Ben Franklin's World

What do George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Abraham Lincoln have in common?

They all grew-up in blended or stepfamilies.

Lisa Wilson, the Charles J. MacCurdy Professor of American History at Connecticut College and author of A History of Stepfamilies in Early America, takes us through the creation and interactions of blended and stepfamilies in early America.

This episode originally posted as Episode 027.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/216

Sponsor Links

• Omohundro Institute
• Chicago 2019 Meetup

Complementary Episodes

• Episode 150: Woody Holton, Abigail Adams
• Episode 175: Daniel Epstein, House Divided: The Revolution in Ben Franklin’s House
• Episode 183: Douglas Bradburn, Mount Vernon
• Episode 207: Nick Bunker, Young Benjamin Franklin

Helpful Show Links

• Ben Franklin's World Facebook Page
• Ben Franklin’s World Twitter: @BFWorldPodcast
• Join the Ben Franklin's World Community
• Sign-up for the Franklin Gazette Newsletter
• Ben Franklin's World iOS App
• Ben Franklin's World Android App

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

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

We tend to view gay marriage as a cultural and legal development of the 21st century.

But did you know that some early Americans lived openly as same-sex married couples?

Rachel Hope Cleves, a Professor of History at the University of Victoria in British Columbia and author of Charity and Sylvia: A Same-Sex Marriage in Early America, reveals the story of Charity Bryant and Sylvia Drake, women who lived as a married couple in Weybridge, Vermont between 1807 and 1851.

This episode originally posted as Episode 013.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/215

Sponsor Links

• Omohundro Institute
• Chicago 2019 Meetup

Complementary Episodes

• Episode 004: Thomas Foster, Sex and the Founding Fathers
• Episode 027: Lisa Wilson, A History of Stepfamilies in Early America
• Episode 032: Michelle Marchetti Coughlin, One Colonial Woman’s World
• Episode 120: Marcia Zug, A History of Mail Order Brides in Early America
• Episode 175: Daniel Epstein, House Divided: The Revolution in Ben Franklin’s House

Helpful Show Links

• Ben Franklin's World Facebook Page
• Ben Franklin’s World Twitter: @BFWorldPodcast
• Join the Ben Franklin's World Community
• Sign-up for the Franklin Gazette Newsletter
• Ben Franklin's World iOS App
• Ben Franklin's World Android App

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

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

Was the early United States a “Christian nation?” Did most of its citizenry accept God and the Bible as the moral authority that bound them together as one nation?

Scholars have taken a binary stance on these questions. Some argue that early America was a thoroughly religious place and that even those who didn’t attend church were on the same basic page as those who did. While others argue early America boasted an increasingly secularized society.

Christopher Grasso, a professor of history at William & Mary and the author of Skepticism and American Faith: From the Revolution to the Civil War, challenges and complicates these two ideas by offering a third explanation: the religious landscape of early America was a continuum where many people experienced both faith and doubt over the course of their lives.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/214

Seattle Meet Up Details

Sponsor Links

• Omohundro Institute

Complementary Episodes

• Episode 117: Annette Gordon-Reed, The Life and Ideas of Thomas Jefferson
• Episode 127: Caroline Winterer, American Enlightenments
• Episode 134: Spencer McBride, Pulpit and Nation
• Episode 169: Thomas Kidd, The Religious Life of Benjamin Franklin
• Episode 182: Douglas Winiarski, Darkness Falls on the Land of Light, the Great Awakening in New England

Helpful Show Links

• Ben Franklin's World Facebook Page
• Ben Franklin’s World Twitter: @BFWorldPodcast
• Join the Ben Franklin's World Community
• Sign-up for the Franklin Gazette Newsletter
• Ben Franklin's World iOS App
• Ben Franklin's World Android App

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

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

In 1621, the Pilgrims of Plimoth Colony and their Wampanoag neighbors came together to celebrate their first harvest. Today we remember this event as the first Thanksgiving.

But what do we really know about this holiday and the people who celebrated it?

