Ben Franklin's World

Ben Franklin's World

A Podcast About Early American History

Episode 190: Jennifer Goloboy, Origins of the American Middle Class

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As many as 70 percent of Americans consider themselves to be members of the middle class. But if you consider income as a qualifier for membership, only about 50 percent of Americans qualify for membership. So what does it mean to be middle class and why do so many Americans want to be members of it? Jennifer Goloboy, an independent scholar based in Minneapolis, Minnesota and the author of , helps us explore the origins of the American … [Read more...]

Episode 187: Kenneth Cohen, Sport in Early America

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Our present-day American culture is obsessed with sports. To cite just two pieces of evidence of this, on average, more than 67,000 fans attend each National Football League game and more than 30,000 fans attend each Major League Baseball game. This is to say nothing of the millions of fans who watch these sports on television or listen to them on the radio. When did America become a place filled with sports nuts? When did the business of … [Read more...]

Episode 186: Max Edelson, The New Map of the British Empire

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As a result of Great Britain’s victory in the Seven Years’ War, British North America expanded so that it stretched from the Atlantic seaboard west to the Mississippi River and from Hudson Bay and the Gulf of St. Lawrence south to Florida. Plus, it also included islands in the Caribbean. How exactly would Great Britain, centered on a small island over 3,000 miles away, govern this new, expanded North American empire? Max Edelson, an … [Read more...]

Episode 185: Joyce Goodfriend, Early New York City and Its Culture

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Who should determine our culture and the morals our society follows? Culture, or the intellectual achievements, attitudes, and behaviors of our particular places and social groups, is all around us. It impacts how we think and act as members of families, local communities, states, and nations. Culture is important. So how do we establish culture? Who sets the unwritten social rules and ideas that we adopt and live by? Joyce Goodfriend, a … [Read more...]

Episode 184: David J. Silverman, Thundersticks: Firearms and the Violent Transformation of Native America

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Early North America was a place rife with violent conflict. Between the 17th and 19th centuries we can see a lot of conflict between different Native American peoples, Native American peoples and colonists, colonists from one empire versus colonists from another empire, settlers from one state quarreling with settlers from another state, and in the 19th century, we also see strife between Americans, Canadians, and Mexicans. Today, we’re going … [Read more...]

Episode 178, Karoline Cook, Muslims & Moriscos in Colonial Spanish America

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In 1535, Spanish holdings in the Americas proved so great that the Spanish government created the Viceroyalty of New Spain to govern all territory north of the Isthmus of Panama. The jurisdiction of New Spain included areas of upper and lower California and large areas of the American southwest and southeast, including Florida. Karoline Cook, author of , serves as our guide as we explore some of the political, cultural, and religious … [Read more...]

Episode 177, Martin Brückner, The Social Life of Maps in America

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Did you know that maps have social lives? Maps facilitate a lot of different social and political relationships between people and nations. And they did a lot of this work for Americans throughout the early American past. Martin Brückner, a Professor of English at the University of Delaware, joins us to discuss early American maps and early American mapmaking with details from his book, . Listen Now About the Show Ben Franklin’s … [Read more...]

Episode 173: Marisa Fuentes, Colonial Port Cities and Slavery

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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 , joins us to explore some of the connections … [Read more...]

Episode 171: Jessica Stern, Native Americans, British Colonists, and Trade in North America

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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 , takes us on a journey into the southeast during the early 18th century to show us how trade between Native Americans and … [Read more...]

Episode 170: Wendy Warren, New England Bound: Slavery in Early New England

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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 , joins us to explore why New Englanders practiced slavery and just how far back the region’s slave past … [Read more...]

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