SUPPORT OUR WORK
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 21 Oct 2025 - 1h 08min - 570 - BFW Revisited: The World of John Singleton Copley
What does it mean to be caught between two worlds? Between loyalty and liberty, artistry and commerce, and between the British North American colonies and the British Empire?
We’re revisiting our exploration of the life of John Singleton Copley, one of early America’s most celebrated portrait artists. Copley’s story reveals much about the upheaval of the American Revolution and the choices people made as events unfolded around them.
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/106
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧Bonus: The Boston Stamp Act Riots of 1765
🎧 Episode 075: How Archives Work (Paul Revere)
🎧 Episode 084: How Historians Read Historical Sources
🎧 Episode 136: Material Culture and the Making of America
🎧 Episode 201: Art, Politics, and Everyday Life in Early America
🎧 Episode 299: Colonial Virginia Portraits
SUPPORT OUR WORK
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 14 Oct 2025 - 50min - 569 - 422: Plantation Goods: How Northern Industry Fueled Slavery
When we talk about slavery in Early America, we often focus on plantations: their large, fertile fields, their cash crops, and the people who labored on those fields to produce those cash crops under conditions of enslavement.
But what about the ordinary objects that made slavery work? The shoes, axes, cloth, and hoes? What can these everyday objects reveal about the economic and social systems that sustained slavery in the early United States?
Seth Rockman, a Professor of History at Brown University and author of Plantation Goods: A Material History of Slavery, which was a finalist for the 2025 Pulitzer Prize in History, joins us to rethink how Northern manufacturing, labor, and commerce were entangled with the southern slave economy.
Seth’s Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/422
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Bonus: Lonnie Bunch: History & Historians in the Public
🎧 Episode 084: How Historians Read Historical Sources
🎧 Episode 244: Shoe Stories from Early America
🎧 Episode 281: The Business of Slavery
🎧 Episode 390: Objects of Revolution
🎧 Episode 406: Threads of Power
SUPPORT OUR WORK
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 07 Oct 2025 - 1h 10min - 568 - BFW Revisited: Origins of American Manufacturing
When we picture the early United States, we often imagine a young nation fighting for political independence. But what about economic independence—and what did it take to achieve it?
Historian Lindsay Schakenbach Regele of Miami University in Ohio joins us to explore how manufacturing became central to the nation's post-Revolution identity.
Drawing from her book Manufacturing Advantage: War, the State, and the Origins of American Industry, 1776–1848, Lindsay reveals how the federal government championed industries like firearms and textiles as tools of sovereignty, security, and self-reliance. Tune in to discover:
- Why early leaders saw manufacturing as essential to independence. 2. How state-sponsored factories shaped key sectors like arms and textiles. 3. How these efforts laid the foundation for America’s industrial and social transformation
This episode sheds light on the surprising role of government in jumpstarting the U.S. economy.
Lindsay’s Website| Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/298
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 098: Birth of the American Tax Man
🎧 Episode 113: Building the Empire State
🎧 Episode 140: Nathaniel Bowditch
🎧 Episode 281: The Business of Slavery
🎧 Episode 292: Craft
SUPPORT OUR WORK
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 30 Sep 2025 - 1h 00min - 567 - 421 Loyalism and Revolution in Georgia
What if loyalty, not rebellion, was the default position in revolutionary British North America?
It’s easy to forget that before 1776, most colonists identified as proud Britons. They didn’t see themselves as future Americans or revolutionaries; they saw themselves as subjects of a global empire. And in the colony of Georgia, many clung to that identity longer than we might expect.
Greg Brooking, a historian of the American Revolution in the South and a high school history and social studies teacher, joins us to explore the American Revolution in Georgia with details from his book From Empire to Revolution: Sir James Wright and the Price of Loyalty in Georgia.
Greg’s Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/421
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 126: The Reintegration of American Loyalists
🎧 Episode 171: Native Americans, British Colonists, and Trade in North America
🎧 Episode 280: The British Are Coming
🎧 Episode 409: The Battles of Lexington & Concord, 1775
🎧 Episode 413: Dr. Joseph Warren & the Battle of Bunker Hill
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 23 Sep 2025 - 58min - 566 - BFW Revisited: Loyalism in the British Atlantic World
When we think of the American Revolution, we often focus on the patriots who fought for independence. But what about the Loyalists—those who chose to remain faithful to the British crown?
In this episode, we revisit a thought-provoking conversation with historian Brad Jones of Fresno State University, author of Resisting Independence: Popular Loyalism in the Revolutionary British Atlantic. Brad challenges the long-held view of Loyalists as passive or fearful, instead revealing Loyalism as a vibrant political identity shaped by faith, governance, and a broader sense of British belonging.
Listen as we explore: Why the Revolution was also a civil war among neighbors. How Protestantism influenced Loyalist thought. What loyalty meant across the diverse communities of the British Atlantic.
This episode offers a deeper, more nuanced view of the Revolution—and the people who resisted it.