So much of what we know about the Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving comes to us through myth and legend, which is why Rebecca Fraser, author of The Mayflower: The Families, The Voyage, and the Founding of America, joins us to help suss out fact from fiction.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/213

Sponsor Links

• Omohundro Institute

Seattle Meet Up Details

Complementary Episodes

• Episode 095: Rose Doherty, A Tale of Two Bostons
• Episode 104: Andrew Lipman, Saltwater Frontier: Native Americans and Colonists on the Northeastern Coast
• Episode 121: Wim Klooster, The Dutch Moment in the 17th-Century Atlantic World
• Episode 182: Douglas Winiarski, When Darkness Falls On The Land of Light
• Episode 191: Lisa Brooks, A New History of King Philip’s War
• Episode 209: Considering Biography

Helpful Show Links

• Ben Franklin's World Facebook Page
• Ben Franklin’s World Twitter: @BFWorldPodcast
• Join the Ben Franklin's World Community
• Sign-up for the Franklin Gazette Newsletter
• Ben Franklin's World iOS App
• Ben Franklin's World Android App

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

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

How do historians and biographers reconstruct the lives of people from the past?

Good biographies rely on telling the lives of people using practiced historical methods of thorough archival research and the sound interrogation of historical sources. But what does this practice of historical methods look like?

In this final episode of the Omohundro Institute’s Doing History series about biography, Erica Dunbar, the Charles and Mary Beard Professor of History at Rutgers University and author of Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave Ona Judge, takes us into the archives to show us how she recovered the life of Ona Judge.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/212

Sponsor Links

• Omohundro Institute
• John Marshall Foundation

Complementary Episodes

• Episode 137: Erica Dunbar, The Washingtons’ Runaway Slave, Ona Judge
• Episode 173: Marisa Fuentes, Colonial Port Cities and Slavery
• Episode 183: Douglas Bradburn, George Washington’s Mount Vernon
• Episode 209: Considering Biography
• Episode 210: Considering John Marshall, Part 1
• Episode 211: Considering John Marshall, Part 2

Helpful Show Links

• Ben Franklin's World Facebook Page
• Ben Franklin’s World Twitter: @BFWorldPodcast
• Join the Ben Franklin's World Community
• Sign-up for the Franklin Gazette Newsletter
• Ben Franklin's World iOS App
• Ben Franklin's World Android App

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

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

As part of the Omohundro Institute's Doing History series on biography, Episode 212 offers us a new conversation with Erica Dunbar, the author of Never Caught: The Washington’s Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave Ona Judge.

The new episode will explore how historians and biographers reconstruct the lives of people from the past using the story of Ona Judge. In preparation for this new episode, here is our original conversation with Erica Dunbar about Ona Judge.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/137

Sponsor Links

• Omohundro Institute
• Doing History Series

Complementary Episodes

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

Helpful Show Links

• Ben Franklin's World Facebook Page
• Ben Franklin’s World Twitter: @BFWorldPodcast
• Join the Ben Franklin's World Community
• Sign-up for the Franklin Gazette Newsletter
• Ben Franklin's World iOS App
• Ben Franklin's World Android App

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

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

Can a biography help us explore big historical questions?

Can knowing about the life of John Marshall, the fourth Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, help us better understand the Supreme Court and how it came to occupy the powerful place it has in the United State government?

The Doing History: Biography series continues and explores these questions with Richard Brookhiser, author of John Marshall: The Man Who Made The Supreme Court.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/211

Sponsor Links

• Omohundro Institute
• John Marshall Foundation

Complementary Episodes

• Episode 055: Robb Haberman, John Jay: Forgotten Founder
• Episode 068: Richard Brookhiser, Founders’ Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln
• Episode 180: Kate Elizabeth Brown, Alexander Hamilton and the Making of American Law
• Episode 203: Joanne Freeman, Alexander Hamilton
• Episode 204: James Lewis Jr., The Burr Conspiracy
• Episode 209: Considering Biography
• Episode 210: Considering John Marshall, Part 1

Helpful Show Links

• Ben Franklin's World Facebook Page
• Ben Franklin’s World Twitter: @BFWorldPodcast
• Join the Ben Franklin's World Community
• Sign-up for the Franklin Gazette Newsletter
• Ben Franklin's World iOS App
• Ben Franklin's World Android App

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

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

For 34 years, John Marshall presided as the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. During his service, Marshal transformed the nation’s top court and its judicial branch into the powerful body and co-equal branch of government we know it as today.

