Ben Franklin's World: A Podcast About Early American History

Our 5-episode series about music in Early America continues with this second episode that seeks to answer your questions about music in Early America. David Hildebrand is a musicologist and an expert on early American music. His research specialty is in Anglo-American music, and he joins us to answer your questions. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/344 Complementary Episodes

What was music like in Early America? How did different early Americans—Native Americans, African Americans, and White Americans—integrate and use music in their daily lives? Your questions about music inspired this 5-episode series about music in Early America. Our exploration begins with music in Native America. Chad Hamill, a Professor of Applied Indigenous Studies at Northern Arizona University, is an ethnomusicologist who studies Native American and Indigenous music. He will guide us through Native North America’s musical landscapes before European colonization. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/343 Complementary Episodes

Did you know that small Native American nations had the power to dictate the terms of French colonization in the Gulf South region? Elizabeth Ellis, an Assistant Professor of History at Princeton University and a citizen of the Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma, joins us on an exploration of the uncovered and recovered histories of the more than 40 distinct and small Native nations who called the Gulf South region home during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Ellis is the author of The Great Power of Small Nations: Indigenous Diplomacy in the Gulf South. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/342 Complementary Episodes

Prepare for tricks, treats, and time travel! In honor of Halloween, we’re traveling back to the mid-seventeenth century to investigate a case of demonic possession and the practice of exorcism in New France. Mairi Cowan, an Associate Professor of History at the University of Toronto, Mississauga, joins us to investigate the life of a young French woman named Barbe Hallay and her demonic possession. Cowan is the author of The Possession of Barbe Hallay: Diabolical Arts and Daily Life in Early Canada. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/341 Complementary Episodes

The War of 1812 is an under-known conflict in United States history. It’s not a war that many Americans think about or dwell upon. And it was not a war that the United States can claim it clearly won. Nicholas Guyatt, a Professor of North American History at the University of Cambridge, joins us to investigate the War of 1812 and the experiences of American prisoners of war using details from his book, The Hated Cage: An American Tragedy in Britain’s Most Terrifying Prison. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/340 Complementary Episodes

Between May 25 and September 17, 1787, delegates from each of the United States’ thirteen states assembled in Philadelphia for an event we now call the Constitutional Convention. What do we know about the moment of the United States Constitution’s creation? What was happening around the Convention, and what issues were Americans discussing and debating as the Convention’s delegates met? Mary Sarah Bilder, an award-winning historian and the Founders Professor of Law at Boston College Law School, joins us to investigate the context of the United States Constitution’s creation with details from her book, Female Genius: Eliza Harriot and George Washington at the Dawn of the Constitution. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/048 Complementary Episodes

On September 17, 1787, thirty-nine delegates to the Constitutional Convention signed the United States Constitution and submitted it to the states for ratification. In honor of Constitution Day, we join three historians from the Senate Historical Office to investigate Article 1 of the Constitution and its creation of the United States Senate. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/338 Complementary Episodes

What made trade with China so important to the new United States that one of Americans’ first acts after securing the United States’ independence was to establish a trade with China and other Southeast Asian countries? Deal Norwood, an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Delaware, joins us to explore the lure of trade with China with details from his book, Trading Freedom: How Trade with China Defined Early America. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/337 Complementary Episodes

What did it take to stage a successful slave uprising? Over the course of the early republic, we see a few violent slave uprisings in the United States. A particularly brutal rebellion took place in Louisiana in January 1811. Another violent rebellion took place in Southampton County, Virginia in August 1831. Neither of these rebellions led to the abolishment of slavery, but they did lead to the death of many enslaved people and their enslavers. Vanessa Holden, an Associate Professor of History at the University of Kentucky and the author of the award-winning book Surviving Southampton, leads us through the events and circumstances of the 1831-Southampton Rebellion, a rebellion we tend to know today as Nat Turner’s Rebellion. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/336 Complementary Episodes

Alexander Hamilton played important roles in the founding of the United States. He served in the Continental Army, helped frame the United States Constitution, and helped place the United States on a secure economic footing with his work as the first Secretary of the Treasury. But how did Hamilton come to know so much about the economic systems that could help the new United States build a strong economic footing? Why did Hamilton work for and believe that the new United States should be a nation that welcomed all religions and forms of religious worship? Andrew Porwacher, the Wick Cary Associate Professor of History at the University of Oklahoma and the Ernest May Fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center, joins us to investigate the Jewish world and upbringing of Alexander Hamilton. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/335 Complementary Episodes

Spanish explorers and colonists visited, settled, and claimed territory in 42 of the United States’ 50 states. So what does the history of Early America look like from a Spanish point of view? Brandon Bayne, an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and author of the book Missions Begin with Blood, joins us to investigate some of the religious aspects of Spanish colonization. Specifically, the work of Spanish missionaries. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/334 Complementary Episodes

