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Ben Franklin's World

Liz Covart

This is a multiple award-winning podcast about early American history. It’s a show for people who love history and who want to know more about the historical people and events that have impacted and shaped our present-day world.

Each episode features conversations with professional historians who help shed light on important people and events in early American history.

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  • 20 episodes
  • Updated Tuesday

Episodes20

Newest first
  • Tuesday · 45 min

    448 The Declaration of Independence as American Scripture

    The engrossed copy of the Declaration of Independence is on display at the National Archives building in Washington, DC. Millions of visitors flock to see it and the other Charters of Freedom. But how did it end up there and why do people approach it with religious reverence? In this episode, we explore how the Declaration took on its symbolic role as the founding text of the United States. Pauline's Book Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/403 EPISODE OUTLINE 00:00:00 Introduction 00:06:30 Introducing Mary Beth Norton 00:07:17 American Scripture: Pauline Maier 00:10:00 Graduate School with Pauline Maier 00:13:36 The State of Historians' Thinking in the 1990s 00:15:23 Other Declarations of Independence 00:21:08 Thomas Jefferson's Drafting of the Declaration 00:23:44 Why Create a Parchment Copy of the Declaration? 00:28:24 How the Declaration Became American Scripture 00:30:32 The Impact of American Scripture 00:32:10 Situating the Declaration in the American Revolution 00:35:39 The Role of the Parchment Copy Today 00:40:12 Closing Thoughts on Pauline Maier RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES 🎧 Episode 141: A Declaration in Draft 🎧 Episode 155: Pauline Maier's American Revolution 🎧 Episode 294: 1774: The Long Year of Revolution 🎧 Episode 325: Everyday People of the American Revolution 🎧 Episode 415: The Many Declarations of Independence SUPPORT OUR WORK 🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s World REQUEST A TOPIC 📨 Topic Request Form 📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community 🌍 Join the History Explorers Club TAKE THE QUIZ 🧭 Discover How You Explore History (under 2 minutes) 👉 https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/quiz 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 *Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.

  • July 28 · 53 min

    BFW Revisited Threads of Power

    For the Haudenosaunee, the Six Nations People, the American Revolution brought not liberty, but land loss, displacement, and the dismantling of their world. The new United States seized land from Haudenosaunee nations regardless of which side they supported during the Revolution. And yet the Haudenosaunee survived, and Haudenosaunee women are central to this story. In this revisited episode, Maeve Kane, Associate Professor of History at the University at Albany and author of Shirts Powdered Red, reveals how Haudenosaunee women used cloth, trade, and cultural creativity as tools of sovereignty and survival across three centuries of colonial pressure. Maeve's Website | Book | Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/406 RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES 🎧 Episode 021: Smuggling in Colonial America & Living History 🎧 Episode 163: The American Revolution in North America 🎧 Episode 223: A native American History of the Ohio River Valley & Great Lakes Region 🎧 Episode 264: The Treaty of Canandaigua 🎧 Episode 353: Women and the Making of Catawba Identity SUPPORT OUR WORK 🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s World REQUEST A TOPIC 📨 Topic Request Form 📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community 🌍 Join the History Explorers Club TAKE THE QUIZ 🧭 Discover How You Explore History (under 2 minutes) 👉 https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/quiz 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 *Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.

  • July 21 · 1 hr 1 min

    447 The Other Committee Members: Robert R. Livingston, Roger Sherman, and the Declaration of Independence

    Five men served on the Continental Congress’s Declaration Committee. We know three of them well: Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin. But who were the other two? In this episode, we explore the lives and contributions of Robert R. Livingston of New York and Roger Sherman of Connecticut. Historians Geoff Benton and Michael Morand join us as we uncover the stories of the other Committee members. Clermont State Historic Site: Website Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/447 EPISODE OUTLINE 00:00:00 Introduction 00:04:46 The Lee Resolution and the Committee of Five 00:05:26 Robert R. Livingston's Early Life 00:06:56 Colonial New York Politics 00:11:02 Livingston's Appointment to the Second Continental Congress 00:15:20 Why Livingston Chosen for Declaration Committee 00:18:44 Livingston's feud with John Adams 00:19:18 Livingston Misses the Vote for Independence 00:20:50 Livingston Becomes Chancellor of New York State 00:24:06 Livingston's Role in Steam Navigation 00:26:15 Clermont State Historic Site 00:32:35 Roger Sherman's Early Life 00:36:47 Sherman's Family and Life in New Haven 00:37:43 Sherman's Involvement in the Imperial Crisis 00:40:38 Sherman's Role in the Second Continental Congress 00:42:28 Why Sherman Chosen For Declaration Committee 00:43:42 Sherman's Role in Drafting the Declaration 00:46:16 The Connecticut Compromise, 1787 00:50:28 What Made Sherman Effective in Legislatures 00:53:47 1776 in Context 00:58:10 Conclusion RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES 🎧 Episode 141: A Declaration in Draft 🎧 Episode 193: Partisans: The Friendship and Rivalry of Adams & Jefferson 🎧 Episode 245: Celebrating the Fourth of July 🎧 Episode 277: Whose Fourth of July? 🎧 Episode 415: The Many Declarations of Independence 🎧 Episode 439: When the Declaration of Independence Was News SUPPORT OUR WORK 🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s World REQUEST A TOPIC 📨 Topic Request Form 📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community 🌍 Join the History Explorers Club TAKE THE QUIZ 🧭 Discover How You Explore History (under 2 minutes) 👉 https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/quiz 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 *Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.