Brad’s Website | Book |
Show Notes:https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/330
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 119: The Heart of the Declaration
🎧 Episode 122: The Men Who Lost America
🎧 Episode 151: Defining the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 232: The Acadian Diaspora
🎧 Episode 238: Benedict Arnold
🎧 Episode 306: The Horse's TailSUPPORT OUR WORK
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 16 Sep 2025 - 1h 07min - 565 - 420: Creating the U.S. Federal Government
When we think about the founding of the United States, we often focus on the Constitution, the Founding Fathers, and those first landmark elections.
But how did the United States actually build its federal government, the entire apparatus of state that could collect revenue, manage international diplomacy, provide law and order, and extend its reach across a rapidly expanding nation?
Who were the people who made that government work? And how did their service to the nation shape what it meant to be an American citizen?
Peter Kastor, a Professor of History and American Cultural Studies at Washington University in St. Louis, and the Founder of the Creating a Federal Government, 1789-1829 digital project, joins us to explore the remarkable and often overlooked story of how the United States built its federal government between 1789 and 1829.
Peter’s Website | Digital Project |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/420
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 098: Birth of the American Tax Man
🎧 Episode 202: The Early History of the United States Senate
🎧 Episode 279: The Cabinet: Creation of an American Institution
🎧Episode 259: American Legal History
🎧 Episode 315: History and American Democracy
🎧 Episode 338: The Early History of the United States Senate🎧 Episode 393: Politics and Political Culture in the Early American Republic
SUPPORT OUR WORK
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 09 Sep 2025 - 1h 17min - 564 - BFW Revisited: Women & the Constitutional Moment of 1787
Each September, Constitution Day marks the signing of the U.S. Constitution on September 17, 1787.
But beyond celebration, this commemoration invites deeper reflection: Whose voices helped shape this foundational document? And who was imagined as part of the political community it created?
In honor of Constitution Day and Constitution Month, we’re revisiting a pivotal conversation from Episode 339 with constitutional historian Mary Sarah Bilder.
Drawing from her book, Female Genius: Eliza Harriot and George Washington at the Dawn of the Constitution,Mary challenges us to reconsider who influenced the Constitution and how women publicly engaged with its political possibilities.
Join us as we explore: Eliza Harriot’s advocacy for “female genius” and intellectual equality. Why the Constitution’s gender-neutral language mattered. And, the debates over representation, education, and citizenship in 1787
Mary’s Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/339
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 107: Madison's Hand
🎧 Episode 137: The Washingtons' Runaway Slave, Ona Judge
🎧 Episode 255: Birthright Citizens
🎧 Episode 259: American Legal History & the Bill of Rights
🎧Episode 285: Elections & Voting in Early America
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 02 Sep 2025 - 1h 13min - 563 - 419 The North Carolina Regulator Movement
What happens when the very people meant to uphold justice become the ones exploiting it?
In the 1760s, North Carolina farmers watched sheriffs pocket their tax payments, judges rule in favor of corrupt land speculators, and government officials literally steal their land, all while claiming to represent the Crown’s interests.
Nathan Schultz, a public historian and the Site Manager at the Alamance Battleground State Historic Site in North Carolina, joins us to explore the North Carolina Regulator Movement.
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/419
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 330: Loyalism in the British Atlantic World
🎧 Episode 356: The Moravian Church in North America
🎧 Episode 373: The Gaspee Affair
🎧 Episode 374: The American Revolutionary War in the West
🎧 Episode 380: The Tory's Wife
🎧 Episode 409: The Battles of Lexington & Concord, 1775
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 26 Aug 2025 - 1h 01min - 562 - BFW Revisited: The Tory's Wife
Revolutionary upheaval didn't just reshape governments—it transformed daily life for ordinary families across colonial America.
In this revisited episode, historian Cynthia Kierner reveals the remarkable story of Jane Spurgin, a woman navigating loyalty, survival, and family obligations in Revolutionary-era North Carolina.
Through Jane's experience as a Loyalist's wife, we discover how political conflicts reached into homes and communities, forcing women to make difficult choices between personal safety and family loyalty.
As we prepare to explore the North Carolina Regulator Movement, Jane's story illuminates the human cost of colonial resistance and the often-overlooked voices of women caught in the crossfire of revolution.
Guest: Cynthia Kierner, Professor of History at George Mason University and author of The Tory's Wife: A Woman and Her Family in Revolutionary America
Cynthia’s Website | Book
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/380
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 085: American Loyalists in Canada
🎧 Episode 126: The Reintegration of American Loyalists
🎧 Episode 237: Motherhood in Early America
🎧 Episode 325: Everyday People of the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 330: Loyalism in the British Atlantic World
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 19 Aug 2025 - 1h 03min - 561 - 418 The Driver's Story
We often learn about slavery in early America through broad economic or political terms—cotton, sugar, markets, revolutions. But what happens when we turn our focus to the lived experiences of enslaved people themselves?
What did slavery feel and look like on the ground? What did survival look like day to day? And what do we make of the enslaved people who were forced into positions of authority over others, like the plantation drivers who were tasked with extracting labor from their fellow enslaved workers?
Randy Browne, an award-winning historian and Professor of History at Xavier University, joins us to investigate plantation slavery and its driving system with details from his book The Driver’s Story: Labor and Power in the World of Atlantic Slavery.
