Ben Franklin's World

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 meant 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 Culture in the Revolutionary Era, helps us explore the origins of the American middle class so we can better understand what it is and why so many Americans want to be a part of it. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/190   Meet Ups Boston History Camp, July 7 Boston Meet Up: July 8, 10am Meet at the corner of Park Street and Tremont Street on Boston Common Cleveland Meet Up: Saturday July 21   Sponsor Links Omohundro Institute Susan Sleeper-Smith, Indigenous Prosperity and American Conquest: Indian Women of the Ohio River Valley, 1690-1792 Join the BFWorld listener community on Facebook   Complementary Episodes Episode 012: Dane Morrison, True Yankees: The South Seas & the Discovery of American Identity Episode 098: Gautham Rao, Birth of the American Tax Man Episode 126: Rebecca Brannon, The Reintegration of American Loyalists Episode 133: Patrick Breen, The Nat Turner Revolt Episode 159: The Revolutionary Economy Episode 161: Smuggling in the American Revolution     Helpful Show Links Ben Franklin's World Facebook Page Join the Ben Franklin's World Community Sign-up for the Franklin Gazette Newsletter Ben Franklin's World iOS App Ben Franklin's World Android App   *Books purchased through this link will help support the production of Ben Franklin's World. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

12 Jun 201852min

We’re living in a period of climate change. Our Earth has been getting warmer since the mid-19th century. So how will humans adapt to and endure this period of global warming? Will they adapt to it and endure? It turns out the people of early America also lived through a period of climate change and their experiences may hold some answers for us. Sam White, an Associate Professor at The Ohio State University and author of A Cold Welcome: The Little Ice Age and Europe’s Encounter, joins us to explore the Little Ice Age and how it impacted initial European exploration and colonization of North America. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/189   Meet Ups Boston History Camp Boston Meet Up: July 8, 10am Meet at the corner of Park Street and Tremont Street on Boston Common Cleveland Meet Up: Saturday July 21   Episode 200 Tell Liz what would you like to know about early American history?   Sponsor Links Omohundro Institute The Great Courses Plus (Free Trial)   Complementary Episodes Episode 015: Joyce Chaplin, Round About the Earth Episode 049: Malcolm Gaskill, How the English Became America Episode 079: James Horn, What Are Historical Sources (Colonial Jamestown) Episode 116: Erica Charters, Disease & the Seven Years’ War Episode 127: Caroline Winterer, American Enlightenments   Helpful Show Links Ben Franklin's World Facebook Page Join the Ben Franklin's World Community Sign-up for the Franklin Gazette Newsletter Ben Franklin's World iOS App Ben Franklin's World Android App   *Books purchased through this link will help support the production of Ben Franklin's World. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

5 Jun 201853min

The Alien and Sedition Acts consisted of four laws enacted by the United States government in 1798. The United States passed these laws during a time of great uncertainty, a time when many Americans feared for the very survival for their nation. But why did Americans fear for the United States’ existence and why did they think four laws that limited citizenship and freedom of speech would protect and secure their young republic? Terri Halperin, an instructor at the University of Richmond and author of The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798: Testing the Constitution, will help us find answers to these questions by taking us through the Alien and Sedition Acts and how they came to be. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/188   Send Liz your questions about early American history for Episode 200!   Sponsor Links Omohundro Institute Children of Uncertain Fortune  (Use promo code 01DAH40 to save 40 percent)   Complementary Episodes Episode 007: John Adams and the Adams Papers Documentary Editing Project Episode 017: François Furstenberg, When the United States Spoke French Episode 052: Ronald Johnson, Early United States-Haitian Diplomacy Episode 076: Nathan Perl-Rosenthal, Citizen Sailors: Becoming American in the Age of Revolution Episode 165: The Age of Revolutions Episode 167: Eberhard Faber, The Early History of New Orleans     Helpful Show Links Ben Franklin's World Facebook Page Join the Ben Franklin's World Community Sign-up for the Franklin Gazette Newsletter Ben Franklin's World iOS App Ben Franklin's World Android App   *Books purchased through this link will help support the production of Ben Franklin's World. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

29 Mai 201858min

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 professional sports become a thing in the United States? Early American history has answers for us as does Kenneth Cohen, a curator at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History and the author of They Will Their Game: Sporting Culture and the Making of the American Republic. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/187   Sponsor Links Omohundro Institute Audible.com (30-Day Free Trial and 1 Free Audiobook)     Complementary Episodes Episode 135: Julie Holcomb, Moral Commerce: The Transatlantic Boycott of the Slave Labor Economy Episode 136: Jennifer Van Horn, Material Culture and the Making of America Episode 140: Tamara Thornton, Nathaniel Bowditch: 19th-Century Man of Business, Science, and the Sea Episode 144: Robert Parkinson, The Common Cause of the American Revolution   Helpful Show Links Ben Franklin's World Facebook Page Join the Ben Franklin's World Community Sign-up for the Franklin Gazette Newsletter Ben Franklin's World iOS App Ben Franklin's World Android App   *Books purchased through this link will help support the production of Ben Franklin's World. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