  • July 14 · 1 hr 20 min

    BFW Revisited: A Declaration in Draft, 2026

    Every American knows Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, but was he really its sole architect? In this revisited episode, we sit down with three scholars to pull back the curtain on how the Declaration came to be written. Danielle Allen of Harvard University, Patrick Spero of the American Philosophical Society, and Peter Onuf of the University of Virginia reveal that the Declaration was never one man's work. Together, they show how John Adams — not Jefferson — was the intellectual architect behind "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." How Benjamin Franklin changed the Declaration with just four or five surgical edits. And what the Second Continental Congress cut from Jefferson's original draft, including his striking grievance blaming King George III for the international slave trade. Originally recorded in 2017 as part of Ben Franklin's World's Doing History to the Revolution series, this episode pairs with Episode 446 and Episode 447 to mark the Declaration's 250th anniversary. Danielle’s Website | Book Patrick's Website | Book Peter's Website | Book Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/141 RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES 🎧 Episode 018: Our Declaration 🎧 Episode 440: Jefferson's Cut Grievance 🎧 Episode 443: How Independence Happend, Pt 1: The Lee Resolution, 1776 🎧 Episode 444: How Independence Happened, Pt 2: The Model Treaty 🎧 Episode 445: How Independence Happened, Pt 3: Articles of Confederation 🎧 Episode 446: The Declaration of Independence at 250 SUPPORT OUR WORK 🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s World REQUEST A TOPIC 📨 Topic Request Form 📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community 🌍 Join the History Explorers Club TAKE THE QUIZ 🧭 Discover How You Explore History (under 2 minutes) 👉 https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/quiz 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 *Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • July 7 · 43 min

    446 The Declaration of Independence at 250

    250 years after its signing, the Declaration of Independence remains an unfinished document. Its famous assertion "that all men are created equal" and endowed with unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness stands not as a settled truth, but as a call every generation of Americans must answer on its own terms. What did the founders mean by "all men are created equal?" Who did they believe was eligible to pursue life, liberty, and happiness? And how are the generations living in the United States today thinking through their own answers? Four historians join us to explore these questions. Robert Parkinson and Steve Sarson draw on their new books to help us understand what it meant in 1776. Anthea Hartig and Virginia Scharff show us how two 250th anniversary museum exhibitions use objects to make the Declaration's living legacy tangible, and to remind us that its promises have always been claimed not just in words, but in action. Rob's Book | Steve's Book | Smithsonian Exhibit | Autry Exhibit Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/403 EPISODE OUTLINE 00:00:00 Introduction 00:00:44 Celebrating the Declaration of Independence 00:03:50 The Declaration As An Ongoing Experiment 00:04:14 Anthea Hartig on the National Museum of American History 00:05:30 Virginia Scharff on the Autry Museum of the American West 00:07:58 Robert Parkinson on Understanding the Declaration 00:19:17 Steve Sarson on the Declaration's Philosophical Argument 00:21:10 The Original Meaning of the Declaration 00:34:47 Conclusion 00:41:16 The Massachusetts Historical Society's Declaration Exhibit RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES 🎧 Episode 018: Our Declaration 🎧 Episode 141: A Declaration in Draft 🎧 Episode 394: The Pursuit of Happiness 🎧 Episode 415: The Many Declarations of Independence 🎧 Episode 439: When the Declaration of Independence Was News in 1776 🎧 Episode 440: Jefferson's Cut Grievance SUPPORT OUR WORK 🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s World REQUEST A TOPIC 📨 Topic Request Form 📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community 🌍 Join the History Explorers Club TAKE THE QUIZ 🧭 Discover How You Explore History (under 2 minutes) 👉 https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/quiz 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 *Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • June 30 · 1 hr 23 min