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/418
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 281: The Business of Slavery
🎧 Episode 282: Tacky's Revolt
🎧 Episode 289: Maroonage & the Great Dismal Swamp
🎧 Episode 295: The Whitney Plantation & Museum
🎧 Episode 312: The Domestic Slave Trade
🎧 Episode 324: New Netherland & Slavery
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 12 Aug 2025 - 59min - 560 - BFW Revisited: The Business of Slavery
When we think about slavery in early America, we often rightfully focus on the human toll–the violence, the exploitation, the dehumanization that defined the institution. But slavery wasn’t just a system of forced labor; it was also a business.
Next week, in Episode 418, we’ll be investigating a different facet of the business of slavery: the story of slave drivers–enslaved people who were forced or took up positions of authority over others. To better understand the system slave drivers operated within, I thought we should revisit Episode 281 with historian Caitlin Rosenthal.
Caitlin is an Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley. Her book, Accounting for Slavery: Masters and Management, won the Simkins Award from the Southern Historical Association and the Economic Historical Society’s First Book Prize.
Caitlin’s Website | Book
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/403
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 173: Colonial Port Cities & Slavery
🎧 Episode 176: The Value of the Enslaved from Womb to Grave
🎧 Episode 312: The Domestic Slave Trade
🎧 Episode 324: New Netherland and Slavery
🎧 Episode 386: Sleeping with the Ancestors
🎧 Episode 387: California and Slavery
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 05 Aug 2025 - 49min - 559 - 417 Roger Williams, Rogue Puritan
When we think of early American champions of religious liberty, one name often rises above the rest: Roger Williams.
Best known as the founder of Rhode Island and a fierce advocate for the separation of church and state, Williams was a man who defied convention at every turn. He turned down a prestigious post in Boston, challenged Puritan orthodoxy, and was ultimately banished—only to build a new colony rooted in his radical ideas of liberty of conscience and religious toleration.
In this episode, we explore the life and legacy of this “nonconformist among nonconformists” with the co-editors of Reading Roger Williams: Rogue Puritans, Indigenous Nations, and the Founding of America:
Linford Fisher, Associate Professor of History at Brown University Sheila McIntyre, Professor of History at SUNY Potsdam Julie Fisher, scholar of Native American historyTogether, they help us uncover:
- How Williams challenged both church and colonial authority His relationships with Indigenous communities and his work as a translator And why his ideas still matter for understanding religious freedom in America today.
Guests' Book
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/417
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧Episode 118: The Business of Slavery in Rhode Island
🎧 Episode 290: The World of the Wampanoag, Pt. 1
🎧 Episode 291: The World of the Wampanoag, Pt. 2
🎧 Episode 356: The Moravian Church in North America
🎧 Episode 373: The Gaspee Affair
🎧 Episode 392: Religion and Race in Early America
SUPPORT OUR WORK
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 29 Jul 2025 - 1h 11min - 558 - BFW Revisited: The History of Genealogy
Why do we trace our family histories? What drives our desire to know who our ancestors were and how we’re connected to past people and events?
Genealogy is often seen as a modern pursuit, spurred by DNA tests and online records–but in reality, early Americans were deeply invested in understanding and documenting their familial ties. Their desire to understand these ties, however, extended far beyond sheer curiosity.
Last week, in Episode 416, we were joined by Karin Wulf, who shared with us her now-finished project on genealogy and family history in Lineage: Genealogy and the Politics of Connection in the British Atlantic World. Karin’s book is built on the research she shared with us in 2016, so I thought it would be fun to return to her first conversation with us about her research so we can see how her thoughts, ideas, and her book project changed over time as she did more research and thinking on the subject.
Karin’s Website | Book | Instagram
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/114
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 231: The Religious Lives of the Adams Family
🎧 Episode 236: Mixed-Race Britons & the Atlantic Family
🎧 Episode 278: Polygamy: An Early American History
🎧 Episode 354: The Sewing Girl's Tale
🎧 Episode 416: Lineage: Genealogy in Early America
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 22 Jul 2025 - 46min - 557 - 416: Lineage: Genealogy in Early America
Have you ever wondered why genealogy captivates so many people?
Whether it’s tracing a family tree back generations or holding on to stories told around the dinner table, genealogy offers a powerful sense of connection—a connection that can shape identities, claims of property, and even arguments for freedom.
But genealogy isn’t just a modern-day hobby. In early America, genealogy was a deeply consequential practice with social, political, and legal implications.
Karin Wulf, a Professor of History and the Eighth Director and Librarian of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University, joins us to explore the ways early Americans were interested in their family histories with details from her book, Lineage: Genealogy and the Power of Connection in Early America.
Karin’s Website | Book | Instagram
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/403
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 114: The History of Genealogy
🎧 Episode 231: The Religious Lives of the Adams Family
🎧 Episode 236: Mixed-Race Britons & the Atlantic Family
🎧 Episode 278: Polygamy: An Early American History
🎧 Episode 296: The Boston Massacre: A Family History
🎧 Episode 354: The Sewing Girl's TaleSUPPORT OUR WORK
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💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
💚 Leave a rating on Spotify*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 15 Jul 2025 - 1h 03min - 556 - BFW Revisited: A Declaration in Draft
The Declaration of Independence is one of the most iconic documents in United States history. But what do we really know about how it came to be?
