Ben Franklin's World

What do we mean by “the state?”

How is a “state” produced?

Is “the state” something everyone can participate in producing?

Ryan Quintana, an Associate Professor of History at Wellesley College and the author of Making a Slave State: Political Development in Early South Carolina, joins us to answer these questions with a look at the creation and development of the State of South Carolina.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/226

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Complementary Episodes

• Episode 083: Jared Hardesty, Unfreedom: Slavery in Colonial Boston
• Episode 126: Rebecca Brannon, The Reintegration of American Loyalists
• Episode 157: Judith Van Buskirk, The Revolution’s African American Soldiers
• Episode 186: Max Edelson, The New Map of the British Empire
• Episode 190: Jennie Goloboy, Origins of the American Middle Class

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In 1738, a cooper named Benedict Arnold petitioned the Rhode Island General Assembly for a divorce from his wife Mary Ward Arnold. Benedict claimed that Mary had taken a lover and together they had attempted to murder him with poison.

How did this story of love, divorce, and attempted murder unfold? What does it reveal about the larger world of colonial America and the experiences of colonial American men and women?

Elaine Forman Crane, a Distinguished Professor of History at Fordham University, takes us through the Arnolds’ story with details from her book, The Poison Plot: A Tale of Adultery and Murder in Colonial Newport.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/225

Sponsor Links

• Omohundro Institute
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Complementary Episodes

• Episode 110: Joshua Taylor, How Genealogists Research
• Episode 114: Karin Wulf, The History of Genealogy
• Episode 118: Christy Clark-Pujara, The Business of Slavery in Rhode Island
• Episode 208: Nathaniel Philbrick, Turning Points of the American Revolution
• Episode 209: Considering Biography
• Episode 212: Researching Biography

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The Atlantic World has brought many disparate peoples together, which has caused a lot of ideas and cultures to mix.

How did the Atlantic World bring so many different peoples and cultures together? How did this large intermixing of people and cultures impact the development of colonial America?

Kevin Dawson, an Associate Professor of History at the University of California-Merced and author of Undercurrents of Power: Aquatic Culture in the African Diaspora, joins us to explore answers to these questions with an investigation of the African Diaspora and African and African American aquatic culture.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/048

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Complementary Episodes

• Episode 104: Andrew Lipman, The Saltwater Frontier: Europeans & Native Americans on the Northeastern Coast
• Bonus: Lonnie Bunch, History & Historians in the Public
• Episode 166: Freedom and the American Revolution
• Episode 174: Thomas Apel, Yellow Fever in the Early American Republic
• Episode 200: Everyday Life in Early America
• Episode 206: Katharine Gerbner, Christian Slavery

Helpful Show Links

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During the 17th and 18th centuries, the Ohio River Valley proved to be a rich agrarian region. Many different Native American peoples prospered from its land both in terms of the the land’s ability to produce a wide variety of crops and its support of a wide variety of small fur-bearing animals for the fur trade.

Susan Sleeper-Smith, a Professor of History at Michigan State University and author of Indigenous Prosperity and American Conquest: Indian Women and the Ohio River Valley, 1690-1792, helps us explore this unique region and the important roles it played in the early American past.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/223

Sponsor Links

• Omohundro Institute
• Institute for Thomas Paine Studies
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Complementary Episodes

• Episode 029: Colin Calloway, The Native American Defeat of the First American Army
• Episode 051: Catherine Cangany, Frontier Seaport: A History of Early Detroit
• Episode 064: Brett Rushforth, Native American Slavery in New France
• Episode 088: Michael McDonnell, The History of History Writing
• Episode 102: William Nester, George Rogers Clark & the Fight for the Illinois Country
• Episode 162: Dunmore’s New World
• Episode 184: David Silverman, Thundersticks: Firearms and the Violent Transformation of Native America

Helpful Show Links

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Have you ever wondered how the capital of the United States came to be situated at Washington D.C.?

The banks of the Potomac River represent an odd place to build a national city, a place that would not only serve as the seat of government for the nation, but also as an economic, cultural, and intellectual hub. Still in 1790, the United States Congress passed the Residence Act and mandated that it would establish a new, permanent capital along the banks of the Potomac River. Why?

Adam Costanzo, a Professional Assistant Professor of History at Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi and author of George Washington’s Washington: Visions for the National Capital in the Early American Republic, joins us to consider questions of the national capital’s location and construction.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/222

Sponsor Links

• Omohundro Institute
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Complementary Episodes

• Episode 016: Alan Taylor, The Internal Enemy
• Episode 061: Edward Larson, George Washington in Retirement
• Episode 078: Rachel Shelden, Washington Brotherhood: Politics, Social Life, and the Coming of the Civil War
• Episode 099: Gautham Rao, Birth of the American Tax Man
• Episode 113: Brian Murphy, Building the Empire State

Helpful Show Links

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Can food help us better understand the people and events of the past? Can we better understand a person like Benjamin Franklin and who he was by the foods he ate?

