Ben Franklin's World

Have you ever noticed how conversations about the American Revolution often center on great battles, founding documents, and famous statesmen?

What if, instead, we explored that world through the eyes—and the hands—of everyday people who shaped it through art?

Zara Anishanslin, Associate Professor of History and Art History at the University of Delaware and Director of its Museum Studies and Public Engagement Program, joins us to uncover the hidden world of artists, artisans, and makers who painted, stitched, and crafted the Revolution into being. Drawing from her book The Painter’s Fire: A Forgotten History of the Artists Who Championed the American Revolution, Zara helps us see how creativity and craftsmanship tell a fuller—and more human—story of America’s founding.
Zara’s Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/423
 

EPISODE OUTLINE

00:00:00  Introduction

00:41.79  Welcome & Episode Overview

00:02:59  Meet Our Guest

00:07:11  The Transatlantic Network of Revolutionary Artists

00:11:28  Why Revolutionary Artwork Didn't Survive

00:14:13  Prince Demah & His Mother Daphny

00:21:21  How Art Patronage Worked in the 18th Century

00:24:01  Finding Prince Demah a Teacher in London

00:27:40  Life as a Black Artist in London

00:41:22  Prince Demah's Life in Revolutionary Boston

00:49:24  Robert Edge Pine: The English Artist Who Supported America

00:59:24  How Revolutionary Art Differs from Later Commemorative Art

01:04:55  What Artists Reveal About the Revolution

01:07:29  Closing Thoughts & Resources

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 084: How Historians Read Historical Sources
🎧 Episode 106: The World of John Singleton Copley
🎧 Episode 201: Art, Politics, and Everyday Life in Early America
🎧 Episode 299: Colonial Virginia Portraits
🎧 Episode 390: Objects of Revolution
🎧 Episode 422: Plantation Goods
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What does it mean to be caught between two worlds? Between loyalty and liberty, artistry and commerce, and between the British North American colonies and the British Empire?

We’re revisiting our exploration of the life of John Singleton Copley, one of early America’s most celebrated portrait artists. Copley’s story reveals much about the upheaval of the American Revolution and the choices people made as events unfolded around them.
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/106
 
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Bonus: The Boston Stamp Act Riots of 1765
🎧 Episode 075: How Archives Work (Paul Revere)
🎧 Episode 084: How Historians Read Historical Sources
🎧 Episode 136: Material Culture and the Making of America
🎧 Episode 201: Art, Politics, and Everyday Life in Early America
🎧 Episode 299: Colonial Virginia Portraits
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When we talk about slavery in Early America, we often focus on plantations: their large, fertile fields, their cash crops, and the people who labored on those fields to produce those cash crops under conditions of enslavement.

But what about the ordinary objects that made slavery work? The shoes, axes, cloth, and hoes? What can these everyday objects reveal about the economic and social systems that sustained slavery in the early United States? 

Seth Rockman, a Professor of History at Brown University and author of Plantation Goods: A Material History of Slavery, which was a finalist for the 2025 Pulitzer Prize in History, joins us to rethink how Northern manufacturing, labor, and commerce were entangled with the southern slave economy.

Seth’s Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/422
 
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Bonus: Lonnie Bunch: History & Historians in the Public
🎧 Episode 084: How Historians Read Historical Sources
🎧 Episode 244: Shoe Stories from Early America
🎧 Episode 281: The Business of Slavery
🎧 Episode 390: Objects of Revolution
🎧 Episode 406: Threads of Power
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When we picture the early United States, we often imagine a young nation fighting for political independence. But what about economic independence—and what did it take to achieve it?

Historian Lindsay Schakenbach Regele of Miami University in Ohio joins us to explore how manufacturing became central to the nation's post-Revolution identity.

Drawing from her book Manufacturing Advantage: War, the State, and the Origins of American Industry, 1776–1848, Lindsay reveals how the federal government championed industries like firearms and textiles as tools of sovereignty, security, and self-reliance. Tune in to discover:

This episode sheds light on the surprising role of government in jumpstarting the U.S. economy.

Lindsay’s Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/298
 
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 098: Birth of the American Tax Man
🎧 Episode 113: Building the Empire State
🎧 Episode 140: Nathaniel Bowditch
🎧 Episode 281: The Business of Slavery
🎧 Episode 292: Craft

SUPPORT OUR WORK
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What if loyalty, not rebellion, was the default position in revolutionary British North America?

It’s easy to forget that before 1776, most colonists identified as proud Britons. They didn’t see themselves as future Americans or revolutionaries; they saw themselves as subjects of a global empire. And in the colony of Georgia, many clung to that identity longer than we might expect.

Greg Brooking, a historian of the American Revolution in the South and a high school history and social studies teacher, joins us to explore the American Revolution in Georgia with details from his book From Empire to Revolution: Sir James Wright and the Price of Loyalty in Georgia.

Greg’s Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/421
 
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 126: The Reintegration of American Loyalists
🎧 Episode 171: Native Americans, British Colonists, and Trade in North America
🎧 Episode 280: The British Are Coming
🎧 Episode 409: The Battles of Lexington & Concord, 1775
🎧 Episode 413: Dr. Joseph Warren & the Battle of Bunker Hill

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When we think of the American Revolution, we often focus on the patriots who fought for independence. But what about the Loyalists—those who chose to remain faithful to the British crown?

