Ben Franklin's World

2023 marked the 250th anniversary of the arrival of Phillis Wheatley's published book of poetry in the British American colonies. Phillis Wheatley was an enslaved African woman who, as a teenager, became the first published African author of a book of poetry written in English.  Ade Solanke, an award-winning playwright and screenwriter, has written two plays about Phillis Wheatley’s life to commemorate the semiquincentennial of Wheatley’s literary accomplishments. She joins us to not only explore the life of Phillis Wheatley, but also how playwrights use and research history to help them create dramatic works of art. Works of art that can help us forge an emotional connection with the past. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/377 Complementary Episodes 🎧 Episode 008: The Intercolonial Slave Trade of British America 🎧 Episode 086: Ben Franklin in London 🎧 Episode 123: Revolutionary Allegiances 🎧 Episode 132: Indigenous London 🎧 Episode 166: Freedom and the American Revolution 🎧 Episode 170: New England Bound: Slavery in Early New England   REQUEST A TOPIC 📨 Topic Request Form 📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter👩‍💻 BFW Listener Community🌍 The History Explorers Club   LISTEN 🍎 Apple Podcasts  💚 Spotify  🎶 Amazon Music 🛜 Pandora CONNECT 🦋 Liz on Bluesky 👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn 🛜 Liz’s Website SAY THANKS 💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts 💚 Leave a rating on Spotify Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

6 Feb 202446min

Colonial America was born in a world of religious alliances and rivalries. Missionary efforts in the colonial Americas allow us to see how some of these religious alliances and rivalries played out. Spain, and later France, sent Catholic priests and friars to North and South America, and the Caribbean, purportedly to save the souls of Indigenous Americans by converting them to Catholicism. We also know that Protestants did similar work to help counteract this Catholic work in the Americas. Kirsten Silva Gruesz, a Professor of Literature at the University of California, Santa Cruz, joins us to explore the life and work of Cotton Mather, a Boston Puritan minister who actively sought to counteract the work of Catholic conversion, with details from her book Cotton Mather’s Spanish Lessons: A Story of Language, Race, and Belonging in the Early Americas. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/376 Complementary Episodes 🎧 Episode 047: Emily Conroy-Krutz, Christian Imperialism: Converting the World in the Early American Republic 🎧 Episode 139: Andrés Reséndez, The Other Slavery: Indian Enslavement in the Americas 🎧 Episode 170: Wendy Warren, New England Bound: Slavery in Early New England 🎧 Episode 196: Alejandra Dubcovsky, Information & Communication in the Early American South 🎧 Episode 242: Molly Warsh, Pearls & the Nature of the Spanish Empire 🎧 Episode 301: From Inoculation to Vaccination, Part 1 🎧 Episode 318: Ste Genevieve National Historic Park 🎧 Episode 334: Brandon Bayne, Missions and Mission Building in New Spain 🎧 Episode 371: Estevan Rael-Gálvez, An Archive of Indigenous Slavery REQUEST A TOPIC 📨 Topic Request Form 📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter👩‍💻 BFW Listener Community🌍 The History Explorers Club   LISTEN 🎧 🍎 Apple Podcasts  💚 Spotify  🎶 Amazon Music 🛜 Pandora CONNECT 🦋 Liz on Bluesky 👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn 🛜 Liz’s Website SAY THANKS 💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts 💚 Leave a rating on Spotify Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

23 Jan 20241h 4min

Over the past decade, we’ve heard a lot about “fake news” and “misinformation.” And as 2024 is an election year, it’s likely we’re going to hear even more about these terms. So what is the origin of misinformation in the American press? When did Americans decide that they needed to be concerned with figuring out whether the information they heard or read was truthful or fake? Jordan E. Taylor joins us to find answers to these questions. Jordan is a historian who studies the history of media and the ways early Americans created, spread, and circulated news. He is also the author of the book Misinformation Nation: Foreign News and the Politics of Truth in Revolutionary America. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/375 Complementary Episodes 🎧 Episode 144: The Common Cause of the American Revolution 🎧 Episode 156: The Power of the Press in the American Revolution 🎧 Episode 207: Young Benjamin Franklin 🎧 Episode 227: Copyright & Fair Use in Early America 🎧 Episode 243:  Revolutionary Print Networks REQUEST A TOPIC 📨 Topic Request Form 📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter👩‍💻 BFW Listener Community🌍 The History Explorers Club   LISTEN 🎧 🍎 Apple Podcasts  💚 Spotify  🎶 Amazon Music 🛜 Pandora CONNECT 🦋 Liz on Bluesky 👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn 🛜 Liz’s Website SAY THANKS 💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts 💚 Leave a rating on Spotify Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