In our most recent episode, historian Emily Sneff helped us explore the Declaration through your questions–questions that revealed just how complex, living, and contested this document still is.
So in today’s Revisited episode, we take a listen to the podcast that Emily helped to produce back in 2017: Episode 141: A Declaration in Draft.
Originally part of the Omohundro Institute’s Doing History: To the Revolution! Series, this episode features three distinguished scholars: Danielle Allen, Patrick Spero, and Peter Onuf, Together, these scholars reveal that many hands and minds shaped the Declaration of Independence. They also help us dive into some of the document’s contradictions around slavery and equality.
Emily’s Website
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/415
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 018: Our Declaration
🎧 Episode 245: Celebrating the Fourth
🎧 Episode 277: Whose Fourth of July?
🎧 Episode 388: John Hancock
🎧 Episode 394: The Pursuit of Happiness
🎧 Episode 415: The Many Declarations of Independence
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💚 Leave a rating on SpotifyLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 08 Jul 2025 - 1h 16min - 555 - Lineage Book Preview
Preview of Karin Wulf’s book, Lineage: Genealogy and the Power of Connection in Early America.
In eighteenth-century America, genealogy was more than a simple record of family ties--it was a powerful force that shaped society. Lineage delves into an era where individuals, families, and institutions meticulously documented their connections. Whether driven by personal passion or mandated by churches, local governments, and courts, these records appeared in diverse forms-from handwritten notes and account books to intricate silk threads and enduring stone carvings.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Thu, 03 Jul 2025 - 02min - 554 - 415: The Many Declarations of Independence
When you picture the Declaration of Independence, what comes to mind?
Most people envision a single, iconic document–parchment, signatures, maybe even a scene from National Treasure. But what if I told you, the Declaration of Independence isn’t just one document, but many documents? And that each version of the Declaration tells a different story–a story not just about American independence, but about the people who printed, read, preserved, and even re-wrote the Declaration?
Emily Sneff is one of the leading experts on the Declaration of Independence. She has spent more than a decade researching the Declaration’s origins, and its different copies. She’s the former research manager of the Declaration Resources Project at Harvard, a consulting curator for Revolution 250 exhibits at the Museum of the American Revolution and the American Philosophical Society, and I’m proud to say, she’s is one of our former interns here at Ben Franklin’s World.
Emily’s Website
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/415
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 018: Our Declaration
🎧 Episode 141: A Declaration in Draft
🎧 Episode 245: Celebrating the Fourth of July
🎧 Episode 277: Whose Fourth of July?
🎧 Episode 388: John Hancock
🎧 Episode 394: The Pursuit of Happiness
REQUEST A TOPIC
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Tue, 01 Jul 2025 - 1h 01min - 553 - 414 Queerness and Reputation in Revolutionary America
How do we uncover queer lives from the distant past, especially in an era when language and records often erased or obscured them?
What did queerness look like in early America, and how might it have intersected with power, religion, and empire on the eve of the American Revolution?
John McCurdy, a Professor of History and Philosophy at Eastern Michigan University and the author of Vicious and Immoral: Homosexuality, the American Revolution, and the Trials of Robert Newburgh, joins us to explore these questions through the remarkable story of British Army Chaplain Robert Newburgh.
John's EMU Webpage | Book
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/414
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 002: "That's So Gay" Exhibit, Library Company
🎧 Episode 004: Sex and the Founding Fathers
🎧 Episode 013: Charity & Sylvia: A Same-Sex Marriage in Early America
🎧 Episode 278: Polygamy: An Early American History
🎧 Episode 354: The Sewing Girl's Tale
🎧 Episode 359: Transing Gender in Early America
REQUEST A TOPIC
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Tue, 24 Jun 2025 - 57min - 552 - 413 Dr. Joseph Warren & the Battle of Bunker Hill
June 17, 2025, marks the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill, the first full-scale battle of what would become the American War for Independence.
Although technically a British victory, Bunker Hill proved that colonial soldiers could hold their own against the might of the British Empire. New England militiamen inflicted 1,054 casualties on the British, 50 percent of the British force. The New Englanders sustained 411 casualties that day, including the man who stood at the heart of this battle: Dr. Joseph Warren.
Who was Dr. Joseph Warren, and why did he risk his life in the first major battle of the Revolutionary War? What drove this physician, political thinker, and revolutionary leader to become the face of the American Revolution in Boston?
Christian Di Spigna, Executive Director of the Dr. Joseph Warren Foundation, joins us to explore these questions and commemorate this important anniversary with details from his book,Founding Martyr: The Life and Death of Dr. Joseph Warren, the American Revolution’s Lost Hero.
