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

The story of freedom in colonial New Orleans and Louisiana pivoted on the choices black women made to retain control of their bodies, families, and futures. How did black women in colonial Louisiana navigate French and Spanish black and slavery codes to retain control of their bodies, families, and futures? Jessica Marie Johnson, Assistant Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University and author of the award-winning book Wicked Flesh: Black Women, Intimacy, and Freedom in the Atlantic World, joins us to investigate answers to this question and to reveal what viewing the history of the Atlantic World through the histories of slavery and gender can show us about what life was really like for colonists, settlers, and the enslaved. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/308 Complementary Episodes

In Episode 307, Michael Hattem helped us investigate the role history played in the American Revolution and the ways early historians used history as a tool to unite Americans as one people after the Revolution. This bonus episode brings us back together with Michael Hattem so we can explore a few topics we didn’t have time to explore in our full-length episode: A listener question about how British Americans thought about the British Empire’s responsibility to protect them and historical schools of thought, how schools of thought develop, and the different schools of historical thought when it comes to the American Revolution. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/307 Become a Subscriber! https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/subscribe Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The story of the founding of the United States is a familiar one. It usually (but not always) begins with the English settlement at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607, describes the founding and development of thirteen British North American colonies that hugged North America’s eastern seaboard, and then delves into the imperial reforms and conflicts that caused the colonists to respond with violent protests during the 1760s and 1770s. Then there is the war, which began in April 1775 and ended in 1783. The adoption of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. And the story of how against all odds, the Americans persevered and founded an independent United States. Have you ever wondered where this familiar narrative came from and why it was developed? Michael Hattem, a historian of Early America who has a research expertise in the age and memory of the American Revolution, joins us to investigate the creation of the “grand narrative” about the Revolution and the United States’ founding, with details from his book, P

The words of the Declaration of Independence are not the only aspect of the American Revolution that carry power. Visual and material objects from during and after the Revolution also carry power and meaning. Objects like monuments, uniforms, muskets, powder horns, and the Horse’s Tail, a remnant of a grand equestrian statue of King George III, which stood in New York City’s Bowling Green park. Historians Wendy Bellion, Leslie Harris, and Arthur Burns join us to investigate the history of revolutionary New York City and how New Yorkers came to their decisions to both install and tear down a statue to King George III, and what happened to this statue after it came down. This episode is sponsored in part by Humanities New York. The mission of Humanities New York is to strengthen civil society and the bonds of community, using the humanities to foster engaging inquiry and dialog around social and cultural concerns. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/306 Complementary Episodes

Death is one of the few universals in life. Everyone who is born, will die. How do the living make peace with death? While different cultures make peace with death in different ways, Erik Seeman joins us to investigate how white, American Protestants made their peace with death during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. Erik Seeman is a Professor of History at the University at Buffalo. He’s an award-winning historian who has written three books on death practices in early America, including his most recent book, Speaking with the Dead in Early America.  Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/305 Complementary Episodes

Juneteenth is a state holiday that commemorates June 19, 1865, the day slavery ended in Texas. Over the last decade, a push to make Juneteenth a national holiday to commemorate the end of slavery in the United States has gained momentum. What do we know about Juneteenth and its origins? Annette Gordon-Reed, an award-winning historian at Harvard University and Harvard Law School, is a native Texan and she joins us to discuss the early history of Texas and the origins of the Juneteenth holiday with details from her book, On Juneteenth. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/304 Complementary Episodes

The Mississippi Gulf Coast was the home of many different peoples, cultures, and empires during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. According to some historians, the Gulf Coast region may have been the most diverse region in early North America.
 Matthew Powell, a historian of slavery and southern history and the Executive Director of the La Pointe-Krebs House & Museum in Pascagoula, Mississippi, joins us to investigate and explore the Mississippi Gulf Coast and a prominent family who has lived there since about 1718. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/303 Complementary Episodes

Before its eradication in 1980, smallpox was the most feared disease in many parts of the world. Known as the “king of terrors” and the “disease of diseases” the search for a way to lessen and avoid smallpox was on! How did vaccination come about? What are vaccination’s connections to smallpox inoculation? And how did news and practice of vaccination spread throughout North America? These questions will be our focus in this second, and final, episode in our “From Inoculation to Vaccination” series. In this episode, we join experts Dr. René Najera, Farren Yero, and Andrew Wehrman for a journey through the history of smallpox, the creation of the world’s first vaccine, and first mass public health initiative.  Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/302 Complementary Episodes

Smallpox was the most feared disease in North America and in many parts of the world before its eradication in 1980. So how did early Americans live with smallpox and work to prevent it? How did they help eradicate this terrible disease? Over the next two episodes, we’ll explore smallpox in North America. We’ll investigate how smallpox came to North America, how North Americans worked to contain, control, and prevent outbreaks of the disease, and how the story of smallpox is also the story of immunization. In this episode, we join experts Dr. René Najera, Farren Yero, Ben Mutschler, and Andrew Wehrman for a journey through the history of smallpox and the world’s first immunization procedure: inoculation.  Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/301 Complementary Episodes