9 Jan 20241h

The American Revolution and its War for Independence comprised the United States’ founding movement. The War for Independence also served as the fifth major war for European empire in North America. The fourth war for European empire, the Seven Years’ War, reshaped and redefined Europe’s worldwide colonial landscape in Great Britain’s favor. The American Revolutionary War presented Britain’s European rivals with an opportunity to regain some of the territory they had lost. An opportunity we can see those rivals seizing in the Revolutionary War’s Western Theater. Stephen Kling, Jr., is the author and co-author of several books and articles about the American Revolution in the West. His latest book, The American Revolutionary War in the West, has served as the basis for a museum exhibit at the St. Charles County Heritage Museum in St. Peters, Missouri. Stephen joins us as our expert guide on our expedition through the Revolution’s Western Theater. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/374 Complementary Episodes 🎧 Episode 014: West of the Revolution: An Uncommon History of 1776 🎧 Episode 037: Independence Lost: Lives on the Edge of the American Revolution 🎧 Episode 041: Canada & the American Revolution 🎧 Episode 051: A History of Early Detroit 🎧 Episode 081: After Yorktown: The Final Struggle for American Independence 🎧 Episode 102: George Rogers Clark & the Fight for the Illinois Country 🎧 Episode 318: Ste. Genevieve National Historical Park 🎧 Episode 372: A History of the Myaamia REQUEST A TOPIC 📨 Topic Request Form 📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter👩‍💻 BFW Listener Community🌍 The History Explorers Club   LISTEN 🍎 Apple Podcasts  💚 Spotify  🎶 Amazon Music 🛜 Pandora CONNECT 🦋 Liz on Bluesky 👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn 🛜 Liz’s Website SAY THANKS 💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts 💚 Leave a rating on Spotify Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

26 Dec 202354min

The so-called “March to the American Revolution” comprised many more events than just the Stamp Act Riots, the Boston Massacre, and the Tea Crisis. One event we often overlook played an essential and direct role in the events needed to draw the thirteen rebellious British North American colonies into a union of coordinated response. That event was the Gaspee Affair in 1772. Adrian Weimer, a professor of history at Providence College, has been researching the Gaspee Affair and what it can tell us about the constitutional balance between the British Empire and its colonies. She leads us on an investigation of the Gaspee Affair. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/373 Complementary Episodes 🎧 Episode 112: The Tea Crisis of 1773 🎧 Episode 118: The Business of Slavery in Rhode Island 🎧 Episode 144: The Common Cause of the American Revolution 🎧 Episode 153: Committees and Congresses: Governments of the American Revolution 🎧 Episode 309: Merchant Ships of the Eighteenth Century 🎧 Episode 325: Everyday People of the American Revolution REQUEST A TOPIC 📨 Topic Request Form 📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter👩‍💻 BFW Listener Community🌍 The History Explorers Club   LISTEN 🍎 Apple Podcasts  💚 Spotify  🎶 Amazon Music 🛜 Pandora CONNECT 🦋 Liz on Bluesky 👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn 🛜 Liz’s Website SAY THANKS 💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts 💚 Leave a rating on Spotify Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