    445 How Independence Happened, Pt 3: The Articles of Confederation

    The man Congress chose to draft the United States’ first constitution refused to vote for independence. John Dickinson wrote a bold plan, one with a strong central government, religious liberty protections that included women, and a question in the margins about whether Congress should abolish slavery. Congress stripped out nearly all of these ideas and provisions. What replaced it sparked a debate over federal vs. state power that has never gone away. This is the third episode in our How Independence Happened series. In Part 1, we explored Richard Henry Lee's Virginia Resolution of June 7, 1776. In Part 2, we examined the Model Treaty and how the new United States made foreign alliances. In this third part, we're joined by historians Jane Calvert and Jonathan Gienapp so we can investigate the Articles of Confederation, the third element of independence. Jane's Website | Book Jonathan's Website | Book Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/445 EPISODE OUTLINE 00:00:00 Introduction 00:03:34 The Articles of Confederation 00:08:29 Why A Confederation Was Important 00:12:49 Why the Second Continental Congress Create A Formal Union 00:21:44 Drafting the Articles of Confederation 00:22:38 John Dickinson's Role in Drafting the Articles 00:45:50 The Founding Generation's Ideas About Government 01:05:40 Viewing the Articles of Confederation in Context 01:13:07 The Unwritten Constitution of the People RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES 🎧 Episode 179: Governance During the Critical Period 🎧 Episode 258: John Dickinson, Life, Religion, & Politics 🎧 Episode 323: American Expansion and the Political Economy of Plunder 🎧 Episode 366: James Wilson & the U.S. Constitution 🎧 Episode 443: How Independence Happened, Pt 1: The Lee Resolution 🎧 Episode 444: How Independence Happened, Pt 2: The Model Treaty SUPPORT OUR WORK 🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s World REQUEST A TOPIC 📨 Topic Request Form 📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community 🌍 Join the History Explorers Club TAKE THE QUIZ 🧭 Discover How You Explore History (under 2 minutes) 👉 https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/quiz 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 *Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • June 23 · 1 hr 16 min

    444 How Independence Happened, Part 2: The Model Treaty

    Declaring independence on July 2, 1776 was only the beginning. To actually become a nation, the United States needed something else: foreign allies, international recognition, and the credibility to negotiate as an equal among the world's great powers. Five days after Richard Henry Lee introduced his famous Virginia Resolution, the Continental Congress appointed a committee of five — John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, John Dickinson, Robert Morris, and Benjamin Harrison — to figure out how to achieve international recognition. The result was the Model Treaty: a document we almost never discuss today, but one that Adams considered his most important contribution to Congress and the nation. Historians Sara Georgini and Eliga Gould guide us through Adams's revolutionary blueprint for American foreign policy and how the founders understood that the United States would need to become a "treaty worthy" nation before France would take them seriously. This is the second episode in a three-part series. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • June 16 · 1 hr 15 min

    443 How Independence Happened, Part 1: The Lee Resolution

    Declaring independence on July 2, 1776, was only the beginning. To actually become a nation, the United States needed something else: foreign allies, international recognition, and the credibility to negotiate as an equal among the world's great powers. Five days after Richard Henry Lee introduced his famous Virginia Resolution, the Continental Congress appointed a committee of five — John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, John Dickinson, Robert Morris, and Benjamin Harrison — to figure out how to achieve international recognition. The result was the Model Treaty: a document we almost never discuss today, but one that Adams considered his most important contribution to Congress and the nation. Historians Sara Georgini and Eliga Gould guide us through Adams's revolutionary blueprint for American foreign policy and the founders' understanding that the United States would need to become a "treaty-worthy" nation before France would take it seriously. This is the second episode in a three-part series. Sara’s Website | Book Lige's Website | Book Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/444 EPISODE OUTLINE 00:00:00 Introduction 00:00:21 Three Legs of Independence 00:01:17 The Second Continental Congress Votes Independence 00:02:58 The Second Leg of Independence: Foreign Alliances 00:03:28 The Model Treaty 00:07:12 Why the Virginia Resolution Included Foreign Alliances 00:19:00 Specifics of the Model Treaty 00:21:30 Founders' Goals for the Model Treaty 00:28:21 The Model Treaty Drafting Committee 00:41:20 The Model Treaty as a Document 00:39:15 The Story of Common Sense 00:50:07 Commercial Alliances 01:04:42 The Model Treaty's Place in the American Revolution RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES 🎧 Episode 007: John Adams & the Adams Papers Documentary Project 🎧 Episode 128: American Revolutions: A Continental History 🎧 Episode 193: Partisans: The Friendship & Rivalry of Jefferson & Adams 🎧 Episode 432: How France & Spain Helped Save the American Revolution 🎧 Episode 433: Entangled Alliances: Haiti, France, & the American Revolution 🎧 Episode 443: How Independence Actually Happened, Pt 1: The Lee Resolution SUPPORT OUR WORK 🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s World REQUEST A TOPIC 📨 Topic Request Form 📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community 🌍 Join the History Explorers Club TAKE THE QUIZ 🧭 Discover How You Explore History (under 2 minutes) 👉 https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/quiz 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 *Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • June 9 · 48 min

