Ben Franklin's World

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

🎧 Episode 037: Kathleen DuVal, Independence Lost

🎧 Episode 120: Marcia Zug, A History of Mail Order Brides in Early America

🎧 Episode 167: Eberhard Faber, The Early History of New Orleans

🎧 Episode 232: Christopher Hodson, The Acadian Diaspora

🎧 Episode 282: Vincent Brown, Tacky’s Revolt

🎧 Episode 289: Marcus Nevius, Maroonage & the Great Dismal Swamp

🎧 Episode 295: Ibrahima Seck, Whitney Plantation Museum

🎧 Episode 303: Matthew Powell, La Pointe-Krebs House

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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

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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, Past and Prologue: Politics and Memory in the American Revolution.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/307

Complementary Episodes

🎧 Episode 031: Michael Hattem, Benjamin Franklin and the Papers of the Benjamin Franklin Editorial Project

🎧 Episode 107: Mary Sarah Bilder, Madison’s Hand: Revising the Constitutional Convention

🎧 Episode 245: Celebrating the Fourth of July

🎧 Episode 250: Virginia, 1619

🎧 Episode 306: The Horse’s Tail: Revolution & Memory in Early New York City

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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

🎧 Episode 058: Andrew Schocket, Fighting over the Founders: How We Remember the American Revolution

🎧 Episode 136: Jennifer Van Horn, Material Culture and the Making of America

🎧 Episode 144: Robert Parkinson, The Common Cause of the American Revolution

🎧 Episode 185: Joyce Goodfriend, Early New York City and Its Culture

🎧 Episode 245: Celebrating the Fourth

🎧 Episode 277: Whose Fourth of July

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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

🎧 Episode 125: Terri Snyder, Death, Slavery, & Suicide in British North America

🎧 Episode 182: Douglas Winiarski, The Great Awakening in New England

🎧 Episode 214: Christopher Grasso, Skepticism & American Faith

🎧 Episode 231: Sara Georgini, The Religious Lives of the Adams Family

🎧 Episode 301: From Inoculation to Vaccination, Part 1

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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

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🎧 Episode 067, John Ryan Fischer, Cattle Colonialism

🎧 Episode 115: Andrew Torget, The Early History of Texas

🎧 Episode 117: Annette Gordon-Reed, The Life and Ideas of Thomas Jefferson

🎧 Episode 139: Andrés Reséndez, The Other Slavery

🎧 Episode 209: Considering Biography

🎧 Episode 250: Virginia, 1619

🎧 Episode 281: Caitlin Rosenthal, The Business of Slavery

🎧 Episode 282: Vincent Brown, Tacky’s Revolt

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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

🎧 Episode 037: Kathleen DuVal, Independence Lost

🎧 Episode 167: Eberhard Faber, The Early History of New Orleans

🎧 Episode 283: Anne Marie Lane Jonah, Acadie 300

🎧 Episode 295: Ibrahima Seck, Whitney Plantation Museum

🎧 Episode 298: Lindsey Shackenback Regele, Manufacturing Advantage 

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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

🎧 Episode 005 Jeanne Abrams, Revolutionary Medicine 

🎧 Episode 116 Erica Charters, Disease & the Seven Years’ War

🎧 Episode 174 Thomas Apel, Yellow Fever in the Early American Republic

🎧 Episode 263 Sari Altschuler, The Medical Imagination

🎧 Episode 273 Victoria Johnson, David Hosack, Botany, and Medicine in the Early Republic

🎧 Episode 276: Stephen Fried, Benjamin Rush

🎧 Episode 301 From Inoculation to Vaccination 

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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

🎧 Episode 005: Jeanne Abrams, Revolutionary Medicine 

🎧 Episode 116: Erica Charters, Disease & the Seven Years’ War

🎧 Episode 174: Thomas Apel, Yellow Fever in the Early American Republic

🎧 Episode 263 Sari Altschuler, The Medical Imagination

🎧 Episode 273: Victoria Johnson, David Hosack, Botany, and Medicine in the Early Republic

🎧 Episode 276: Stephen Fried, Benjamin Rush

REQUEST A TOPIC

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WHEN YOU'RE READY

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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

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