22 Mai 201852min

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 Associate Professor of History at the University of Virginia and author of The New Map of Empire: How Britain Imagined America Before Independence, helps us explore this question by taking us on an investigation of the Board of Trade and its General Survey of North America. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/186   Sponsor Links Omohundro Institute American Baroque (Use promo code 01DAH40 to save 40 percent)   Complementary Episodes Bonus: Mapping America’s War for Independence Episode 151: Defining the American Revolution Episode 152: Origins of the American Revolution Episode 162: Dunmore’s New World: The British Empire and the American Revolution Episode 177: Martin Brückner, The Social Life of Maps in America   Helpful Show Links Ben Franklin's World Facebook Page Join the Ben Franklin's World Community Sign-up for the Franklin Gazette Newsletter Ben Franklin's World iOS App Ben Franklin's World Android App   *Books purchased through this link will help support the production of Ben Franklin's World. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

15 Mai 20181h 7min

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 professor of history at the University of Denver and author of Who Should Rule at Home? Confronting the Elite in British New York City, helps us investigate these questions by taking us through the history of early New York City and how its culture evolved between 1664 and 1776. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/185   Sponsor Links Omohundro Institute Listener Survey   Complementary Episodes Episode 009: Peter G. Rose, How the Dutch Brought Us Santa, Presents, and Treats Episode 020: Kyle T. Bulthuis, Four Steeples Over the City Streets Episode 104: Andrew Lipman, The Saltwater Frontier: Europeans & Native Americans on the Northeastern Coast Episode 121: Wim Klooster, The Dutch Moment in the 17th-Century Atlantic World Episode 159: The Revolutionary Economy Episode 161: Smuggling and the American Revolution Episode 182: Douglas Winiarski, The Great Awakening in New England   Helpful Show Links Ben Franklin's World Facebook Page Join the Ben Franklin's World Community Sign-up for the Franklin Gazette Newsletter Ben Franklin's World iOS App Ben Franklin's World Android App   *Books purchased through this link will help support the production of Ben Franklin's World. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

8 Mai 201858min

Early North America was a place rife with violent conflict. Between the 17th and 19th centuries we 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 to explore some of the causes of the violent conflict that took place in early America by looking specifically at Native America and the ways Native Americans used guns to shape their lives and the course of North American colonial and indigenous history. Our guide for this exploration is David J. Silverman, a professor of history at George Washington University and the author of Thundersticks: Firearms and the Violent Transformation of Native America. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/184   Sponsor Links Omohundro Institute BFWorld Listener Survey   Complementary Episodes Episode 064: Brett Rushforth: Native American Slavery in New France Episode 104: Andrew Lipman, The Saltwater Frontier: Europeans and Native Americans along the Northeastern Coast Episode 163: The American Revolution in North America Episode 171: Jessica Stern, Native Americans, British Colonists, and Trade in North America   Helpful Show Links Ben Franklin's World Facebook Page Join the Ben Franklin's World Community Sign-up for the Franklin Gazette Newsletter Ben Franklin's World iOS App Ben Franklin's World Android App   *Books purchased through this link will help support the production of Ben Franklin's World. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

1 Mai 201857min

George Washington played three very important public roles during his lifetime. He served as the Commander in Chief of the Continental Army, the President of the Constitutional Convention, and as the first President of the United States. In addition to these important public roles, Washington also played a role that was very important to him. He served as a farmer and agricultural innovator. Douglas Bradburn, the CEO and President of George Washington’s Mount Vernon, joins us so we can explore the history of Washington’s storied estate and his agricultural practices. Plus, we’ll also discover all that Mount Vernon has to offer us as a historic site. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/183   Sponsor Links Omohundro Institute Listener Survey   Complementary Episodes Episode 033: Douglas Bradburn, George Washington & His Library Episode 060: David Preston, Braddock’s Defeat Episode 061: Edward Larson, George Washington in Retirement Episode 077: Rinker Buck, The Oregon Trail Episode 103: Sara Bon-Harper, James Monroe & His Highland Estate Episode 137: Erica Dunbar, The Washingtons’ Runaway Slave Ona Judge     Helpful Show Links Ben Franklin's World Facebook Page Join the Ben Franklin's World Community Sign-up for the Franklin Gazette Newsletter Ben Franklin's World iOS App Ben Franklin's World Android App Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

24 Apr 20181h 8min