A “little short of madness.” That is how Thomas Jefferson responded when two delegates from New York approached him with the idea to build the Erie Canal in January 1809. Jefferson’s comment did not discourage New Yorkers. On January 4, 1817, New York State began building a 363-mile long canal to link the Hudson River and Atlantic Ocean with the Great Lakes and the Midwest. Janice Fontanella, site manager of Schoharie Crossing State Historic Site in Fort Hunter, New York, joins us to discuss the Erie Canal, its construction, and the impact that this waterway made on New York and the United States. This episode originally posted as Episode 028.   Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/247    Sponsor Links  Omohundro Institute The Ben Franklin's World Shop    Complementary Episodes  Episode 035: Michael Lord, Historic Hudson Valley & Washington Irving Episode 051: Catherine Cangany, Frontier Seaport: A History of Early Detroit Episode 071: Bruce Venter, Saratoga and Hubbardton, 1777 Episode 113: Brian Murphy, Building the Empire State Episode 239: Joseph Adelman, Post & Travel in Early America    Listen!   Apple Podcasts Spotify  Google Podcasts  Ben Franklin's World iOS App  Ben Franklin's World Android App    Helpful Links  Join the Ben Franklin's World Facebook Group Ben Franklin’s WorldTwitter: @BFWorldPodcast Ben Franklin's World Facebook Page Sign-up for the Franklin Gazette Newsletter 

247 BFW Road Trip: Schoharie Crossing

This is a multiple award-winning podcast about early American history. It’s a show for people who love history and who want to know more about the historical people and events that have impacted and shaped our present-day world. 

Each episode features conversations with professional historians who help shed light on important people and events in early American history. It is produced by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.

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If you will recall from Episode 331, the Williamsburg Bray School is the oldest existing structure in the United States that we know was used to educate African and African American children. As the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation prepares the Bray School for you to visit and see, we’re having many conversations about the history of the school, its scholars, and early Black American History in general. During one of these conversations, the work of Kevin Dawson came up. Kevin is an Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Merced and author of the book, Undercurrents of Power: Aquatic Culture in the African Diaspora. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/383   Sponsor Links  Colonial Williamsburg Foundation  Complementary Episodes  Episode 104: The Saltwater Frontier: Europeans & Native Americans on the Northeastern Coast Episode 241: Pearls and the Nature of the Spanish Empire Episode 250: Virginia, 1619 Episode 277: Who's Fourth of July? Episode 331: Discovery of the Williamsburg Bray School Episode 347: African and African American Music Episode 352: James Forten and the Making of the United States  Listen!   Apple Podcasts Spotify  Google Podcasts  Amazon Music  Ben Franklin's World iOS App  Ben Franklin's World Android App   Helpful Links  Join the Ben Franklin's World Facebook Group Ben Franklin’s World Twitter: @BFWorldPodcast Ben Franklin's World Facebook Page Sign-up for the Franklin Gazette Newsletter   

383 Aquatic Culture in Early America

Within the Declaration of Independence, the founders of the United States present twenty-seven grievances against King George III as they declare their reasons for why the thirteen British North American colonies sought their independence from Great Britain. Their twenty-fifth grievance declares that King George III “is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat [sic] the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun.” What do we know about the “Armies of foreign Mercenaries” King George III sent to his rebellious American colonies?  Friederike Baer, an Associate Professor of History at Penn State Abbington College, joins us to explore the lives and wartime experiences of the 30,000 German soldiers the British Crown hired and dispatched to North America during the American War for Independence. Frederike is the author of the award-winning book Hessians: German Soldiers in the American Revolutionary War. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/382    Sponsor Links  Colonial Williamsburg Foundation   Complementary Episodes  Episode 046: Whirlwind: The American Revolution & the War That Won It  Episode 048: Dangerous Guests: Enemy Captives During the War for Independence  Episode 081: After Yorktown Episode 144: The Common Cause Episode 147: British Soldiers, American War  Episode 157: The Revolution’s African American Soldiers Episode 252: The Highland Soldier in North America Episode 375: Misinformation Nation   Listen!   Apple Podcasts Spotify  Google Podcasts  Amazon Music  Ben Franklin's World iOS App  Ben Franklin's World Android App   Helpful Links  Join the Ben Franklin's World Facebook Group Ben Franklin’s World Twitter: @BFWorldPodcast Ben Franklin's World Facebook Page Sign-up for the Franklin Gazette Newsletter 