In this episode, we revisit a thought-provoking conversation with historian Brad Jones of Fresno State University, author of Resisting Independence: Popular Loyalism in the Revolutionary British Atlantic. Brad challenges the long-held view of Loyalists as passive or fearful, instead revealing Loyalism as a vibrant political identity shaped by faith, governance, and a broader sense of British belonging. 

Listen as we explore: Why the Revolution was also a civil war among neighbors. How Protestantism influenced Loyalist thought. What loyalty meant across the diverse communities of the British Atlantic. 

This episode offers a deeper, more nuanced view of the Revolution—and the people who resisted it.
Brad’s Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/330

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 119: The Heart of the Declaration
🎧 Episode 122: The Men Who Lost America
🎧 Episode 151: Defining the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 232: The Acadian Diaspora
🎧 Episode 238: Benedict Arnold
🎧 Episode 306: The Horse's Tail

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When we think about the founding of the United States, we often focus on the Constitution, the Founding Fathers, and those first landmark elections.

But how did the United States actually build its federal government, the entire apparatus of state that could collect revenue, manage international diplomacy, provide law and order, and extend its reach across a rapidly expanding nation?

Who were the people who made that government work? And how did their service to the nation shape what it meant to be an American citizen?

Peter Kastor, a Professor of History and American Cultural Studies at Washington University in St. Louis, and the Founder of the Creating a Federal Government, 1789-1829 digital project, joins us to explore the remarkable and often overlooked story of how the United States built its federal government between 1789 and 1829.

Peter’s Website | Digital Project |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/420
 
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 098: Birth of the American Tax Man
🎧 Episode 202: The Early History of the United States Senate
🎧 Episode 279: The Cabinet: Creation of an American Institution
🎧 Episode 259: American Legal History
🎧 Episode 315: History and American Democracy
🎧 Episode 338: The Early History of the United States Senate 

🎧 Episode  393: Politics and Political Culture in the Early American Republic

SUPPORT OUR WORK
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Each September, Constitution Day marks the signing of the U.S. Constitution on September 17, 1787.

But beyond celebration, this commemoration invites deeper reflection: Whose voices helped shape this foundational document? And who was imagined as part of the political community it created?

In honor of Constitution Day and Constitution Month, we’re revisiting a pivotal conversation from Episode 339 with constitutional historian Mary Sarah Bilder.

Drawing from her book, Female Genius: Eliza Harriot and George Washington at the Dawn of the Constitution, Mary challenges us to reconsider who influenced the Constitution and how women publicly engaged with its political possibilities.
Join us as we explore: Eliza Harriot’s advocacy for “female genius” and intellectual equality. Why the Constitution’s gender-neutral language mattered. And, the debates over representation, education, and citizenship in 1787
Mary’s Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/339
 
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 107: Madison's Hand
🎧 Episode 137: The Washingtons' Runaway Slave, Ona Judge
🎧 Episode 255: Birthright Citizens
🎧 Episode 259: American Legal History & the Bill of Rights
🎧 Episode 285: Elections & Voting in Early America
SUPPORT OUR WORK
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What happens when the very people meant to uphold justice become the ones exploiting it?

In the 1760s, North Carolina farmers watched sheriffs pocket their tax payments, judges rule in favor of corrupt land speculators, and government officials literally steal their land, all while claiming to represent the Crown’s interests.

Nathan Schultz, a public historian and the Site Manager at the Alamance Battleground State Historic Site in North Carolina, joins us to explore the North Carolina Regulator Movement.

Show Notes:  https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/419
 
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 330: Loyalism in the British Atlantic World
🎧 Episode 356: The Moravian Church in North America
🎧 Episode 373: The Gaspee Affair
🎧 Episode 374: The American Revolutionary War in the West
🎧 Episode 380: The Tory's Wife
🎧 Episode 409: The Battles of Lexington & Concord, 1775

SUPPORT OUR WORK
🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s World
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WHEN YOU'RE READY
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Revolutionary upheaval didn't just reshape governments—it transformed daily life for ordinary families across colonial America.

 In this revisited episode, historian Cynthia Kierner reveals the remarkable story of Jane Spurgin, a woman navigating loyalty, survival, and family obligations in Revolutionary-era North Carolina.

Through Jane's experience as a Loyalist's wife, we discover how political conflicts reached into homes and communities, forcing women to make difficult choices between personal safety and family loyalty.

As we prepare to explore the North Carolina Regulator Movement, Jane's story illuminates the human cost of colonial resistance and the often-overlooked voices of women caught in the crossfire of revolution. 

Guest: Cynthia Kierner, Professor of History at George Mason University and author of The Tory's Wife: A Woman and Her Family in Revolutionary America

Cynthia’s Website | Book
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/380
 
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 085: American Loyalists in Canada
🎧 Episode 126: The Reintegration of American Loyalists
🎧 Episode 237: Motherhood in Early America
🎧 Episode 325: Everyday People of the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 330: Loyalism in the British Atlantic World
SUPPORT OUR WORK
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WHEN YOU'RE READY
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