    BFW Revisited: Reading the Declaration of Independence for Equality

    On July 4th, 2026, the United States marks 250 years since the Declaration of Independence announced a new nation to the world. But how well do we actually know the document we're celebrating? Most of us can recite "We hold these truths to be self-evident," but how many of us have read all 1,337 words, and traced the argument the Declaration actually makes? Danielle Allen, the James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University and author of Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality, reveals how New Hampshire's desperate need for a functioning government set the Continental Congress on the path toward independence, why the Declaration was authored by many voices — not just Thomas Jefferson — and how a slow, careful reading of the document uncovers a powerful argument that freedom and equality are entwined. You cannot have one without the other. This is the essential starting point for Ben Franklin's World's Independence at 250 series. Danielle’s Website | Book | Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/018 RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES 🎧 Episode 119: The Heart of the Declartion 🎧 Episode 141: A Declaration in Draft 🎧 Episode 415: The Many Declarations of Independence 🎧 Episode 438: The American Revolution and the Fate of the World 🎧 Episode 439: When the Declartion of Independence War News in 1776 🎧 Episode 440: Jefferson's Cut Grievance and the British Monarchy's Role in Slavery SUPPORT OUR WORK 🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s World REQUEST A TOPIC 📨 Topic Request Form 📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community 🌍 Join the History Explorers Club TAKE THE QUIZ 🧭 Discover How You Explore History (under 2 minutes) 👉 https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/quiz 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 *Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • June 2 · 1 hr 21 min

    442 Everyday Military Life in the American Revolution

    When we picture the American Revolution, we picture battles. But for the men and women who actually lived and fought in it, the Revolution was also a job with mess rotations, night watches, short rations, and children underfoot. Historians Eugene Procknow, Gabriel Neville, and Thomas Sobol pull back the curtain on everyday military life during the War for Independence. They discuss how the armies were structured, what soldiers actually ate, what camp followers endured, and how soldiers found humanity amid grinding hardship. You'll hear about a Black Continental soldier who had eaten nothing but bread for eleven days, and was still writing letters home that went unanswered. A Georgia soldier who agreed to fight for the British just to escape a prison ship, then deserted and marched across two states to rejoin Nathanael Greene's army. And you'll discover why John Adams believed the most dangerous moment of the Revolution wasn't a battle at all. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/403 EPISODE OUTLINE 00:00:00 Introduction 00:05:44 Structure of the British and Continental Armies 00:10:33 Militia, German Soldiers, and Indian Allies 00:20:43 Everyday Life in the American War for Independence 00:25:80 Camp Followers 00:33:10 Downtime in the Army 00:36:59 Soldiers' Letters 00:46:00 Food Procurement & Supply Chains 00:50:27 Supplementing Rations 00:55:34 War Mementoes & Plunder 00:58:36 Medical Care in the Army 01:08:07 The Revolution in Context RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES 🎧 Episode 158: The Revolutionaries' Army 🎧 Episode 122: The Men Who Lost America 🎧 Episode 252: The Highland Soldier in North America 🎧 Episode 302: From Inoculation to Vaccination, Pt 2 🎧 Episode 348: Valley Forge 🎧 Episode 374: The Revolutionary War in the West SUPPORT OUR WORK 🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s World REQUEST A TOPIC 📨 Topic Request Form 📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community 🌍 Join the History Explorers Club TAKE THE QUIZ 🧭 Discover How You Explore History (under 2 minutes) 👉 https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/quiz 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 *Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • May 26 · 1 hr 5 min