Christian’s Foundation | Book
Show Notes:https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/413
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 130: Paul Revere's Ride Through History
🎧 Episode 301: From Innoculation to Vaccination, Part 1
🎧 Episode 350: The Revolutionary Samuel Adams
🎧 Episode 388: John Hancock
🎧 Episode 409: The Battles of Lexington & Concord
REQUEST A TOPIC
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💚 Leave a rating on SpotifyLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 17 Jun 2025 - 1h 11min - 551 - BFW Revisited: On Juneteenth
Juneteenth, the holiday that commemorates the end of slavery in the United States, is nearly upon us, and it offers us the perfect moment for reflection.
What do we know about Juneteenth? Where did this holiday begin? And how has it grown from a regional commemoration into a national conversation about freedom, equality, and memory?
In this episode, we return to our conversation with Annette Gordon-Reed in Episode 304. A native Texan and Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, Annette brings both personal insight and deep historical knowledge to her book On Juneteenth, which is a rich meditation on Texas history, African American identity, and the long arc of emancipation.
Annette’s Website | Book | Bluesky
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/304
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 067: Cattle Colonialism
🎧 Episode 115: The Early History of Texas
🎧 Episode 117: The Life and Ideas of Thomas Jefferson
🎧 Episode 139: The Other Slavery
🎧 Episode 281: The Business of Slavery
🎧 Episode 282: Tacky's Revolt
REQUEST A TOPIC
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💚 Leave a rating on SpotifyLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 10 Jun 2025 - 50min - 550 - 412 The Franklin Stove
It might surprise you, but in the 18th century, people across the globe were reckoning with colder-than-usual weather brought on by the Little Ice Age—a centuries-long chill that made heating homes more urgent than ever.
At the same time, early Americans were cutting down trees at an unsustainable pace to stay warm. Enter Benjamin Franklin.
In this episode, Harvard historian Joyce Chaplin joins us to explore how Franklin tackled this problem by designing five different stove models, and what these innovations reveal about early American science, sustainability, and life with fire.
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/412
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 015: Round About the Earth: Circumnavigation from Magellan to Orbit
🎧 Episode 086: Benjamin Franklin in London
🎧 Episode 169: The Religious Life of Benjamin Franklin
🎧 Episode 189: The Little Ice Age
🎧 Episode 207: Young Benjamin Franklin
🎧 Episode 397: Native Nations
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💚 Leave a rating on SpotifyLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 03 Jun 2025 - 53min - 549 - BFW Revisited: The Early History of the U.S. Congress
To commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Second Continental Congress, this episode revisits the origins of the United States Congress and how early Americans built a representative government from revolutionary ideals.
Historians Matt Wasniewski and Terrence Ruckner of the Office of the Historian of the U.S. House of Representatives join us to explore how Congress evolved from its colonial and revolutionary predecessors into the bicameral legislature established by the Constitution.
House History Office Website
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/202
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 040: For Fear of an Elected King
🎧 Episode 078: Washington Brotherhood
🎧 Episode 153: Governments of the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 179: Governance During the Critical Period
🎧 Episode 338: The Early History of the United States Senate
REQUEST A TOPIC
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Tue, 27 May 2025 - 1h 05min - 548 - 411 Philadelphia: An Early History
Two hundred fifty years ago, in May 1775, delegates from thirteen British North American colonies gathered in Philadelphia for the Second Continental Congress.
Why was Philadelphia chosen as the seat of Congress? What made the city a critical hub for revolutionary ideas, commerce, and culture? And how has Philadelphia’s early history shaped the broader narrative of American Independence?
Paul Kahan, a historian of American political, economic, and urban history, joins us to explore Philadelphia’s early American history with details from his book. Philadelphia: A Narrative History, the first comprehensive history book about Philadelphia in over 40 years.
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/411
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 153: Committees and Congresses: Governments of the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 242: A History of Early Delaware
🎧 Episode 332: Experiences of Revolution, Pt 1: Occupied Philadelphia
🎧 Episode 352: James Forten and the Making of the United States
🎧 Episode 379: Women Healers in Early America
🎧 Episode 396: Carpenters' Hall and the First Continental Congress
🎧 Episode 402: Clocks, Watches, and Life in Early America
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Tue, 20 May 2025 - 1h 01min - 547 - BFW Revisited: Founding Friendships
What did friendship between men and women look like in the decades following the American Revolution? Could emotional closeness and intellectual kinship flourish outside of marriage— and without scandal?
In this episode, we revisit our earlier conversation with historian Cassandra Good, author of Founding Friendships: Friendships between Men and Women in the Early American Republic. Building on our recent exploration of love and advice in 1690s England, we take a closer look at how early Americans navigated the shifting social norms of gender, intimacy, and platonic relationships.
Show Notes:https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/094
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Mon, 12 May 2025 - 41min - 546 - Ben Franklin's World Trailer
This is a 30-second trailer for Ben Franklin's World.
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Thu, 08 May 2025 - 00min - 545 - 410 The World's First Personal Advice Column
When did people begin seeking anonymous advice for their most profound personal dilemmas? What can the answers to their early questions tell us about the emotional lives of people in the past?
We’re traveling back in time to 1690s England to explore the world’s first personal advice column, The Athenian Mercury. This two-sided broadsheet publication invited readers to send in questions about anything–from science and religion to love and marriage– and its creators, a small group of Londoners who dubbed themselves the “Athenian Society,” answered these queries with a surprising blend of wit, morality, and insight.
