221 The Culinary Adventures of Benjamin Franklin
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-winn...
15 Jan 201956min
220 New England Indians, Colonists, & the Origins of American Slavery
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 ...
8 Jan 20191h 16min
219 Taverns in Early America
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 ...
1 Jan 201952min
218 How the Dutch Brough Us Santa, Presents, & Treats
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 ...
25 Dec 201843min
217 Slavery and Freedom in Early Maryland
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 m...
18 Dec 201850min
216 A History of Stepfamilies in Early America
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 ...
11 Dec 201845min
215 A Same-Sex Marriage in Early America
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 Prof...
4 Dec 201853min
214 Skpeticism and American Faith
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...
27 Nov 201857min
