Ben Franklin's World

2020 commemorates the 300th anniversary of French presence on Prince Edward Island. Like much of North America, the Canadian Maritime provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Cape Breton Island, and Prince Edward Island were highly contested regions. In fact, the way France and Great Britain fought for presence and control of this region places the Canadian Maritimes among the most contested regions in eighteenth-century North America.

Anne Marie Lane Jonah, a historian with the Parks Canada Agency, joins us to explore the history of Prince Edward Island and why Great Britain and France fought over the Canadian Maritime region.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/283

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🎧 Episode 064: Brett Rushforth, Native American Slavery in New France

🎧 Episode 104: Andrew Lipman, Europeans & Native Americans on the Northeastern Coast

🎧 Episode 108: Ann Little, The Many Captivities of Esther Wheelwright

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

🎧 Episode 189: Sam White, The Little Ice Age

🎧 Episode 232: Christopher Hodson, The Acadian Diaspora

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Between 1760 and 1761, Great Britain witnessed one of the largest slave insurrections in the history of its empire. Although the revolt took place on the island of Jamaica, the reverberations of this revolt stretched across the Atlantic Ocean and into the British North American colonies.

Vincent Brown, the Charles Warren Professor of American History and a Professor of African American Studies at Harvard University, joins us to investigate Tacky’s Revolt and how that revolt served as an eddy within the larger current of Atlantic warfare, with details from his book, Tacky’s Revolt: The Story of an Atlantic Slave War.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/282

Complementary Episodes

🎧 Episode 052: Ronald A. Johnson, Early United States-Haitian Diplomacy

🎧 Episode 124: James Alexander Dun, Making the Haitian Revolution in Early America

🎧 Episode 133: Patrick Breen, The Nat Turner Revolt

🎧 Episode 164: The American Revolution in the Age of Revolutions

🎧 Episode 236: Daniel Livesay, Mixed-Race Britons & the Atlantic Family

🎧 Episode 281: Caitlin Rosenthal, The Business of Slavery

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We live in an age where big businesses track our shopping habits and in some cases our work habits. But is the age of data new? When did the “age of the spreadsheet” and quantification of habits develop?


Caitlin Rosenthal, an Assistant Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley and the author of Accounting for Slavery: Masters and Management, leads us on an investigation into the origins of how American businesses came to collect and use data to manage their workers and their pursuit of profits.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/281

Complementary Episodes

🎧 Episode 137: Erica Dunbar, The Washingtons’ Runaway Slave, Ona Judge

🎧 Episode 140: Tamara Thornton, Nathaniel Bowditch: 19th-Century Man of Business

🎧 Episode 173: Marisa Fuentes, Colonial Port Cities & Slavery

🎧 Episode 176: Daina Ramey Berry, The Value of the Enslaved from Womb to Grave

🎧 Episode 253: Susan Clair Imbarrato, Life & Revolution in Boston & Grenada

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The American Revolution is embedded in the American character. It’s an event that can tell us who we are, how we came to be who we are, and how we can strive to be who we want to be as a nation and people.

Rick Atkinson, a three-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, a journalist who has worked at The Washington Post, and the author of The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777, joins us to explore how the War for Independence has impacted and shaped the American character.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/280

Complementary Episodes

🎧 Episode 122: Andrew O’Shaughnessy, The Men Who Lost America

🎧 Episode 123: Revolutionary Allegiances 

🎧 Episode 128: Alan Taylor, American Revolutions: A Continental History

🎧 Episode 130: Paul Revere’s Ride Through History

🎧 Episode 158: The Revolutionaries’ Army

🎧 Episode 175: Daniel Mark Epstein, The Revolution in Ben Franklin’s House

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WHEN YOU'RE READY

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As the first President of the United States, George Washington set many precedents for the new nation. One of the biggest precedents Washington set came in the form of the Cabinet, a body of advisors from across the U.S. government who advise the president on how to handle matters of foreign and domestic policy.