Joining us for this investigation is Mary Beth Norton, the Mary Donlon Alger Professor Emerita at Cornell University and award-winning historian who is a trailblazer in the field of early American women's history.
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/410
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 094: Founding Friendships
🎧 Episode 112: The Tea Crisis of 1773
🎧 Episode 155: Pauline Maier's American Revolution
🎧 Episode 294: 1774, The Long Year of Revolution
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Tue, 06 May 2025 - 1h 02min - 544 - BFW Revisited: Paul Revere's Ride Through History
Paul Revere’s Midnight Ride is one of the most famous events in American history. On the night of April 18, 1775, Revere set out to warn the Massachusetts countryside that British regulars were marching to seize rebel supplies in Concord. Revere’s name has become legendary, immortalized in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s famous poem, The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere.
But how much do we really know about Paul Revere beyond that single night?
In this revisited episode, we’ll explore the history and memory of Paul Revere. Why has he endured as a national icon, while other revolutionary couriers and figures have faded from public consciousness? How does the story of Revere’s ride illustrate the power of historical memory? And what does Revere’s real life—beyond that one night—tell us about the American Revolution and the ways we remember it?
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/130
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Tue, 29 Apr 2025 - 1h 28min - 543 - 409 The Battles of Lexington & Concord, 1775
April 19, 2025 marked the 250th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord—the moment the American Revolution turned from protest to war.
What do we really know about that fateful day? How did the people of Concord prepare for what they faced in April 1775?
David Wood, the longtime curator of the Concord Museum and the author of Eyewitness to Revolution: The American Revolution in the Concord Museum, joins us to explore answers to these questions.
Concord Museum Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/409
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧Episode 112: The Tea Crisis of 1773
🎧Episode 129: The Road to Concord
🎧Episode 130: Paul Revere's Ride Through History
🎧Episode 158: The Revolutionaries' Army
🎧Episode 229: The Townshend Moment
🎧Episode 401: Tea, Boycotts, and Revolution
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Tue, 22 Apr 2025 - 55min - 542 - BFW Revisited: The Road to Concord
April 2025 marks the 250th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord.
One of the lesser-known catalysts for these battles was the hunt for artillery. The British military, under General Thomas Gage, sought to seize weapons stockpiled by colonial militias, while Massachusetts Patriots scrambled to secure and hide weapons. This tug-of-war over firepower played a crucial role in pushing Massachusetts from political resistance to armed conflict.
To better understand how Massachusetts got to this point, we’re revisiting Episode 129: The Road to Concord, with historian J.L. Bell. John is the author of The Road to Concord: How Four Stolen Cannon Ignited the Revolutionary War and the prolific blogger behind Boston 1775.net.
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/129
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 039: The Royalist Revolution
🎧 Episode 046: The American Revolution & The War That Won It
🎧 Episode 112: The Tea Crisis of 1773
🎧 Episode 130: Paul Revere's Ride Through History
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Tue, 15 Apr 2025 - 52min - 541 - 408 The Memory of 1776
The American Revolution was more than just a series of events that unfolded between 1763 and 1783, the American Revolution is our national origin story–one we’ve passed down, shaped, and reshaped for the last 250 years.
But what do we really mean when we talk about “the Revolution?” Whose Revolution are we remembering? And how has the meaning of 1776 shifted from generation to generation?
Michael Hattem, a scholar of the American Revolution and historical memory, joins us to discuss the American Revolution and its memory, drawing on details from his new book, The Memory of ‘76: The Revolution in American History.
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/408
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 145: Mercy Otis Warren
🎧 Episode 193: Partisans: The Friendship & Rivalry of Adams and Jefferson
🎧 Episode 259: American Legal History & the Bill of Rights
🎧 Episode 261: Creating the Fourth Amendment
🎧 Episode 307: History and the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 313: Hero of Two Worlds: The Marquis de Lafayette
🎧 Episode 401: Tea, Boycotts, and Revolution
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Tue, 08 Apr 2025 - 1h 01min - 540 - BFW Revisited: Samuel Adams
This month, we commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the “shot heard round the world” that ignited the Revolutionary War.
But before those battles, and before the Revolution became a war for independence, it was a movement—a fight to secure more local control over government. And no one worked harder to transform that movement into a revolution than Samuel Adams.
To help us investigate, we’re revisiting our conversation from Episode 350 with Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Stacy Schiff, author of The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams.
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/350
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 130: Paul Revere's Ride Through History
🎧 Episode 145: Mercy Otis Warren and the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 152: Origins of the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 153: Governments of the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 228: The Boston Massacre
🎧 Episode 296: The Boston Massacre: A Family History
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Tue, 01 Apr 2025 - 1h 00min - 539 - 407 Patrick Henry
Patrick Henry is one of the most famous voices of the American Revolution. He was known in his own time for his powerful speeches and his unwavering commitment to liberty.
But did you know that later in life, Patrick Henry opposed the United States Constitution? Did you know that during the political crisis of 1798/99, George Washington wrote to Patrick Henry and asked him to save the nation?