What was everyday life like during the American War for Independence? Our Fourth of July series continues with an investigation of how the American War for Independence impacted those who remained on the home front. As episode 332 explored how the war impacted the lives of people who lived in urban Philadelphia, this episode investigates how the war impacted the lives of people who lived in the more rural setting of Yorktown, Virginia. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/333 Complementary Episodes

What was everyday life like during the American War for Independence? In honor of the Fourth of July, we’ll investigate answers to this question by exploring the histories of occupied Philadelphia and Yorktown, and how civilians, those left on the home front in both of those places, experienced the war and its armies.  These episodes will allow us to see how the war impacted those who remained at home. They will also allow us to better understand the messy confusion and uncertainty Americans experienced in between the big battles and events of the American Revolution.  This first episode investigates everyday life in British-occupied Philadelphia. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/332 Complementary Episodes

In a town as old as Williamsburg, Virginia, which was established in 1638, it’s often the case that historic buildings with interesting pasts stand unnoticed and in plain sight. Such was the case for the building that once housed Williamsburg’s Bray School. A school founded by a group of Anglican clergymen with the express purpose of educating Black children in the ways of the Anglican faith. It was an education that included reading, possibly writing, and the Book of Common Prayer. In honor of Juneteenth, we explore the exciting rediscovery of Williamsburg’s Bray School with three scholars: Maureen Elgersman Lee, Director of the Bray School Lab at William & Mary; Ronald Hurst, Vice President of Museums, Preservation, and Historic Resources at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, and Nicole Brown, a historic interpreter, American Studies graduate student, and the graduate student assistant at William & Mary’s Bray School Lab. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/331 Complementary Episodes0

We’ll never know for certain how many Americans supported the American Revolution, remained loyal to the British Crown and Parliament, or tried to find a middle way as someone who was disaffected from either loyalty. But we can know about the different ideologies that drove people to support the Revolution, to remain loyal to crown and parliament, or to become disaffected from both sides.  Brad Jones, Professor of History at California State University, Fresno and author of the book, Resisting Independence: Popular Loyalism in the Revolutionary British Atlantic, joins us to investigate what loyalists believed and how loyalism was not just a loyalty or ideology adopted by British Americans living in the 13 rebellious colonies, but by Britons across the British Atlantic World. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/330 Complementary Episodes

This is an episode you’ve been waiting for! Mark Tabbert, the Director of Archives and Exhibits at the George Washington Masonic National Memorial Association and the author of Almanac of American Freemasonry and A Deserving Brother: George Washington and Freemasonry, joins us so we can investigate and better understand Freemasonry and its role in Early America. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/329 Complementary Episodes

We know from our explorations of early America that not all Americans were treated equally or enjoyed the freedoms and liberties other Americans enjoyed. Warren Milteer Jr., an Assistant Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and the author of North Carolina’s Free People of Color and Beyond Slavery’s Shadow, joins us to explore the lives and experiences of free people of color, men and women who ranked somewhere in the middle or middle bottom of early American society. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/328 Complementary Episodes

How do we know what we know about Benjamin Franklin? We know historians, museum curators, and archivists rely on historical documents and objects to find and learn information about the past. But how does a documentary filmmaker present what they know about history through video? David Schmidt works as a senior producer at Florentine Films where he worked alongside Ken Burns to produce a 2-episode documentary about the life of Benjamin Franklin. The documentary is called Benjamin Franklin and Schmidt joins us for a behind-the-scenes tour of documentary filmmaking and to investigate some of the lesser-known details of Ben Franklin’s life. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/327 Complementary Episodes

With Ukrainian sovereignty and democracy under attack, Americans have been wondering: Should our government be doing more than placing economic sanctions on Russia? Should I, as U.S. military veteran, travel to Ukraine and offer to fight in their army? What would official U.S. military involvement mean for the politics of Europe and in our age of nuclear weapons? While the situation in Ukraine is new and novel, Americans’ desire to assist other nations seeking to create or preserve their democracies and republics is not new.  Maureen Connors Santelli, an Associate Professor of History at Northern Virginia Community College and author of The Greek Fire: American-Ottoman Fervor in the Age of Revolutions, joins us to investigate the Greek Revolution and early Americans’ reactions to it. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/327 Complementary Episodes

What do we know about the American Revolution? Why is it important that we see the Revolution as a political event, a war, a time of social and economic reform, and as a time of violence and upheaval? Woody Holton, a Professor of History at the University of South Carolina and the author of Liberty is Sweet: The Hidden History of the American Revolution, joins us to explore and discuss answers to these questions so that we can better see and understand the American Revolution as a whole event. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/325 Complementary Episodes