Ben Franklin's World

Ben Franklin's World

A Podcast About Early American History

Episode 221: Rae Katherine Eighmey, The Culinary Adventures of Benjamin Franklin

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Can food help us better understand the people and events of the past? Can we better understand a person like Benjamin Franklin and who he was by the foods he ate? Rae Katherine Eighmey, an award-winning food historian, author, and cook, joins us to explore the culinary tastes and habits of Benjamin Franklin and colonial British Americans with details from her book .   Listen Now   About the Show Ben Franklin’s World is a … [Read more...]

Episode 220: Margaret Ellen Newell, New England Indians, Colonists, and Origins of Slavery

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Did you know that one of the earliest practices of slavery by English colonists originated in New England? In fact, Massachusetts issued the very first slave code in English America in 1641. Why did New Englanders turn to slavery and become the first in English America to codify its practice? Margaret Ellen Newell, a professor of history at The Ohio State University and the author of , joins us to investigate these questions and … [Read more...]

Episode 219: Adrian Covert, Taverns in Early America

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Inns and taverns played prominent roles in early American life. They served the needs of travelers who needed food to eat and places to sleep. They offered local communities a form of poor relief. And they functioned as public spaces where men could gather to discuss news, organize movements, and to drink and play cards. Adrian Covert, author of , helps us explore taverns and the many roles they played in early American life. Listen Now … [Read more...]

Episode 218: Peter G. Rose, Delicious December: How the Dutch Brought Us Santa, Presents & Treats

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Have you ever wondered where the Christmas traditions of stockings, presents, and cookies come from? What about jolly, old Saint Nicholas? Who was he and why do we often call him Santa Claus? Peter G. Rose, culinary historian of Dutch foodways in North America and author of joins us to discuss the origins of Santa Claus and edible goodies such as cookies in the United States. This episode originally posted as Episode … [Read more...]

Episode 217: Jessica Millward, Slavery & Freedom in Early Maryland

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How do you uncover the life of an enslaved person who left no paper trail? What can the everyday life of an enslaved person tell us about slavery, how it was practiced, and how some enslaved people made the transition from slavery to freedom? We explore the life of Charity Folks, an enslaved woman from Maryland who gained her freedom in the late-18th century. Our guide through Charity’s life is Jessica Millward, an Associate Professor of … [Read more...]

Episode 216: Lisa Wilson, A History of Stepfamilies in America

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What do George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Abraham Lincoln have in common? They all grew-up in blended or stepfamilies. Lisa Wilson, the Charles J. MacCurdy Professor of American History at Connecticut College and author of , takes us through the creation and interactions of blended and stepfamilies in early America. This episode originally posted as Episode 027.   Listen Now   About the Show Ben Franklin’s … [Read more...]

Episode 215: Rachel Hope Cleves, Charity & Sylvia: A Same-Sex Marriage in Early America

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We tend to view gay marriage as a cultural and legal development of the 21st century. But did you know that some early Americans lived openly as same-sex married couples? Rachel Hope Cleves, a Professor of History at the University of Victoria in British Columbia and author of , reveals the story of Charity Bryant and Sylvia Drake, women who lived as a married couple in Weybridge, Vermont between 1807 and 1851. This episode originally … [Read more...]

Episode 214: Christopher Grasso, Skepticism & American Faith

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Was the early United States a “Christian nation?” Did most of its citizenry accept God and the Bible as the moral authority that bound them together as one nation? Scholars have taken a binary stance on these questions. Some argue that early America was a thoroughly religious place and that even those who didn’t attend church were on the same basic page as those who did. While others argue early America boasted an increasingly secularized … [Read more...]

Episode 213: Rebecca Fraser, The Pilgrims of Plimoth

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In 1621, the Pilgrims of Plimoth (or Plymouth) Colony and their Wampanoag neighbors came together to celebrate their first harvest. Today we remember this event as the first Thanksgiving. But what do we really know about this holiday and the people who celebrated it? So much of what we know about the Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving comes to us through myth and legend, which is why Rebecca Fraser, author of , joins us to help suss out … [Read more...]

Episode 212: Researching Biography

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How do historians and biographers reconstruct the lives of people from the past? Good biographies rely on telling the lives of people using practiced historical methods of thorough archival research and the sound interrogation of historical sources. But what does this practice of historical methods look like? In this final episode of the Omohundro Institute’s Doing History series about biography, Erica Dunbar, the Charles and Mary Beard … [Read more...]

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