What in the first 40 years of his life made Benjamin Franklin the genius he became? Benjamin Franklin serves as a great window on to the early American past because as a man of “variety” he pursued many interests: literature, poetry, science, business, philosophy, philanthropy, and politics. But one aspect of Franklin’s life has gone largely unstudied: his childhood and early life. Nick Bunker, author of Young Benjamin Franklin: The … [Read more...]
Episode 268: BFW Team Favorites: Young Benjamin Franklin
Episode 267: Thomas Wickman, Snowshoe Country
How did the people of early America experience and feel about winter? Thomas Wickman, an Associate Professor of History and American Studies at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut and author of Snowshoe Country: An Environmental and Cultural Winter in the Early American Northeast, joins us to investigate how Native Americans and early Americans experienced and felt about winter during the 17th and early 18th centuries. Listen Now … [Read more...]
Episode 266: Johann Neem, Education in Early America
How did early Americans educate their children? How and when did Americans create a formal system of public education? You sent me these questions for Episode 200: Everyday Life in Early America. You also said you wanted to know more about how early American boys and girls learned the trades they would practice later in life. Johann Neem, a Professor of History at Western Washington University and author of Democracy’s Schools: The Rise of … [Read more...]
Episode 265: Lindsay Chervinsky, An Early History of the White House
On July 1, 1790, Congress passed “An Act for Establishing the temporary and permanent Seat of the Government of the United States.” This act formalized a plan to move the capital of the United States from New York City to Philadelphia, for a period of 10 years, and then from Philadelphia to Washington D.C., where the United States government would make its permanent home. What buildings did Congress have erected to house the … [Read more...]
Episode 264: Michael Oberg, Treaty of Canandaigua
The Treaty of Paris 1783 ended the American War for Independence, but it did not bring peace to North America. After 1783, warfare and violence continued between Americans and Native Americans. So how did the early United States attempt to create peace for its new nation? Michael Oberg, a Distinguished Professor of History at the State University of New York-Geneseo and the author of Peacemakers: The Iroquois, the United States, and the … [Read more...]
Episode 263: Sari Altschuler, The Medical Imagination
Did you know that imagination once played a key role in the way Americans understood and practiced medicine? Sari Altschuler, an Associate Professor of English at Northeastern University and author of The Medical Imagination: Literature and Health in the Early United States, joins us to investigate the ways early American doctors used imagination in their practice and learning of medicine. Listen Now About the Show Ben Franklin’s … [Read more...]
Episode 262: Interpreting the Fourth Amendment
History is an important tool when it comes to understanding American law. History is what the justices of the United States Supreme Court use when they want to ascertain what the framers meant when they drafted the Constitution of 1787 and its first ten amendments in 1789. And history is also the tool we use when we want to know how and why the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Constitution and its amendments have changed over … [Read more...]
Episode 261: Creating the Fourth Amendment
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution doesn’t always make headlines, but it’s an amendment that undergirds foundational rights. It’s also an amendment that can show us a lot about the intertwined nature between history and American law. In this third episode of our 4th Doing History series, we explore the early American origins of the Fourth Amendment with Thomas Clancy, a Professor Emeritus at the University of Mississippi … [Read more...]
Episode 260: Creating the First Ten Amendments
How and why did Congress draft the First Ten Amendments to the Constitution? In the United States, we use the Constitution and Bill of Rights to understand and define ourselves culturally. Americans are a people with laws and rights that are protected by the Constitution because they are defined in the Constitution. And the place where the Constitution defines and outlines our rights is within its First Ten Amendments, the Bill of … [Read more...]
Episode 259: American Legal History & the Bill of Rights
Law is all around us. And the basis of American Law comes not only from our early American past, but from our founding documents. This episode begins our 4th Doing History series. Over the next four episodes, we’ll explore the early American origins of the Bill of Rights as well as the history of the Fourth Amendment. The Fourth Amendment will serve as our case study so we can see where our rights come from and how they developed from the … [Read more...]
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