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History Podcasts

This is a show about early American history. Awarded Best History Podcast by the Academy of Podcasters in 2017, it’s for people who love history and for those 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. It is produced by the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture.

This is a show about early American history. Awarded Best History Podcast by the Academy of Podcasters in 2017, it’s for people who love history and for those 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. It is produced by the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture.

Location:

Williamsburg, VA

Description:

This is a show about early American history. Awarded Best History Podcast by the Academy of Podcasters in 2017, it’s for people who love history and for those 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. It is produced by the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture.

Language:

English

Episodes

300 Vast Early America

4/13/2021
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 Join Ben Franklin's World! Subscribe...

Duration:01:05:12

299 Janine Yorimoto Boldt, Colonial Virginia Portraits

4/6/2021
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...

Duration:00:41:13

298 Lindsay Schakenbach Regele, Origins of American Manufacturing

3/30/2021
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...

Duration:01:01:19

297 Claudio Saunt, Indian Removal Act of 1830

3/16/2021
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...

Duration:01:00:37

296 Serena Zabin, The Boston Massacre: A Family History

3/2/2021
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...

Duration:00:56:22

295 Ibrahima Seck, Whitney Plantation Museum

2/16/2021
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...

Duration:01:02:50

294 Mary Beth Norton, 1774: The Long Year of Revolution

2/2/2021
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...

Duration:00:56:11

293 Christine Walker, Jamaica Ladies: Female Slaveholding in Jamaica

1/19/2021
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...

Duration:01:05:43

292 Glenn Adamson, Craft in Early America

1/5/2021
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 Join Ben Franklin's World! Subscribe and help...

Duration:00:56:58

Bonus: The Plimoth Patuxet and Tomaquag Museums

12/18/2020
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...

Duration:00:08:16

291 The World of the Wampanoag, Part 2: 1620 and Beyond

12/15/2020
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...

Duration:00:55:24

290 The World of the Wampanoag, Part 1: Before 1620

12/8/2020
Before New England was New England, it was the Dawnland. A region that remains the homeland of numerous Native American peoples, including the Wampanoag. Over the next two episodes, we’ll explore the World of the Wampanoag before and after 1620, a year that saw approximately 100 English colonists enter the Wampanoags’ world. Those English colonists have been called the “Pilgrims” and this year, 2020, marks the 400th anniversary of their arrival in New England. T he arrival of these English...

Duration:00:46:52

289 Marcus Nevius, Maroonage in the Great Dismal Swamp

11/24/2020
The name “Great Dismal Swamp” doesn’t evoke an image of a pleasant or beautiful place, and yet, it was an important place that offered land speculators the chance to profit and enslaved men and women a chance for freedom in colonial British America and the early United States. Marcus Nevius, an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Rhode Island and author of City of Refuge: Slavery and Petit Maroonage in the Great Dismal Swamp, 1763-1856, has offered to guide us into and...

Duration:01:03:06

288 Tyson Reeder, Smugglers & Patriots in the 18th-Century Atlantic

11/10/2020
In what ways did the Atlantic World contribute to the American Revolution? Empire, slavery, and constant warfare interacted with each other in the Atlantic World. Which brings us to our question: In what ways did the Atlantic World and its issues contribute to the American Revolution? Tyson Reeder, an editor of the Papers of James Madison and an affiliated assistant professor at the University of Virginia, is a scholar of the Atlantic World, who will help us see how smuggling and trade in...

Duration:01:03:37

Our History Has Always Been Spoken: Trailer for Massachusetts, 1620 Series

11/6/2020
Join the Omohundro Institute and Mass Humanities for a special two-episode series about the World of the Wampanoag before and after 1620. The Wampanoag’s history has always been spoken. Hear it on Ben Franklin’s World in December 2020.

Duration:00:03:36

Bonus. Listener Q&A: The Early History of the United States Congress

10/30/2020
This special bonus episode previews the Ben Franklin's World Subscription program and its monthly bonus episode for program subscribers. In this bonus episode, Historian of the United States House of Representatives Matt Wasniewski and Historical Publications Specialist Terrance Rucker answer your questions about the early history of the United States Congress. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/202

Duration:00:18:21

287 Elections in Early America: Presidential Elections & the Electoral College

10/27/2020
For four months during the summer of 1787, delegates from the thirteen states met in Philadelphia to craft a revised Constitution that would define the government of the United States. It took them nearly the entire time to settle on the method for selecting the President, the Chief Executive. What they came up with is a system of indirect election where the states would select electors who would then cast votes for President and Vice President. Today we call these electors the Electoral...

Duration:01:01:55

286 Elections in Early America: Native Sovereignty

10/20/2020
Who is American democracy for and who could participate in early American democracy? Women and African Americans were often barred from voting in colonial and early republic elections. But what about Native Americans? Could Native Americans participate in early American democracy? Julie Reed, an Assistant Professor of History at the Pennsylvania State University, and Kathleen DuVal, the Bowman and Gordon Gray Distinguished Term Professor of History at the University of North...

Duration:00:56:35

285 Elections in Early America: Elections & Voting in the Early American Republic

10/13/2020
Independence from Great Britain provided the former British American colonists the opportunity to create a new, more democratic government than they had lived under before the American Revolution. What did this new American government look like? Who could participate in this new American democracy? And what was it like to participate in this new democracy? Scholars Terrance Rucker, a Historical Publications Specialist in the Office of the Historian of the U.S. House of Representatives, and...

Duration:01:10:10

284 Elections in Early America: Democracy & Voting in British North America

10/6/2020
The British North American colonies formed some of the most democratic governments in the world. But that doesn't mean that all early Americans were treated equally or allowed to participate in representative government. So who could vote in Early America? Who could participate in representative government? Historians James Kloppenberg, the Charles Warren Professor of History at Harvard University, and Amy Watson, an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Alabama, Birmingham,...

Duration:00:51:42

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