    BFW Revisited: Valley Forge

    Most of us learned the same story: During the winter at Valley Forge, George Washington's army suffered and endured. Ragged soldiers huddled together in frozen huts and gnawed on shoe leather for food. But what if that story is mostly myth? Military historian Ricardo Herrera, author of Feeding Washington's Army: Surviving the Valley Forge Winter of 1778, reveals what was really happening during the winter of 1777–1778. Valley Forge wasn't a place of frozen inactivity, it was a hub of military operations. The army's survival depended not on virtue and willpower alone, but on the armed foraging columns Washington sent into the Pennsylvania countryside to seize food, horses, and supplies from the civilians he was fighting to protect. Rick’s Website | Book | Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/348 RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES 🎧 Episode 158: The Revolutionaries' Army 🎧 Episode 189: The Little Ice Age 🎧 Episode 301: Innoculation to Vaccination, Part 1 🎧 Episode 302: Innoculation to Vaccination, Part 2 🎧 Episode 332: Occupied Philadelphia 🎧 Episode 333: Occupied Yorktown SUPPORT OUR WORK 🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s World REQUEST A TOPIC 📨 Topic Request Form 📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community 🌍 Join the History Explorers Club TAKE THE QUIZ 🧭 Discover How You Explore History (under 2 minutes) 👉 https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/quiz 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 *Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • May 19 · 1 hr 13 min

    441 The Escapes of David George

    When David George lay sick with smallpox in Savannah during the Revolutionary War, he faced three possible outcomes: death, re-enslavement, or freedom. Greg O'Malley, Professor of History at UC Santa Cruz, follows David George across six decades and three continents, from enslaved Virginia to the Muscogee Creek nation, and from British-occupied Georgia to Nova Scotia to Sierra Leone, in his new book, The Escapes of David George: An Odyssey of Slavery, Freedom, and the American Revolution. It's a story that will change how you think about what the Revolution actually delivered, and for whom. Greg’s Website | Book Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/403 EPISODE OUTLINE 00:00:00 Introduction 00:01:14 Welcome to Ben Franklin's World 00:02:31 Introducing Greg O'Malley and David George 00:05:43 David George's Odyssey Begins 00:08:12 The Rare Narrative of David George 00:11:07 Authenticating David George's Voice 00:13:39 David George's Multiple Escapes from Slavery 00:20:30 David George's Conversion to Christianity 00:24:53 Why Baptist? The Appeal of Evangelical Faith 00:29:52 David George's Family and Name 00:37:12 Life in Nova Scotia as a Refugee Preacher 00:42:03 Journey to Sierra Leone 00:54:44 Piecing Together David George's Later Years 00:59:49 Discovering the Silver Bluff Baptist Church 01:06:24 Time Warp: What If David George Stayed? 01:10:29 Reflections and Takeaways RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES 🎧 Episode 008: Final Passages: The Intercolonial Slave Trade 🎧 Episode 322: Running from Bondage in Revolutionary America 🎧 Episode 424: Dunmore's Proclamation 🎧 Episode 434: The Frank Brothers: Freeborn Black Soldiers 🎧 Episode 440: Brooke Newman, Jefferson's Cut Grievance and the British Monarchy's Role in Slavery SUPPORT OUR WORK 🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s World REQUEST A TOPIC 📨 Topic Request Form 📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community 🌍 Join the History Explorers Club TAKE THE QUIZ 🧭 Discover How You Explore History (under 2 minutes) 👉 https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/quiz 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 *Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • May 12 · 55 min

    BFW Revisited: Running from Bondage in the American Revolution

    She fled on horseback in the thick of war. Her six-year-old son rode with her. The white tailor at her side would pass, when anyone asked, as her husband. Her name was Sarah. She was one of tens of thousands of enslaved people who self-emancipated during the American Revolution, and one of the many women earlier histories barely noticed. In this Revisited episode, Karen Cook-Bell, author of Running from Bondage: Enslaved Women and the Remarkable Fight for Freedom in Revolutionary America, recovers their stories. We learn how Lord Dunmore's 1775 proclamation reshaped the landscape of resistance, why motherhood drove women to flee rather than keeping them in place, and what creative, subversive strategies they used to slip out of bondage and into freedom. This is the companion conversation to Ep. 440's exploration of Jefferson's cut grievance. If Brooke Newman gave us the view from the throne, Karen Cook-Bell gives us the view from the ground. And it changes what the proclamations look like. Karen's Website | Book | Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/322 RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES 🎧 Episode 137: The Washingtons' Runaway Slave, Ona Judge 🎧 Episode 157: The Revolution's African American Soldiers 🎧 Episode 162: Dunmore's New World 🎧 Episode 312: The Domestic Slave Trade 🎧 Episode 424: Dunmore's Proclamation and the American Revolution in Virginia 🎧 Episode 440: Jefferson's Cut Grievances and the British Monarchy's Role in Slavery SUPPORT OUR WORK 🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s World REQUEST A TOPIC 📨 Topic Request Form 📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community 🌍 Join the History Explorers Club TAKE THE QUIZ 🧭 Discover How You Explore History (under 2 minutes) 👉 https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/quiz 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 *Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • May 5 · 1 hr 14 min