Rae Katherine Eighmey, an award-winning food historian, author, and cook, joins us to explore the culinary tastes and habits of Benjamin Franklin and colonial British Americans with details from her book Stirring the Pot with Benjamin Franklin: A Founding Father’s Culinary Adventures.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/221

Sponsor Links

• Omohundro Institute
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Complementary Episodes

• Episode 019: Kenneth Turino, The Colonial Boston Marketplace
• Episode 022: Vivian Bruce Conger, Deborah Read Franklin & Sally Franklin Bache
• Episode 044: Adam Shprintzen, The Vegetarian Crusade
• Episode 135: Julie Holcomb, Moral Commerce: The Tranatlantic Boycott of the Slave Labor Economy
• Episode 169: Thomas S. Kidd, The Religious Life of Benjamin Franklin
• Episode 207: Nick Bunker, Young Benjamin Franklin

Helpful Show Links

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Did you know that one of the earliest practices of slavery by English colonists originated in New England?

In fact, Massachusetts issued the very first slave code in English America in 1641. Why did New Englanders turn to slavery and become the first in English America to codify its practice?

Margaret Ellen Newell, a professor of history at The Ohio State University and the author of Brethren By Nature: New England Indians, Colonists, and the Origins of American Slavery, joins us to investigate these questions and issues.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/220

Sponsor Links

• Omohundro Institute
• OI Books (Use promo code 01DAH40 to save 40 percent)
• Denver Meet Up Saturday, January 19, 3:30pm at Prost Brewing 

Complementary Episodes

• Episode 064: Brett Rushforth, Native American Slavery in New France
• Episode 083: Jared Hardesty, Unfreedom: Slavery in Colonial Boston
• Episode 139: Andrés Reséndez, The Other Slavery
• Episode 170: Wendy Warren, New England Bound
• Episode 191: Lisa Brooks, A New History of King Philip’s War

Helpful Show Links

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Inns and taverns played prominent roles in early American life. They served the needs of travelers who needed food to eat and places to sleep.They offered local communities a form of poor relief. And they functioned as public spaces where men could gather to discuss news, organize movements, and to drink and play cards.

Adrian Covert, author of Taverns of the American Revolution, helps us explore taverns and the many roles they played in early American life.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/219

Sponsor Links

• Omohundro Institute
• OI Books (Use promo code 01DAH40 to save 40 percent)
• Denver Meet Up Saturday, January 19, 3:30pm at Prost Brewing 

Complementary Episodes

• Bonus: Longfellow’s Wayside Inn
• Episode 112: The Tea Crisis of 1773
• Episode 160: The Politics of Tea
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• Episode 187: Kenneth Cohen, Sport in Early America
• Episode 200: Everyday Life in Early America

Helpful Show Links

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

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Have you ever wondered where the Christmas traditions of stockings, presents, and cookies come from?

What about jolly, old Saint Nicholas? Who was he and why do we often call him Santa Claus?

Peter G. Rose, culinary historian of Dutch foodways in North America and author of Delicious December: How the Dutch Brought Us Santa, Presents, and Treats joins us to discuss the origins of Santa Claus and edible goodies such as cookies in the United States.

This episode originally posted as Episode 009.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/218

Sponsor Links

• Omohundro Institute
• Chicago 2019 Meetup

Complementary Episodes

• Episode 035: Michael Lord, Historic Hudson Valley & Washington Irving
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• Episode 161: Smuggling and the American Revolution
• Episode 185: Joyce Goodfriend, Who Should Rule at Home?

Helpful Show Links

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

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How do you uncover the life of an enslaved person who left no paper trail?

What can the everyday life of an enslaved person tell us about slavery, how it was practiced, and how some enslaved people made the transition from slavery to freedom?

We explore the life of Charity Folks, an enslaved woman from Maryland who gained her freedom in the late-18th century. Our guide through Charity’s life is Jessica Millward, an Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Irvine and author of Finding Charity’s Folk: Enslaved and Free Black Women in Maryland.

This episode originally posted as Episode 089.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/217

Sponsor Links

• Omohundro Institute
• Chicago 2019 Meetup

Complementary Episodes

• Episode 070: Jennifer Morgan, How Historians Research
• Episode 083: Jared Hardesty, Unfreedom: Slavery in Colonial Boston
• Episode 084: Zara Anishanslin, How Historians Read Historical Sources
• Episode 176: Daina Ramey Berry, Price For Their Pound of Flesh
• Episode 212: Erica Dunbar, Research Biography

Helpful Show Links

• Ben Franklin's World Facebook Page
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• Join the Ben Franklin's World Community
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*Books purchased through this link will help support the production of Ben Franklin's World.

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