In honor of the 250th anniversary of Patrick Henry’s most famous speech, “Give Me Liberty, or Give Me Death,” award-winning historian John Ragosta joins us to investigate the life and work of Patrick Henry.
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/403
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧Episode 102: George Rogers Clark & the Fight for the Illinois Country
🎧 Episode 152: The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 188: The Alien & Sedition Acts of 1798
🎧 Episode 350: The Revolutionary, Samuel Adams
🎧 Episode 374: The American Revolutionary War in the West
🎧 Episode 403: Re-evaluating the Presidency of John Adams
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Tue, 25 Mar 2025 - 1h 04min - 538 - BFW Revisited: Motherhood in Early America
What precisely is the work that mothers do to raise children? Has the nature of mothers, motherhood, and the work mothers do changed over time?
Nora Doyle, an Associate Professor of History at Western Carolina University, has combed through the historical record to find answers to these questions. Specifically, she’s sought to better understand the lived and imagined experiences of mothers and motherhood between the 1750s and 1850s.
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/237
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 027: A History of Stepfamilies in Early America
🎧 Episode 120: A History of Mail Order Brides in Early America
🎧 Episode 150: Abigail Adams: Revolutionary Spectator
🎧 Episode 205: First Ladies of the Republic
🎧 Episode 339: Women and the Constitutional Moment of 1787
🎧 Episode 379: Women Healers in Early America
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Tue, 18 Mar 2025 - 51min - 537 - 406 How Haudenosaunee Women & Fashion Shaped History
Historians use a lot of different sources when they research the past. Many rely on primary source documents, documents that were written by official government bodies or those written by the people who witnessed the events or changes historians are studying.
But how do you uncover the voices and stories of people who didn’t know how to write or whose families didn’t preserve much of their writing?
Maeve Kane, an Associate Professor of History at the University at Albany and author of Shirts Powdered Red: Gender, Trade, and Exchange Across Three Centuries, ran into this very problem as she sought to recover the lives of Haudenosaunee women. Maeve overcame this challenge by researching a different type of historical source—the cloth Haudenosaunee women traded for and the clothing they made and wore.
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/403
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 021: Smuggling in Colonial America & Living History
🎧 Episode 163: The American Revolution in North America
🎧 Episode 223: A Native American History of the Ohio River Valley & Great Lakes Region
🎧 Episode 264: The Treaty of Canandaigua
🎧 Episode 353: Women and the Making of Catawba Identity
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Tue, 11 Mar 2025 - 53min - 536 - BFW Revisited: The Poison Plot: Adultery & Murder in Colonial Newport
In 1738, a cooper named Benedict Arnold petitioned the Rhode Island General Assembly for a divorce from his wife Mary Ward Arnold. Benedict claimed that Mary had taken a lover and together they had attempted to murder him with poison.
How did this story of love, divorce, and attempted murder unfold? What does it reveal about the larger world of colonial America and the experiences of colonial American men and women?
Elaine Forman Crane, a Distinguished Professor of History at Fordham University, takes us through the Arnolds’ story with details from her book, The Poison Plot: A Tale of Adultery and Murder in Colonial Newport.
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/225
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 110: How Genealogists Research
🎧 Episode 114: The History of Genealogy
🎧 Episode 118: The Business of Slavery in Rhode Island
🎧 Episode 157: The Revolution's African American Soldiers
🎧 Episode 208: Nathaniel Philbrick, Turning Points of the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 373: Adrian Weimer, The Gaspee Affair
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Tue, 04 Mar 2025 - 47min - 535 - 405 African Americans in Early New York
When we think of slavery in Early America, we often think about the plantations and economies of the South. But did you know that slavery was also deeply entrenched in New York City?
Did you know that Africans and African Americans helped New York City confront slavery, freedom, and racism in the Early American Republic and Antebellum periods?
Leslie M. Harris, a professor at Northwestern University and author of In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626-1863, joins us to explore the history of Africans and African Americans in early New York City.
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/405
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 306: The Horse's Tale
🎧 Episode 324: New Netherland and Slavery
🎧 Episode 351: Wealth and Slavery in New Netherland
🎧 Episode 371: Archive of Indigenous Slavery
🎧 Episode 387: California and Slavery
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Tue, 25 Feb 2025 - 59min - 534 - BFW Revisited: Free People of Color in Early America
What does freedom mean when the deck is stacked against you?
In commemoration of Black History Month, we’re revisiting a story that is too often overlooked, but critical to our understanding of Early America.
Join Warren Milteer, Jr., an Associate Professor of History at George Washington University, as we uncover the lives of free people of color in Early America.
Warren’s Faculty Page | Book
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/328
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 118: The Business of Slavery in Rhode Island
🎧 Episode 142: A History of Abolition
🎧 Episode 176: The Value of the Enslaved from Womb to Grave
🎧 Episode 289: Maroonage and the Great Dismal Swamp
🎧 Episode 312: The Domestic Slave Trade
🎧 Episode 352: James Forten and the Making of the United States
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Tue, 18 Feb 2025 - 1h 04min - 533 - 404 The Hidden Legacy of Early African American Cuisine
Did you know that many of the food traditions that define cuisine in the United States today have roots in African culinary traditions and history?