What do historians wish more people better understood about early American history and why do they wish people had that better understanding? In celebration of the 300th episode of Ben Franklin’s World, we posed these questions to more than 30 scholars. What do they think? Join the celebration to discover more about Early America and take a behind-the-scenes tour of your favorite history podcast. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/300 REQUEST A TOPIC

What can a portrait reveal about the history of colonial British America? Portraits were both deeply personal and yet collaborative artifacts left behind by people of the past. When historians look at multiple portraits created around the same time and place, their similarities can reveal important social connections, trade relationships, or cultural beliefs about race and gender in early American history.  Janine Yorimoto Boldt, Associate Curator of American Art at the Chazen Museum of Art and the researcher behind the digital project Colonial Virginia Portraits, leads us on an exploration of portraiture and what it can reveal about the early American past.  Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/299 Complementary Episodes

Have you ever stopped to think about how the United States became a manufacturing nation? Have you ever wondered how the United States developed not just products, but the technologies, knowledge, and machinery necessary to manufacture or produce various products? Lindsay Schakenbach Regele has. Lindsay is an Associate Professor of History at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio and the author of Manufacturing Advantage: War, the State, and the Origins of American Industry, 1776-1848, and she joins us today to lead our exploration into the early American origins of industrialization. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/298 Complementary Episodes

The history of Native American land dispossession is as old as the story of colonization. European colonists came to the Americas, and the Caribbean, wanting land for farms and settlement so they found ways to acquire lands from indigenous peoples by the means of negotiation, bad-faith dealing, war, and violence. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 is deeply rooted in early American history. Claudio Saunt, a scholar of Native American history at the University of Georgia, and author of the book Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory, joins us to discuss the Indian Removal Act of 1830 and how Native Americans in the southeastern part of the United States were removed from their homelands and resettled in areas of southeastern Kansas and Oklahoma. 
 Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/048 Complementary Episodes

Is there anything more we can know about well-researched and reported events like the Boston Massacre? Are there new ways of looking at oft-taught events that can help us see new details about them, even 250 years after they happened? Serena Zabin, a Professor of History at Carleton College in Minnesota and the author of the award-winning book, The Boston Massacre: A Family History, joins us to discuss the Boston Massacre and how she found a new lens through which to view this famous event that reveals new details and insights. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/296 Complementary Episodes

What does it take to create a museum? How can a museum help visitors grapple with a very uncomfortable aspect of their nation’s past? Ibrahima Seck, a member of the History Department at the University Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar, Senegal, author of the book, Bouki Fait Gombo: A History of the Slave Community of Habitation Haydel (Whitney Plantation) Louisiana, 1750-1860, and the Director of Research of the Whitney Plantation museum, leads us on a behind-the-scenes tour of Whitney Plantation and through the history of slavery in early Louisiana. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/295 Complementary Episodes

When we think of important years in the history of the American Revolution, we might think of years like 1765 and the Stamp Act Crisis, 1773 and the Tea Crisis, 1775 and the start of what would become the War for American Independence, or 1776, the year the United States declared independence. Award-winning historian Mary Beth Norton, the Mary Donlan Alger Professor Emerita at Cornell University and the author of 1774: The Long Year of Revolution, joins us to discuss another year that she would like us to pay attention to as we think about the American Revolution: the year 1774. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/294 Complementary Episodes

How did Jamaica grow to become the "crown jewel" of the British Atlantic World? Part of the answer is that Jamaica’s women served as some of the most ardent and best supporters of the island’s practice of slavery. Christine Walker, an Assistant Professor of History at the Yale-NUS College in Singapore and the author of the award-winning book, Jamaica Ladies: Female Slaveholders and the Creation of Britain’s Atlantic Empire, leads us on an investigation of female slave holder-ship in 17th and 18th-century Jamaica. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/293 Complementary Episodes

What was everyday life like for those who lived in early America? To understand the everyday lives of early Americans we need to look at the goods they made and how they produced those goods. In essence, nothing explains the everyday as much as the goods in people’s lives. Glenn Adamson, author of Craft: An American History, joins us to investigate craft and craftspeople in Early America. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/282 Complementary Episodes

This episode is a companion episode to the 2-episode World of the Wampanoag series. This bonus episode allows us to speak with two guests from the World of the Wampanoag series: Jade Luiz, Curator of Collections at the Plimoth Patuxet Museums, and Lorén Spears, Executive Director of the Tomaquag Museum in Rhode Island. Both Jade and Lorén help us explore their museums and what it will be like when we visit them in person. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/290 Become a subscriber! https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/subscribe Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Before New England was New England, it was the Dawnland. A region that remains the homeland of numerous Native American peoples, including the Wampanoag.  When the English colonists arrived at Patuxet 400 years ago, they arrived at a confusing time. The World of the Wampanoag people had changed in the wake of a destabilizing epidemic. This episode is part of a two-episode series about the World of the Wampanoag. In Episode 290, we investigated the life, cultures, and trade of the Wampanoag and their neighbors, the Narragansett, up to December 16, 1620, the day the Mayflower made its way into Plymouth Harbor. In this episode, our focus will be on the World of the Wampanoag in 1620 and beyond. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/291 Complementary Episodes