382 Hessians in the American Revolutionary War

The vast and varied landscapes of Texas loom large in our American imaginations. As does Texas culture with its BBQ, cowboys, and larger-than-life personality. But before Texas was a place that embraced ranching, space flight, and country music, Texas was a place with rich and vibrant Indigenous cultures and traditions and with Spanish and Mexican cultures and traditions. Martha Menchaca, a Professor of Anthropology at the University of Texas, Austin, is a scholar of Texas history and United States-Mexican culture. She joins us to explore the Spanish and Mexican origins of Texas with details from her book, The Mexican American Experience in Texas: Citizenship, Segregation, and the Struggle for Equality. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/381    Sponsor Links  Colonial Williamsburg Foundation   Complementary Episodes  Episode 037: Kathleen DuVal, Independence Lost: Lives on the Edge of the American Revolution Episode 115: Andrew Torget, The Early American History of Texas Episode 178, Karoline Cook, Muslims & Moriscos in Colonial Spanish America Episode 241: Molly Warsh, Pearls & the Nature of the Spanish Empire Episode 334, Brandon Bayne, Missions and Mission Building in New Spain Episode 358: Charles Tingley, St Augustine and Early Florida Episode 371: Estevan Rael-Gálvez, An Archive of Indigenous Slavery   Listen!   Apple Podcasts Spotify  Google Podcasts  Amazon Music  Ben Franklin's World iOS App  Ben Franklin's World Android App   Helpful Links  Join the Ben Franklin's World Facebook Group Ben Franklin’s World Twitter: @BFWorldPodcast Ben Franklin's World Facebook Page Sign-up for the Franklin Gazette Newsletter 

381 Texas in the Spanish Empire

The American Revolution was a movement that divided British Americans. Americans did not universally agree on the Revolution’s ideas about governance and independence. And the movement’s War for Independence was a bloody civil war that not only pitted brother against brother and fathers against sons; it also pitted wives against husbands. Cynthia A. Kierner is a professor of history at George Mason University and the author of the book The Tory’s Wife: A Woman and Her Family in Revolutionary America. Cindy joins us to lead us through the story of Jane and William Spurgin, an everyday couple who lived in the North Carolina Backcountry during the American Revolution and who found themselves supporting different sides of the Revolution. Show Notes:https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/380    Sponsor Links  Colonial Williamsburg Foundation John D. Rockefeller Jr., Library The Virginia Gazette   Complementary Episodes  Episode 085: Bonnie Huskins, American Loyalists in Canada Episode 126: Rebecca Brannon, The Reintegration of American Loyalists Episode 237: Nora Doyle, Motherhood in Early America Episode 325: Woody Holton, Everyday People of the American Revolution Episode 330: Brad Jones, Loyalism in the British Atlantic World Episode 356: Paul Peucker, The Moravian Church in North America   Listen!   Apple Podcasts Spotify  Google Podcasts  Amazon Music  Ben Franklin's World iOS App  Ben Franklin's World Android App   Helpful Links  Join the Ben Franklin's World Facebook Group Ben Franklin’s World Twitter: @BFWorldPodcast Ben Franklin's World Facebook Page Sign-up for the Franklin Gazette Newsletter 

380 The Tory's Wife

Women make up eight out of every ten healthcare workers in the United States. Yet they lag behind men when it comes to working in the roles of medical doctors and surgeons. Why has healthcare become a professional field dominated by women, and yet women represent a minority of physicians and doctors who serve at the top of the healthcare field? Susan H. Brandt, a historian and lecturer at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, seeks to find answers to these questions. In doing so, she takes us into the rich history of women healers with details from her book, Women Healers: Gender, Authority, and Medicine in Early Philadelphia. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/379    Sponsor Links  Colonial Williamsburg Foundation   Complementary Episodes  Episode 003: Director of the Library Company of Philadelphia Episode 005: Revolutionary Medicine: The Founding Fathers and Mothers in Sickness and Health Episode 116: Disease & the Seven Years’ War Episode 174: Yellow Fever in the Early American Republic Episode 263: The Medical Imagination Episode 273: David Hosack, Botany, and Medicine in the Early Republic Episode 276: Benjamin Rush: Founding Father Episode 301: From Inoculation to Vaccination, Part 1 Episode 302: From Inoculation to Vaccination, Part 2    Listen!   Apple Podcasts Spotify  Google Podcasts  Amazon Music  Ben Franklin's World iOS App  Ben Franklin's World Android App   Helpful Links  Join the Ben Franklin's World Facebook Group Ben Franklin’s World Twitter: @BFWorldPodcast Ben Franklin's World Facebook Page Sign-up for the Franklin Gazette Newsletter 

247 BFW Road Trip: Schoharie Crossing

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