12 Dec 202356min

Early America was a diverse place. A significant part of this diversity came from the fact that there were at least 1,000 different Indigenous tribes and nations living in different areas of North America before the Spanish and other European empires arrived on the continent’s shores. Diane Hunter and John Bickers join us to investigate the history and culture of one of these distinct Indigenous tribes: the Myaamia. At the time of this recording, Diane Hunter was the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer for the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma. She has since retired from that position. John Bickers is an Assistant Professor of History at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio. Both Diane and John are citizens of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma and experts in Myaamia history and culture. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/372 Complementary Episodes 🎧 Episode 029: Colin Calloway, The Victory with No Name: The Native American Defeat of the First American Army 🎧 Episode 223: Susan Sleeper-Smith, A Native American History of the Ohio River Valley & Great Lakes Region 🎧 Episode 290: The World of the Wampanoag, Part 1: Before 1620 🎧 Episode 291: The World of the Wampanoag, Part 2: 1620 and Beyond 🎧 Episode 297: Claudio Saunt, Indian Removal Act of 1830 🎧 Episode 323: Michael Witgen, American Expansion and the Political Economy of Plunder 🎧 Episode 362: David W. Penney, Treaties Between the US & American Indian Nations 🎧 Episode 367: The Brafferton Indian School, Part 1 🎧 Episode 368: The Brafferton Indian School, Part 2: Legacies REQUEST A TOPIC 📨 Topic Request Form 📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter👩‍💻 BFW Listener Community🌍 The History Explorers Club   LISTEN 🎧 🍎 Apple Podcasts  💚 Spotify  🎶 Amazon Music 🛜 Pandora CONNECT 🦋 Liz on Bluesky 👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn 🛜 Liz’s Website SAY THANKS 💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts 💚 Leave a rating on Spotify Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

28 Nov 20231h 10min

Long before European arrival in the Americas, Indigenous people and nations practiced enslavement. Their version of enslavement looked different from the version Christopher Columbus and his fellow Europeans practiced, but Indigenous slavery also shared many similarities with the Euro-American practice of African Chattel Slavery. While there is no way to measure the exact impact of slavery upon the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, we do know the practice involved many millions of Indigenous people who were captured, bound, and sold as enslaved people. Estevan Rael-Gálvez, Executive Director of Native Bound-Unbound: Archive of Indigenous Slavery, joins us to discuss the digital project Native Bound-Unbound: Archive of Indigenous Slavery. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/371  Complementary Episodes 🎧 Episode 008: Greg O'Malley, Final Passages: The Intercolonial Slave Trade of British America 🎧 Episode 139: Andrés Reséndez, The Other Slavery 🎧 Episode 184: David J. Silverman, Thundersticks: Firearms and the Violence Transformation of Native America 🎧 Episode 197: Brett Rushforth, Native American Slavery in New France 🎧 Episode 220: Margaret Ellen Newell, New England Indians, Colonists, and Origins of Slavery 🎧 Episode 367: The Brafferton Indian School, Part 1 🎧 Episode 368: The Brafferton Indian School, Part 2: Legacies   REQUEST A TOPIC 📨 Topic Request Form 📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter👩‍💻 BFW Listener Community🌍 The History Explorers Club   LISTEN 🎧 🍎 Apple Podcasts  💚 Spotify  🎶 Amazon Music 🛜 Pandora CONNECT 🦋 Liz on Bluesky 👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn 🛜 Liz’s Website SAY THANKS 💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts 💚 Leave a rating on Spotify Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

14 Nov 202352min

Happy Halloween! In honor of the 31st of October and All Hallows Eve, we investigate a historical incident of witches and witchcraft in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1651. Malcolm Gaskill, Emeritus Professor of Early Modern History at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, and one of the leading experts in the history of witchcraft, joins us to discuss details from his new book, The Ruin of All Witches: Life and Death in the New World. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/370 Complementary Episodes 🎧 Episode 049: Malcolm Gaskill, How the English Became American 🎧 Episode 053: Emerson W. Baker, A Storm of Witchcraft 🎧 Episode 192: Brian Regal, The Secret History of the New Jersey Devil 🎧 Episode 225: Elaine Forman Crane, The Poison Plot: Adultery & Murder in Colonial Newport 🎧 Episode 341: Mairi Cowan, Possession and Exorcism in New France REQUEST A TOPIC 📨 Topic Request Form 📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter👩‍💻 BFW Listener Community🌍 The History Explorers Club   LISTEN 🍎 Apple Podcasts  💚 Spotify  🎶 Amazon Music 🛜 Pandora CONNECT 🦋 Liz on Bluesky 👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn 🛜 Liz’s Website SAY THANKS 💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts 💚 Leave a rating on Spotify Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

31 Okt 202353min