    440 Jefferson's Cut Grievance and the British Monarchy's Role in Slavery

    Thomas Jefferson's draft of the Declaration of Independence contained 28 grievances against King George III — not 27. The final grievance, the one Congress cut before signing, accused the British king of waging cruel war against human nature by trafficking enslaved Africans across the Atlantic, forcing slavery onto unwilling American colonists, and then inciting those same enslaved people to rise up and kill their enslavers. Did King George III and the British monarchy actually bear responsibility for slavery in the 13 colonies? Or was Jefferson's grievance a strategic sleight of hand — an attempt to pin a uniquely American system onto the crown he wanted to escape? Historian Brooke Newman, author of The Crown's Silence: The Hidden History of the British Monarchy and Slavery, joins us to find out. She traces the British monarchy's involvement in the transatlantic slave trade from Queen Elizabeth I through King George III, examines what Jefferson got right and what he got wrong, and delivers her verdict on one of the most explosive what-ifs in United States history. Brooke's Website | Book | Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/440 EPISODE OUTLINE 00:00:00 Introduction 00:01:24 Episode Welcome and Jefferson's Cut Grievance 00:03:15 Guest Introduction: Brooke Newman 00:04:58 Jefferson's Claim and Brooke's Research Origins 00:09:28 Timeline of Monarchies and Terminology 00:12:03 England Enters the Slave Trade under Elizabeth I 00:17:41 Crown Investments and Royal African Company 00:30:15 Colonies Structured for Slavery 00:37:02 Logistics of the Slave Trade by Revolution 00:47:01 King George III's Views on Slavery 00:52:20 Virginia's 1772 Slave Trade Ban and Royal Veto 00:57:35 Dunmore's Proclamation: Not a Royal Act 01:01:17 Was George III to Blame? Jefferson's Strategy 01:04:26 Time Warp: If George III Abolished Slavery 01:10:56 Conclusion RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES 🎧 Episode 141: A Declaration in Draft 🎧 Episode 206: Christian Slavery 🎧 Episode 351: Wealth and Slavery in New Netherland 🎧 Episode 360: Slavery & Freedom in Massachusetts 🎧 Episode 394: The Pursuit of Happiness 🎧 Episode 438: The American Revolution and the Fate of the World SUPPORT OUR WORK 🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s World REQUEST A TOPIC 📨 Topic Request Form 📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community 🌍 Join the History Explorers Club TAKE THE QUIZ 🧭 Discover How You Explore History (under 2 minutes) 👉 https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/quiz 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 *Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • April 28 · 1 hr 12 min

    BFW Revisited: Whose Fourth of July?

    On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass stood before the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society and asked one of the most searing questions in American history: "What, to the slave, is the Fourth of July?" To answer Douglass's question, we have to go back to the Revolution itself; to the choices Black Americans made in wartime, to the ways they read, used, and interrogated the Declaration of Independence, and to the alternative celebrations they created when the Fourth of July felt like someone else's holiday. Historians Christopher Bonner and Martha S. Jones help us explore what the Fourth of July meant for African Americans in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and how their experiences with the Fourth contributed to the larger history of the nation's founding. Christopher's Website | Book Martha's Website | Book Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/277 RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES 🎧 Episode 157: The Revolution's African American Soldiers 🎧 Episode 166: Freedom and the American Revolution 🎧 Episode 245: Celebrating the Fourth of July 🎧 Episode 255: Birthright Citizens 🎧 Episode 434: The Frank Brothers, Freeborn Black Soldiers in the American Revolution 🎧 Episode 439: When the Declaration of Independence Was News SUPPORT OUR WORK 🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s World REQUEST A TOPIC 📨 Topic Request Form 📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community 🌍 Join the History Explorers Club TAKE THE QUIZ 🧭 Discover How You Explore History (under 2 minutes) 👉 https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/quiz 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 *Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • April 21 · 1 hr 15 min