Today, we investigate Washington’s creation of the Cabinet and how it became a government institution with Lindsay Chervinsky, a Scholar-in-Residence at the Institute for Thomas Paine Studies, a Senior Fellow at the International Center for Jefferson Studies, and the author of the book, 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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WHEN YOU'RE READY

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Polygamy is not a practice that often comes to mind when many of us think about early America. But it turns out, polygamy was a ubiquitous practice among different groups of early Americans living in 17th and 18th-century North America.

Sarah Pearsall, a University Teaching Officer, Fellow, and Historian at the University of Cambridge, joins us to discuss the surprising history of polygamy in early North America, with details from her book, Polygamy: An Early American History.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/278 Join Ben Franklin's World!

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Complementary Episodes

• Episode 013: Rachel Hope Cleves, Charity and Sylvia: A Same-Sex Marriage in Early America
• Episode 027: Lisa Wilson, A History of Stepfamilies in Early America
• Episode 045: Spencer McBride, Joseph Smith and the Founding of Mormonism
• Episode 120: Marcia Zug, A History of Mail Order Brides in Early America
• Episode 223: Susan Sleeper-Smith, A Native American History of the Ohio River Valley & Great Lakes Region
• Episode 225: Elaine Forman Crane, The Poison Plot: Adultery & Murder in Colonial Newport

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On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass delivered a speech to an anti-slavery society and he famously asked “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”

In this episode, we explore Douglass’ thoughtful question within the context of Early America: What did the Fourth of July mean for African Americans in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries?

To help us investigate this question, we are joined by Martha S. Jones, the Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor and Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University, and Christopher Bonner, an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Maryland.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/277 Join Ben Franklin's World!

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• Derrick Spires, “Dreams of a Revolution Deferred” 
• Suggested Readings: “Slavery and the American Revolution” 

Complementary Episodes

• Episode 018: Danielle Allen, Our Declaration
• Episode 119: Steve Pincus, The Heart of the Declaration
• Episode 141: A Declaration in Draft
• Episode 157: The Revolution’s African American Soldiers
• Episode 166: Freedom and the American Revolution
• Episode 245: Celebrating the Fourth
• Episode 255: Martha S. Jones, Birthright Citizens

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This special bonus episode introduces the Ben Franklin's World Subscription program and a new monthly Listener Question & Answer feature for subscribers to that program.

In this preview, award-winning historian Nick Bunker answers your questions about the life of young Benjamin Franklin.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/207 Join Ben Franklin's World!

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Sponsor Links

• Omohundro Institute
• The Ben Franklin's World Shop

Complementary Episodes

• Episode 086: George Goodwin, Benjamin Franklin in London
• Episode 112: Mary Beth Norton, The Tea Crisis of 1773
• Episode 160: The Politics of Tea
• Episode 169: Thomas Kidd, The Religious Life of Benjamin Franklin
• Episode 175: Daniel Mark Epstein, House Divided: The Revolution in Ben Franklin's House
• Episode 207: Nick Bunker: Young Benjamin Franklin

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Who gets to be a founding father?

“Founding Father” status goes to men who helped found the United States. That means the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence, those who led the Continental Army, and the 36 delegates who signed the Constitution. We’re talking about more than 100 men and yet, we don’t really talk about more than a handful of these “founders” as Founders.

Stephen Fried, an award-winning journalist and author of Rush: Revolution, Madness, and Benjamin Rush, the Visionary Doctor Who Became a Founding Father, joins us to explore the life and deeds of one founder we don’t always talk about, Benjamin Rush.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/276

Sponsor Links

• Omohundro Institute
• The Ben Franklin's World Shop
• The Ben Franklin's World Reading Group

Complementary Episodes

• Episode 112: Mary Beth Norton, The Tea Crisis of 1773
• Episode 169: Thomas Kidd, The Religious Life of Benjamin Franklin
• Episode 193: Partisans: The Friendship & Rivalry of Adams and Jefferson
• Episode 209: Considering Biography 
• Episode 263: Sari Altschuler, The Medical Imagination
• Episode 273: Victoria Johnson, David Hosack, Botany, and Medicine in the Early Republic

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