In this episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast, host Robert Allison of Suffolk University speaks with Independent Historian Bob Hyldburg, who is leading the effort to erect a public statue honoring Sarah Bradlee Fulton in Medford.

Sarah Bradlee Fulton emerges as a figure woven through some of the most dramatic moments of the Revolution in Massachusetts. She took part in the Boston Tea Party, helping disguise and equip the participants who struck a symbolic blow against imperial authority. In the bloody aftermath of the Battle of Bunker Hill, she aided wounded Provincial soldiers and assisted families driven from their homes as Boston became an armed camp. Months later, in March 1776, Fulton carried critical intelligence out of British-occupied Boston to the American lines, information that helped secure the fortification of Dorchester Heights and hastened the British evacuation of the city.

This episode invites listeners to reconsider the Revolution not only as a story of famous generals and statesmen, but as a collective struggle sustained by courage, resolve, and individuals like Sarah Bradlee Fulton, whose legacy is finally being brought into view.

https://www.lookingbackatMedfordhistory.com

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Few figures of the American Revolution wielded words as powerfully as Thomas Paine. In this episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast, host Professor Robert Allison is joined by historian and journalist Jack Kelly, author of Tom Paine’s War, for a wide-ranging conversation about Paine’s outsized influence on the Revolutionary cause.

Kelly explores how Paine’s pamphlet Common Sense transformed colonial resistance into a popular movement for independence, reaching audiences far beyond elite political circles. The discussion traces Paine’s role as a wartime propagandist, the impact of The American Crisis during the darkest days of the war, and George Washington’s strategic use of Paine’s words to sustain morale in the Continental Army.

The episode also examines Paine’s complicated personality, his transatlantic radicalism, and his uneasy place in the postwar United States, where the man who helped ignite the Revolution found himself increasingly marginalized. Together, Allison and Kelly consider why Paine mattered so deeply in his own time and why his ideas about liberty, democracy, and popular sovereignty continue to resonate 250 years later.

A compelling look at the power of ideas in wartime America, this episode reminds us that the Revolution was fought not only with muskets and cannon, but with ink, paper, and the force of persuasion.

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Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Joseph J. Ellis joins host Professor Robert Allison to talk about his new book, The Great Contradiction: The Tragic side of the American Founding.  Drawing on decades of scholarship, Ellis reflects on the ideas, personalities, and hard choices that shaped independence and the early republic.

Together, Allison and Ellis explore what made the Revolution truly revolutionary, how figures like Washington, Jefferson, Adams, and Madison, whose stories Ellis has told in works such as Founding Brothers and Passionate Sage, understood their moment in history, and why the founding era continues to challenge, inspire, and provoke debate 250 years later. Insightful, candid, and  engaging, this episode offers listeners a master historian’s perspective on America’s most consequential generation—and the unfinished work they left behind.

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In this episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast, host Professor Robert Allison is joined by Reese Holmes, National President of the Children of the American Revolution, for a lively conversation about one of the nation’s oldest and most forward-looking patriotic youth organizations.

Together, they explore the origins of the Children of the American Revolution, founded in 1895 by Concord author Harriet Lothrop to foster knowledge of America’s founding ideals among young people, and the organization’s enduring mission to promote historical education, civic responsibility, service, and patriotism. Holmes discusses how C.A.R. members engage with Revolutionary history through research, preservation, public programs, and community service, while also developing leadership skills that prepare them to be thoughtful citizens.

In her presidential year, Reese Holmes has been focusing on the Revolutionary Valor program, and working toward creating  "Founding Martyr," a documentary on Dr. Joseph Warren. 

The conversation highlights how today’s C.A.R. brings the Revolutionary generation to life for new audiences and how youth involvement plays a vital role in the 250th Anniversary of the American Revolution. From lineage and memory to action and service, this episode underscores why the past still matters and why its stewardship increasingly rests in young hands.

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In this episode, our host Professor Robert Allison welcomes historian and educator Sean Heuvel, Director of Graduate and Professional Enrollment at Christopher Newport University, for a spirited exploration of the newly edited Revolutionary War Memoirs of General William Heath. Together they stroll through Heath’s vivid accounts of the Siege of Boston, the New York campaign, the intrigues of command, and the quiet burdens shouldered by a Massachusetts gentleman-general whose pen was often as sharp as his sword.