    439 When the Declaration of Independence Was News

    The Second Continental Congress voted for independence on July 2, 1776, but it had absolutely no plan for telling the world about it. Congress sent just one copy of the Declaration to France. It was lost at sea. Printers ran the text however they liked. And the first formal acknowledgment of American independence came not from a European court, but from a Native American chief responding to a verbal translation of the Declaration in the middle of a treaty negotiation. Historian and Declaration expert Emily Sneff joins us to explore what the Declaration of Independence looked like when it was just news — urgent, imperfect, and far beyond anyone's control. Emily’s Website | Book | Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/439 EPISODE OUTLINE 00:00:00 Introduction 00:04:07 The Declaration as a Congressional Product 00:06:28 Jefferson's humble signature 00:11:10 Congress Has No Plans for Circulation 00:16:22 News of the Declaration Breaks 00:24:36 Pubilc Readings of the Declaration 00:27:27 Ministers Spread News of the Declaration 00:32:57 German-American Translation of the Declaration 00:42:04 French Translation Failures 00:46:42 Verbal Translations of the Declaration 00:51:52 No Official Copy Sent to King George III 00:58:43 The Declaration of Independence as News 01:02:17 Time Warp 01:07:48 Upcoming 250th Exhibitions 01:11:24 Conclusion RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES 🎧 Episode 018: Our Declaration 🎧 Episode 119: The Heart of the Declaration 🎧 Episode 141: A Declaration in Draft 🎧 Episode 388: John Hancock 🎧 Episode 415: The Many Declarations of Independence 🎧 Episode 431: Thomas Paine's Common Sense at 250 SUPPORT OUR WORK 🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s World REQUEST A TOPIC 📨 Topic Request Form 📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community 🌍 Join the History Explorers Club TAKE THE QUIZ 🧭 Discover How You Explore History (under 2 minutes) 👉 https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/quiz 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 *Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • April 14 · 1 hr 17 min

    BFW Revisited: Age of Revolutions

    Between 1763 and 1848, revolutions swept across four continents. We tend to remember three of them — the American, the French, and the Haitian Revolutions. But what about all the rest? And what connected them to each other? In this episode, we're bringing back our conversation with Janet Polasky, Presidential Professor of History Emerita at the University of New Hampshire and author of Revolutions Without Borders: The Call to Liberty in the Atlantic World, and Paul Mapp, Associate Professor of History at William & Mary, who helps us understand why historians are increasingly looking at the American Revolution through an international lens. Together, they reveal why the Age of Revolutions happened when it did, how the American Revolution fit within this larger Atlantic-wide moment of upheaval, and how revolutionary ideas traveled across borders through people, print, and rumor. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/165 RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES 🎧 Episode 161: Smuggling and the American Revolution 🎧 Episode 428: Canal Dreamers 🎧 Episode 432: How France & Spain Helped Win American Independence 🎧 Episode 433: Haiti, France, and the American War for Independence 🎧 Episode 438: The American Revolution and the Fate of the World SUPPORT OUR WORK 🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s World REQUEST A TOPIC 📨 Topic Request Form 📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community 🌍 Join the History Explorers Club TAKE THE QUIZ 🧭 Discover How You Explore History (under 2 minutes) 👉 https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/quiz 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 *Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • April 7 · 1 hr 8 min

    438 The American Revolution & the Fate of the World

    What if the American Revolution didn't just create the United States, but also created Australia? Most of us learned about the Revolution as a story of thirteen North American colonies pushing back against a distant king. But this episode reveals something far wilder: a genuinely global war whose consequences rippled across every inhabited continent — reshaping empires, forcing migrations, and planting the seeds of more than a hundred declarations of independence that would follow over the next two and a half centuries. Joseph Adelman joins historian Richard Bell to explore the American Revolution as a world war. They discuss: Why the Declaration of Independence was really a Declaration of Interdependence How Hyder Ali, the Muslim ruler of Mysore in southern India, became George Washington's ally by the logic of wartime coalitions How Spain's campaign to recapture Florida tied down thousands of British troops How Britain's convict crisis, caused by losing access to Maryland and Virginia, led to the founding of Australia at Botany Bay. Rick's Website | Book | Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/438 EPISODE OUTLINE 00:00:00 Introduction 00:06:28 Differences in Perception of the American Revolution 00:09:00 Reframing the Declaration of Independence 00:17:32 Molly Brandt and Haudenosaunee Diplomacy 00:24:38 Baron von Steuben: A Mercenary's Tale 00:29:15 The American Revolution: Myth vs. Reality 00:35:02 The American Revolution and Florida 00:43:39 The American Revolution's Impact on India 00:50:24 The Connection Between the American Revolution and Australia 00:56:50 Themes of the American Revolution 00:59:16 The Time Warp 00:62:00 Conclusion RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES 🎧 Episode 141: A Declaration in Draft 🎧 Episode 163: The American Revolution in North America 🎧 Episode 238: Benedict Arnold 🎧 Episode 348: Valley Forge 🎧 Episode 325: Everyday People of the American Revolution 🎧 Episode 437: The Home Front SUPPORT OUR WORK 🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s World REQUEST A TOPIC 📨 Topic Request Form 📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community 🌍 Join the History Explorers Club TAKE THE QUIZ 🧭 Discover How You Explore History (under 2 minutes) 👉 https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/quiz 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 *Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • March 31 · 1 hr 7 min

