If we want to understand everyday life in early America we need to understand the everyday life of early American farms and farmers. Roughly three-quarters of Americans in British North America and the early United States considered themselves to be farmers. So how did early Americans establish farms and what were the rhythms of their daily lives? Richard Bushman, the Gouverneur Morris Professor Emeritus of History at Columbia University, … [Read more...]
Episode 233: Gwenn Miller, A History of Russian America
When we think about colonial American history we think about the colonies of the English, the Dutch, the French, and the Spanish. Rarely do we think about the colonies of the Russians. And yet Russia had colonies in North America. Gwenn Miller, an Associate Professor of History at the College of the Holy Cross, joins us to investigate a history of Russia’s colonies in North America with details from her book Kodiak Kreol: Communities of Empire … [Read more...]
Episode 232: Christopher Hodson, The Acadian Diaspora
Before the English settled in Jamestown, Virginia in 1607 or the Dutch settled near Albany, New York in 1615, a group of French-speaking, Catholic settlers established a settlement in Nova Scotia in 1605. By 1755, nearly 15,000 Acadians lived in Acadia. Christopher Hodson, an Associate Professor of history at Brigham Young University and the author of The Acadian Diaspora, joins us to investigate the lives of these early North American … [Read more...]
231 Sara Georgini, The Religious Lives of the Adams Family
Historians use archives to create the histories we love to read, watch, and listen to. So we’re going into one archive to investigate how historians use them and to discover more about the religious lives of the Adams Family. Sara Georgini, Series Editor of The Papers of John Adams, invites us to join her inside the Massachusetts Historical Society so we can take a closer look at the historical details provided by the Adams Papers and the role … [Read more...]
Episode 204: James Lewis, Jr., The Burr Conspiracy
Aaron Burr: Revolutionary War hero, talented lawyer, Vice President, and Intriguer of treason? Between 1805 and 1807, Aaron Burr supposedly intended to commit treason by dividing the American union. How did Americans learn about and respond to this treasonous intrigue? James Lewis Jr., a Professor of History at Kalamazoo College and author of The Burr Conspiracy: Uncovering the Story of an Early American Crisis, guides us through what we … [Read more...]
Episode 174: Thomas Apel, Yellow Fever in the Early American Republic
It’s February 2018 and doctors have declared this year’s seasonal flu epidemic as one of the worst to hit the United States in over a decade. Yet this flu epidemic is nothing compared to the yellow fever epidemics that struck the early American republic during the 1790s and early 1800s. So what happened when epidemic diseases took hold in early America? How did early Americans deal with disease and illness? Thomas Apel, author of Feverish … [Read more...]
Episode 173: Marisa Fuentes, Colonial Port Cities and Slavery
The histories of early North America and the Caribbean are intimately intertwined. The same European empires we encounter in our study of early America also appear in the Caribbean and the colonies in these respective empires often traded goods, people, and ideas between each other. Marisa Fuentes, an associate professor of history and women and gender studies at Rutgers University and author of Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence, … [Read more...]
Episode 172: Kenneth Daigler, Patriots, Spies, and Traitors: American Intelligence in the Revolutionary War
Intelligence gathering plays an important role in the foreign policies of many modern-day nation states, including the United States. Which raises the questions: How and when did the United States establish its foreign intelligence service? To answer those questions we’ll need to journey back to the American Revolution. Our guide Kenneth Daigler, an intelligence professional with 33 years experience managing human sources and collection and … [Read more...]
Episode 171: Jessica Stern, Native Americans, British Colonists, and Trade in North America
History books like to tell us that Native Americans did not fully understand British methods and ideas of trade. Is this really true? Did Native Americans only understand trade as a form of simplistic, gift exchange? Jessica Stern, a Professor of History at California State University, Fullerton and the author of The Lives in Objects: Native Americans, British Colonists, and Cultures of Labor and Exchange in the Southeast, takes us on a … [Read more...]
Episode 170: Wendy Warren, New England Bound: Slavery in Early New England
New England was a place with no cash crops. It was also a place that became known for its strong anti-slavery sentiment during the 19th century. So how did New England also become a place that practiced slavery? Wendy Warren, an Assistant Professor of History at Princeton University and author of the Pulitzer Prize-finalist book New England Bound: Slavery and Colonization in Early America, joins us to explore why New Englanders practiced … [Read more...]
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