The Doing History: Biography series continues as Joel Richard Paul, a professor of law at the University of California, Hastings Law School and author of Without Precedent: Chief Justice John Marshall and His Times, joins us to explore the life of John Marshall and how he wrote his biography.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/210

Sponsor Links

• Omohundro Institute
• John Marshall Foundation

Complementary Episodes

• Episode 107: Mary Sarah Bilder, Madison’s Hand: Revising the Constitutional Convention
• Episode 117: Annette Gordon-Reed: The Life and Ideas of Thomas Jefferson
• Episode 143: Michael Klarman, The Making of the United States Constitution
• Episode 179: After the Revolution: Governance During the Critical Period
• Episode 193: Partisans: The Friendship & Rivalry of Adams & Jefferson
• Episode 209: Considering Biography

Helpful Show Links

• Ben Franklin's World Facebook Page
• Ben Franklin’s World Twitter: @BFWorldPodcast
• Join the Ben Franklin's World Community
• Sign-up for the Franklin Gazette Newsletter
• Ben Franklin's World iOS App
• Ben Franklin's World Android App

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

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

Biography. Since the earliest days of the United States, and even before the thirteen colonies came together to forge a nation, Americans have been interested in biography. But why?

What is it about the lives of others that makes the past so interesting and fun to explore?

This episode marks the start of the Omohundro Institute’s 4-episode Doing History series about biography. This series will take us behind-the-scenes of biography and how historians and biographers reconstruct the lives of people from the past.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/209

About the Series

The Doing History: Biography series explores the genre of biography, how it relates to and is different from the genre of history, and how historians and biographers can best uncover and understand the lives of people from the past.

The Doing History series explores early American history and how historians work. It is part of Ben Franklin’s World, which is produced by the Omohundro Institute. 

Sponsor Links

• Omohundro Institute
• John Marshall Foundation
• OI Reader App for Bonus Content

Complementary Episodes

• Episode 055: Rob Haberman, John Jay: Forgotten Founder
• Episode 074: Mary Wigge, Martha Washington
• Episode 117: Annette Gordon-Reed, The Life and Times of Thomas Jefferson
• Episode 150: Woody Holton, Abigail Adams: Revolutionary Speculator
• Episode 183: Douglas Bradburn, George Washington’s Mount Vernon
• Episode 193: Partisans: The Friendship & Rivalry of Adams & Jefferson
• Episode 205: Jeanne Abrams, First Ladies of the Republic

Helpful Show Links

• Ben Franklin's World Facebook Page
• Ben Franklin's World Twitter: @BFWorldPodcast
• Join the Ben Franklin's World Community
• Sign-up for the Franklin Gazette Newsletter
• Ben Franklin's World iOS App
• Ben Franklin's World Android App

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

2018 marks the 241st anniversary of the American victory at the Battle of Saratoga and the 240th anniversary of the Franco-American Alliance. But was the victory that prompted the French to join the American war effort, truly the "turning point" of the War for Independence?

National Book Award-winner Nathaniel Philbrick joins us to explore the two events he sees as better turning points in the American War for Independence: Benedict Arnold’s treason and the French Navy’s participation in the war.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/208

Sponsor Links

• Omohundro Institute
• Babbel (Free Trial)
• Follow Us onTwitter: @BFWorldPodcast

Complementary Episodes

• Episode 026: Robert Middlekauff, George Washington’s Revolution
• Episode 037: Kathleen DuVal, Independence Lost
• Episode 071: Bruce Venter, Saratoga and Hubbardton, 1777
• Episode 081: Don Glickstein, After Yorktown: The Final Struggle for American Independence
• Episode 122: Andrew O’Shaughnessy, The Men Who Lost America
• Episode 161: Smuggling and the American Revolution

Helpful Show Links

• Ben Franklin's World Facebook Page
• Join the Ben Franklin's World Community
• Sign-up for the Franklin Gazette Newsletter
• Ben Franklin's World iOS App
• Ben Franklin's World Android App

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