    BFW Revisited: British-Occupied Philadelphia, 1777–1778

    In September 1777, just fourteen months after declaring independence, Philadelphia fell to the British Army. For nearly nine months, the new nation's capital was occupied territory. But what did that actually mean for the people who lived there? Not the generals, not the Congress: ordinary Philadelphians who had to decide whether to flee or stay, share their homes with British officers, watch their fences get chopped up for firewood, and figure out which neighbors to trust when it was all over. In this episode, Aaron Sullivan, a professor of History at Rider University, George Boudreau, a public historian and Executive Director of the Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion Museum in Germantown, PA, and historical interpreter Kalela Williams, now the Director of the Virginia Center for the Book, take us inside occupied Philadelphia. Together, they reveal how a city that was never fully committed to independence experienced nine months of British rule, and what the occupation cost everyone who lived through it: Quaker women negotiating with soldiers at their back gates, merchants whose fortunes rose on British hard currency while their neighbors went hungry, and Black Philadelphians who looked at the upheaval and asked whether it might open a door to freedom. Plus: the most extravagant party thrown in eighteenth-century America, staged while the city's almshouses overflowed. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/332 RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES 🎧 Episode 050: Betsy Ross & the Making of America 🎧 Episode 306: The Horse's Tail 🎧 Episode 325: Everyday People of the American Revolution 🎧 Episode 333: Life in Occupied Yorktown 🎧 Episode 380: The Tory's Wife 🎧 Episode 437: Civilian Life in America's Occupied Cities SUPPORT OUR WORK 🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s World REQUEST A TOPIC 📨 Topic Request Form 📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community 🌍 Join the History Explorers Club TAKE THE QUIZ 🧭 Discover How You Explore History (under 2 minutes) 👉 https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/quiz 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 *Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • March 24 · 1 hr 2 min

    437 Civilian Life in America's Occupied Cities

    The British Army is at your door. They need a room. What do you do? For thousands of civilians living in cities occupied during the American War for Independence — Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Newport, Charleston, Savannah — this wasn't a hypothetical. It was a reality that upended daily life and revealed a side of the revolution we rarely talk about. Lauren Duval, author of The Home Front: Revolutionary Households, Military Occupations, and the Making of American Independence, joins us to explore what the War for Independence actually looked like from inside the household. Women who negotiated quartering terms and held their ground. Men who came to blows over who controlled the parlor. Enslaved people who used the chaos of occupation to reunite families and reach British lines. The revolution didn't just happen on battlefields. It happened at kitchen tables, in back gardens, and on doorsteps. Lauren's Website | Book | Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/403 EPISODE OUTLINE 00:00:00 Introduction 00:01:38 The Home Front of the American Revolution 00:05:24 The Gensis of the Revolutionary Household 00:10:49 Why Focus on Urban Port Cities 00:19:46 The British Occupation's Impact on City Life 00:25:55 Quartering a British Officer: The Drinker Household 00:33:38. Quartering Experiences in Male-Headed Households 00:39:22 Lower-Class Experiences During British Occupation 00:40:55 The Impact of British Hard Currency on Urban Labor Markets 00:44:21 Black Experiences During British Occupation 00:51:21 The Overall American Experience of the War for Independence 00:54:01. The Time Warp 00:59:47 Conculsion RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES 🎧 Episode 050: Betsy Ross & the Making of America 🎧 Episode 175: The War in Ben Franklin's House 🎧 Episode 306: The Horse's Tail 🎧 Episode 332: Experiences of Revolution: Occupied Philadelphia 🎧 Episode 333: Experiences of Revolution: Occupied Yorktown 🎧 Episode 380: The Tory's Wife SUPPORT OUR WORK 🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s World REQUEST A TOPIC 📨 Topic Request Form 📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community 🌍 Join the History Explorers Club TAKE THE QUIZ 🧭 Discover How You Explore History (under 2 minutes) 👉 https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/quiz 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 *Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices