Ben Franklin's World

Did Canada almost join the American Revolution?

Bruno Paul Stenson, a historian and musicologist with the Château de Ramezay historic site in Montréal, joins us to discuss how the American Revolution played out in Canada.

This episode originally posted as Episode 041.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/246

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Complementary Episodes

• Episode 037: Kathleen DuVal, Independence Lost: Lives on the Edge of the American Revolution
• Episode 038: Carolyn Harris, Magna Carta & Its Gifts to North America
• Episode 039: Eric Nelson, The Royalist Revolution: Monarchy and the American Founding
• Episode 040: Kathleen Bartoloni-Tuazon, For Fear of an Elective King: George Washington and the Presidential Title Controversy of 1789

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It wasn’t always fireworks on the fourth.

John Adams predicted Americans would celebrate the Second of July, the day Congress voted in favor of independence, "with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other." He got the date wrong, but he was right about the festivities in commemoration of Independence Day. And yet July Fourth events have changed a great deal since 1776.

How do our fireworks displays, barbecues, parades, and sporting events compare to the first and earliest celebrations of independence? How and why do we celebrate the United States and its independence as we do?

Three historical experts take us through the early American origins of Fourth of July celebration.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/245 Sponsor Links

• Omohundro Institute
• The Ben Franklin's World Shop
• Doing History series
• Emily Sneff, "The Sounds of Independence" blog post

Complementary Episodes

• Episode 018: Danielle Allen, Our Declaration
• Episode 141: A Declaration in Draft
• Episode 119: Steve Pincus, The Heart of the Declaration
• Episode 166: Freedom and the American Revolution
• Episode 175: Daniel Epstein, The Revolution in Ben Franklin’s House
• Episode 193: Partisans: The Friendship and Rivalry of Adams & Jefferson
• Episode 230: Mitch Kachun, First Martyr of Liberty
• Episode 243: Joseph Adelman, Revolutionary Print Networks

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There’s a saying that tells us we should walk a mile in someone else’s shoes. It’s a reminder we should practice empathy and try to understand people before we cast judgement.

As it happens, this expression is right on the mark because it seems when we use shoes as historical objects, we can learn a LOT about people and their everyday lives and actions.

Kimberly Alexander, museum specialist, lecturer at the University of New Hampshire, and author of Treasures Afoot: Shoe Stories from the Georgian Era, joins us to help us better understand shoes and what they can tell us about the everyday lives of early Americans.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/244

Sponsor Links

• Omohundro Institute
• The Ben Franklin's World Shop

Complementary Episodes

• Episode 024: Kimberly Alexander: Eighteenth-Century Fashion & Material Culture
• Episode 084: Zara Anishanslin, How Historians Read Historical Sources
• Episode 153: Committees and Congresses: Governments of the American Revolution
• Episode 160: The Politics of Tea
• Episode 201: Catherine E. Kelly, Art, Politics, and Everyday Life in Early America
• Episode 209: Considering Biography

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*Books purchased through the links on this post will help support the production of Ben Franklin's World.

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For the American Revolution to be successful, it needed ideas people could embrace and methods for spreading those ideas. It also needed ways for revolutionaries to coordinate across colonial lines.

How did revolutionaries develop and spread their ideas? How did they communicate and coordinate plans of action?

Joseph Adelman, an Assistant Professor of History at Framingham State University and author of Revolutionary Networks: The Business and Politics of Printing the News, 1763-1789, joins us to investigate the roles printers and their networks played in developing and spreading ideas of the American Revolution.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/243

Sponsor Links

• Omohundro Institute
• The Ben Franklin's World Shop

Complementary Episodes

• Episode 112: Mary Beth North, The Tea Crisis of 1773
• Episode 144: Robert Parkinson, The Common Cause of the American Revolution
• Episode 200: Everyday Life in Early America
• Episode 207: Nick Bunker, Young Benjamin Franklin
• Episode 227: Kyle Courtney, Copyright & Fair Use in Early America
• Episode 229: Patrick Griffin, The Townshend Moment

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Helpful Links

*Books purchased through the links on this post will help support the production of Ben Franklin's World.

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Delaware may be the second smallest state in the United States, but it has a BIG, rich history that can tell us much about the history of early America.

David Young, the Executive Director of the Delaware Historical Society, joins us to explore the early American history of Delaware from its Native American inhabitants through its emergence as the first state in the United States.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/242 Sponsor Links

• Omohundro Institute
• The Ben Franklin's World Shop

Complementary Episodes

• Episode 059: Eric Foner, The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad
• Episode 121: Wim Klooster, The Dutch Moment in the 17th-Century Atlantic World
• Episode 138: Patrick Spero, Frontier Politics in Early America
• Episode 177: Martin Brückner, The Social Life of Maps in America
• Episode 217: Jessica Millward, Slavery & Freedom in Early Maryland
• Episode 234: Richard Bushman, Farms & Farm Families in Early America

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Helpful Links

*Books purchased through the links on this post will help support the production of Ben Franklin's World.

