A Podcast About Early American History
Delaware may be the second smallest state in the United States, but it has a BIG, rich history that can tell us much about the history of early America. David Young, the Executive Director of the Delaware Historical Society, joins us to explore the early American history of Delaware from its Native American inhabitants through its emergence as the first state in the United States. Listen Now About the Show Ben … [Read more...]
In 1492, Christopher Columbus’ voyage across the Atlantic linked Europe, the Americas, and the Caribbean. As Columbus’ sponsor, Spain became the first European power to use the peoples, resources, and lands of the Americas and Caribbean as the basis for its Atlantic Empire. How did this empire function and what wealth was Spain able to extract from these peoples and lands? Molly Warsh, an Associate Professor of History at the University of … [Read more...]
How did the postal system work in Early America? How did people send mail across the North American colonies and the British Empire? You sent these questions for Episode 200: Everyday Life in Early America. You also said you wanted to know more about transportation in early America. Joseph Adelman, an Assistant Professor of History at Framingham State University and author of Revolutionary Networks: The Business and Politics of Printing, … [Read more...]
Who do we count as family? If a relative was born in a foreign place and one of their parents was of a different race? Would they count as family? Eighteenth-century Britons asked themselves these questions. As we might suspect, their answers varied by time and whether they lived in Great Britain, North America, or the Caribbean. Daniel Livesay, an Associate Professor of History at Claremont McKenna College in California, helps us … [Read more...]
What does early America look like if we view it through Native American eyes? Jenny Hale Pulsipher, an Associate Professor of History at Brigham Young University, is a scholar who enjoys investigating the many answers to this question. And today, she introduces us to a Nipmuc Indian named John Wompas and how he experienced a critical time in early American history, the period between the 1650s and 1680s. Listen Now … [Read more...]
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...]
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...]
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...]
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...]
Samuel Gray, James Caldwell, Samuel Maverick, Patrick Carr, and Crispus Attucks. These are the five men who died as a result of the shootings on Boston’s King Street on the night of March 5, 1770. Of these five victims, evidence points to Crispus Attucks falling first, and of all the victims, Crispus Attucks is the name we can recall. Why is that? To help us answer this question and to conclude our 3-episode series on the Boston … [Read more...]