Heuvel shares why Heath’s memoirs remain an essential, underappreciated window into the Revolution’s early campaigns and the personalities who shaped them. With fresh annotations, contextual framing, and a keen editorial eye, Heuvel illuminates Heath not as a footnote, but as a thoughtful architect of the Continental cause.

It’s a conversation that lifts a lantern toward the lesser-known corners of the war and reminds us that every revolution depends on more than its marquee heroes. Tune in and meet General Heath anew. 

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 Join host Professor Robert Allison for a dynamic conversation with historian Ronald Angelo Johnson, author of Entangled Alliances: Racialized Freedom and Atlantic Diplomacy During the American Revolution. Together they explore how the American Revolution unfolded within a vibrant and contested Atlantic world shaped by Black leadership, Caribbean revolutions, and international diplomacy. Johnson, who holds the the Ralph and Bessie Mae Lynn Chair of History at Baylor University,  highlights the  global forces—from Haiti to Europe—that influenced American independence and redefined ideas of freedom. The Revolution was not an isolated struggle, but was part of a far-reaching web of alliances, conflicts, and revolutionary change. 

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Host Professor Robert Allison welcomes historian Paul D. Lockhart to discuss Lockhart’s acclaimed book The Drillmaster of Valley Forge: The Baron de Steuben and the Making of the American Army. Together they explore the remarkable life and career of Baron de Steuben, the Prussian-born officer whose training, discipline, and organizational genius helped transform Washington’s ragged Continental Army into a professional fighting force.

Lockhart places Steuben in a broader European military and intellectual context, untangling the myths about his noble status and supposed “magnificent fraud,” and showing instead a serious soldier of the Enlightenment—well-read, imaginative, and deeply committed to his adopted country. The conversation ranges from Valley Forge and the famous “Blue Book” drill manual to Steuben’s volatile temper, gift for friendship, chronic money troubles, complicated relationships with Washington, Congress, Lafayette, and Jefferson, and his lonely final years in upstate New York. Along the way, Allison and Lockhart reveal how Steuben’s real legacy lies not just in drill on the parade ground, but in the systems, standards, and expectations that helped shape the American army for generations to come.

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In this episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast, host Professor Robert Allison welcomes historian Dr. Cynthia Hatch for a timely and eye-opening conversation about her forthcoming book, Enablers of Rebellion: The Colonial Court and the Road to the American Revolution, to be published by Savas Beatie in the spring of 2026.

Hatch reveals a dimension of the Revolution that is often overlooked: the pivotal role of colonial courts, local magistrates, sheriffs, and justices of the peace in the decades before independence. Far from being passive administrators, these officials shaped political culture, mediated local disputes, and—intentionally or not—created the civic space in which resistance could take root. Professor Allison and Dr. Hatch explore how legal institutions helped normalize dissent, how courtroom practices reflected changing ideas of authority, and how ordinary people used the law to renegotiate power long before shots were fired.

This conversation shines a fresh light on the machinery of colonial governance and the subtle but profound ways it helped prepare a people for rebellion. A must-listen for anyone interested in the legal, political, and social foundations of America’s fight for independence.

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This week t Professor Robert Allison welcomes Dr. Matthew Keagle, Curator at Fort Ticonderoga, for a vivid exploration of one of the most audacious logistical feats of the American Revolution: Henry Knox’s Noble Train of Artillery. Together they trace Knox’s remarkable mid-winter journey of 1775–1776—300 miles across frozen rivers and lakes, treacherous terrain, and sometimes snow-choked roads—to deliver more than 60 tons of captured British artillery to General George Washington.  He also tells us about Real Time Revolution, Ticonderoga's plans for commemorating the 250th!

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In The American Revolution and the Fate of the World, historian Richard Bell explores how the struggle for American independence reverberated far beyond the thirteen colonies—reshaping politics, empires, and ideas of liberty around the globe. Bell reveals how revolutionaries from Boston to Bengal, Paris to Port-au-Prince, drew inspiration and warning from the events of 1776. The American Revolution became a test case for freedom in an age of empire. Looking at the stories of individuals caught up in its ferment, Bell shows how the Revolution reshaped the world. 

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