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Spain became the first European power to use the peoples, resources, and lands of the Americas and Caribbean as the basis for its Atlantic Empire.

How did this empire function and what wealth was Spain able to extract from these peoples and lands?

Molly Warsh, an Associate Professor of History at the University of Pittsburgh and author of American Baroque: Pearls and the Nature of Empire, 1492-1700, helps us investigate answers to these questions by showing us how Spain attempted to increase its wealth and govern its empire through its American and Caribbean pearl operations.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/241

Meet Ups

• Pittsburgh Meet Up, June 15, 2:30pm

Sponsor Links

• Omohundro Institute
• The Ben Franklin's World Shop

Complementary Episodes

• Episode 015: Joyce Chaplin, Round About the Earth
• Episode 082: Alejandra Dubcovsky, Information & Communication in the Early American South
• Episode 139: Andrés Reséndez, The Other Slavery: Indian Enslavement in the Americas
• Episode 167: Eberhard Faber, The Early History of New Orleans
• Episode 178: Karoline Cook, Muslims & Moriscos in Colonial Spanish America
• Episode 224: Kevin Dawson, Aquatic Culture in Early America

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Helpful Links

*Books purchased through the links on this post will help support the production of Ben Franklin's World.

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Have you ever had one of those really conversations where the person was so fascinating that you wished the conversation didn’t have to end?

Flora Fraser joins us for one of those conversations. We’ll talk about biography, and in doing so, she’ll tell us what it was like to grow up as the daughter and granddaughter of two famed, British biographers and about the genre of biography and how it developed in the United Kingdom.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/240 Sponsor Links

• Omohundro Institute
• The Ben Franklin's World Shop

Complementary Episodes

• Episode 209: Considering Biography
• Episode 210: Considering John Marshall, Part 1
• Episode 211: Considering John Marshall, Part 2
• Episode 212: Researching Biography

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Helpful Links

*Books purchased through the links on this post will help support the production of Ben Franklin's World.

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How did the postal system work in Early America? How did people send mail across the North American colonies and the British Empire?

Joseph Adelman, an Assistant Professor of History at Framingham State University and author of Revolutionary Networks: The Business and Politics of Printing, 1763-1789, joins us to further explore how the early American postal system worked and how people and mail traveled around early North America and the Atlantic World.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/239

Sponsor Links

• Omohundro Institute
• The Ben Franklin's World Shop

Complementary Episodes

• Episode 028: Janice Fontanella, Building the Erie Canal
• Episode 113: Brian Murphy, Building the Empire State
• Episode 156: The Power of the Press in the American Revolution
• Episode 200: Everyday Life in Early America
• Episode 219: Adrian Covert, Taverns in Early America

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Helpful Links

*Books purchased through the links on this post will help support the production of Ben Franklin's World.

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Benedict Arnold is an intriguing figure. He was both a military hero who greatly impacted and furthered the American War for Independence with his bravery on the battlefield and someone who did something unthinkable: he betrayed his country.

Stephen Brumwell, an award-winning historian and the author of Turncoat: Benedict Arnold and the Crisis of American Liberty, joins us to explore the life and deeds of Benedict Arnold and Arnold’s stunning metamorphosis from hero to traitor.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/238 Sponsor Links

• Omohundro Institute
• The Ben Franklin's World Shop

Complementary Episodes

• Episode 071: Bruce Venter, Saratoga and Hubbardton, 1777
• Episode 158: The Revolutionaries’ Army
• Episode 194: Longfellow House Washington’s Headquarters, NHS
• Episode 208: Nathaniel Philbrick, Turning Points of the American Revolution
• Episode 225: Elaine Forman Crane, The Poison Plot
• Episode 229: Patrick Griffin, The Townshend Moment

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• Ben Franklin's World iOS App
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Helpful Links

*Books purchased through the links on this post will help support the production of Ben Franklin's World.

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Mother’s Day became a national holiday on May 9, 1914 to honor all of the work mothers do to raise children.

But what precisely is the work that mothers do to raise children? Has the nature of mothers, motherhood, and the work mothers do changed over time?

Nora Doyle, an Assistant Professor of History at Salem College in North Carolina, has combed through the historical record to find answers to these questions. Specifically, she’s sought to better understand the lived and imagined experiences of mothers and motherhood between the 1750s and 1850s.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/237

Sponsor Links

• Omohundro Institute
• The Ben Franklin's World Shop
• Maternal Bodies: Redefining Motherhood in Early America

Complementary Episodes

• Episode 027: Lisa Wilson, A History of Stepfamilies in Early America
• Episode 120: Marcia Zug, A History of Mail Order Brides in Early America
• Episode 150: Woody Holton, Abigail Adams: Revolutionary Speculator
• Episode 205: Jeanne Abrams, First Ladies of the Republic

Listen!

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• Spotify
• Google Podcasts
• Ben Franklin's World iOS App
• Ben Franklin's World Android App

Helpful Links

*Books purchased through the links on this post will help support the production of Ben Franklin's World.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices