Ben Franklin's World

Ben Franklin's World

A Podcast About Early American History

Episode 203 Joanne Freeman, Alexander Hamilton

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Hamilton the Musical hit Broadway in August 2015 and since that time people all around the world have been learning about a man named Alexander Hamilton. Or, at least they’ve been learning about the musical’s character Alexander Hamilton. But who was Alexander Hamilton as a real person? Joanne Freeman, a Professor of History and American Studies at Yale University, and one of the foremost experts on the life of Alexander Hamilton, joins us … [Read more...]

Episode 199: Coll Thrush, Indigenous London: Native Travelers at the Heart of Empire

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When we explore the history of early America, we often look at people who lived in North America. But what about the people who lived and worked in European metropoles? What about Native Americans? Today, we explore early American history through a slightly different lens, a lens that allows us to see interactions that occurred between Native American peoples and English men and women who lived in London. Our guide for this exploration … [Read more...]

Episode 196: Alejandra Dubcovsky, Information & Communication in the Early American South

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We live in an age of information. The internet provides us with 24/7 access to all types of information—news, how-to articles, sports scores, entertainment news, and congressional votes. But what do we do with all of this knowledge? How do we sift through and interpret it all? We are not the first people to ponder these questions. Alejandra Dubcovsky, an Assistant Professor at Yale University and author of Informed Power: Communication … [Read more...]

Episode 191: Lisa Brooks, A New History of King Philip’s War

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King Philip’s War is an event that appears over and over again in books about colonial America. So when you have an event that has been as studied as King Philip’s War has been, is there anything new that we can learn about it by re-examining it in our own time? Lisa Brooks, an Associate Professor of English and American Studies at Amherst College believes the answer to this question is “yes.” And today, she’s going to help us re-examine … [Read more...]

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 Charleston and the Emergence of Middle-Class … [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 Forbidden Passages: Muslims and Moriscos in Colonial Spanish America, serves as our guide … [Read more...]

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