Diane Spviey, a culinary historian and author of three culinary history books, joins us to uncover the rich and complex legacy of African and African American foodways and how those foodways helped establish the United States.
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/404
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 137: The Washingtons’ Runaway Slave, Ona Judge
🎧 Episode 170: New England Bound
🎧 Episode 222: Early History of Washington, D.C.
🎧 Episode 226: Making the State of South Carolina
🎧 Episode 395: The Great New York Fire of 1776
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Tue, 11 Feb 2025 - 1h 00min - 449 - BFW Revisited: Running from Bondage in Revolutionary America
What would you risk for freedom?
Would you risk your safety? You family? Your life?
During the American Revolution, enslaved women faced these impossible choices when the British Army promised freedom to those who dared to escape. In honor of Black History Month, we’re revisiting an extraordinary chapter of resilience and bravery: the stories of enslaved women who seized the chance to chart their own destinies amid the chaos of war.
Join Karen Cook-Bell for an exploration of enslaved women who self-emancipated during the American Revolution.
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/322
Complementary Episodes
🎧 Episode 137: The Washingtons' Runaway Slave, Ona Judge
🎧 Episode 142: A History of Abolition
🎧 Episode 157: The Revolution's African American Soldiers
🎧 Episode 162: Dunmore's New World
🎧 Episode 352: James Forten and the Making of the United States
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Tue, 04 Feb 2025 - 51min - 448 - 403 Re-Evaluating John Adams' Presidency
Did you know that John Adams, not George Washington, solidified the precedents of the executive branch and the presidency?
Lindsay Chervinsky, an award-winning presidential historian and the Executive Director of the George Washington Presidential Library, has written a book Making the Presidency: John Adams and the Precedents that Forged the Republic. She joins us to investigate the presidency of the United States’ second president, John Adams.
Lindsay’s Website | Book | Instagram
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/403
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧Episode 040: For Fear of an Elected King
🎧 Episode 117: The Life and Ideas of Thomas Jefferson
🎧 Episode 188: The Alien & Sedition Acts of 1798
🎧Episode 193: Partisans: The Friendship & Rivalry of Adams and Jefferson
🎧 Episode 203: Alexander Hamilton
🎧 Episode 279: The Cabinet: Creation of An American Institution
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Tue, 28 Jan 2025 - 1h 06min - 447 - BFW Revisited: The Cabinet: Creation of an American Institution
January 20th, marked Inauguration Day in the United States, the day a new president and his administration takes office. So it seems a fitting time for us to revisit a conversation we had in 2020 about the creation of the Executive Branch, and more specifically, the creation of the president’s cabinet.
Lindsay Chervinsky is an award-winning presidential historian and the Executive Director of the George Washington Presidential Library. In 2020, she published her first book called The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution.
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/279
Complementary Episodes
Episode 040: Kathleen Bartoloni-Tuazon, For Fear of an Elected King
Episode 137: Erica Dunbar, The Washington’s Runaway Slave, Ona Judge Episode 193: Partisans: The Friendship and Rivalry of John Adams & Thomas Jefferson Episode 202: The Early History of the United States Congress Episode 203: Joanne Freeman: Alexander Hamilton Episode 265: Lindsay Chervinsky, An Early History of the White House
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Tue, 21 Jan 2025 - 1h 10min - 446 - 402 Clocks, Watches, and Life in Early America
Do you know what time it is?
In early America, this question wasn’t as simple to answer as it is today. Urban dwellers in cities like Boston, Philadelphia, and Charleston often wondered about the time—but few owned their own watches or clocks. So, how did they keep track of the hours?
In this episode, we dive into the fascinating world of early American timekeeping. Bob Frishman, a horologist—a specialist in clocks and watches—and a scholar of horology, joins us to explore how timepieces and their makers shaped community life and craftsmanship in the 18th century. Along the way, we’ll uncover the remarkable story of Edward Duffield, a Philadelphia clockmaker who wasn’t just a master craftsman but also a close friend and neighbor of Benjamin Franklin.
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/402
Complementary Episodes
🎧 Episode 149: Benjamin Franklin in London
🎧 Episode 175: The Revolution in Ben Franklin’s House
🎧 Episode 207: Young Benjamin Franklin
🎧 Episode 244: Shoe Stories from Early America
🎧 Episode 292: Craft in Early America
🎧 Episode 301: From Inoculation to Vaccination, Pt 1
🎧 Episode 302: From Inoculation to Vaccination, Pt 2
🎧 Episode 332: Occupied Philadelphia
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Tue, 14 Jan 2025 - 1h 02min - 445 - BFW Revisited: The Politics of Tea
To close out our mini-series on Tea in early America, we’re going to revisit Episode 160: The Politics of Tea. This episode was part of our Doing History: To the Revolution series with the Omohundro Institute in 2017.
In this episode, we’ll revisit how early Americans went from attending tea parties to holding the Boston Tea Party. We’ll also explore more in-depth information about how tea became a central part of many early Americans’ lives.
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/160
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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tue, 07 Jan 2025 - 1h 27min
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