Ben Franklin's World

Between May 25 and September 17, 1787, delegates from each of the United States’ thirteen states assembled in Philadelphia for an event we now call the Constitutional Convention.What do we know about the moment of the United States Constitution’s creation? What was happening around the Convention, and what issues were Americans discussing and debating as the Convention’s delegates met?Mary Sarah Bilder, an award-winning historian and the Founders Professor of Law at Boston College Law School, joins us to investigate the context of the United States Constitution’s creation with details from her book, Female Genius: Eliza Harriot and George Washington at the Dawn of the Constitution.Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/048 Complementary Episodes 🎧 Episode107: Mary Sarah Bilder, Madison’s Hand🎧 Episode 137: Erica Armstrong Dunbar, Ona Judge, The Washington’s Runaway Slave🎧 Episode 255: Martha S. Jones, Birthright Citizens🎧 Episode 259: American Legal History & the Bill of Rights🎧 Episode 276: Stephen Fried, Benjamin Rush🎧 Episode 285: Elections & Voting in Early America🎧 Episode 323: Michael Witgen, American Expansion and the Political Economy of Plunder 🎧 Episode 332: Experiences of Revolution: Occupied Philadelphia  REQUEST A TOPIC📨 Topic Request Form📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.comWHEN YOU'RE READY🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener CommunityLISTEN 🎧🍎 Apple Podcasts 💚 Spotify 🎶 Amazon Music🛜 PandoraCONNECT🦋 Liz on Bluesky👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn🛜 Liz’s WebsiteSAY THANKS💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts💚 Leave a rating on Spotify Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On September 17, 1787, thirty-nine delegates to the Constitutional Convention signed the United States Constitution and submitted it to the states for ratification.In honor of Constitution Day, we join three historians from the Senate Historical Office to investigate Article 1 of the Constitution and its creation of the United States Senate.Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/338 Complementary Episodes🎧 Episode 040: Kathleen Bartoloni-Tuazon, For Fear of an Elective King🎧 Episode 078: Rachel Shelden: Washington Brotherhood🎧 Episode 107: Mary Sarah Bilder, Madison’s Hand🎧 Episode 143: Michael Klarman, The Making of the United States Constitution🎧 Episode 153: Committees and Congresses: Governments of the American Revolution🎧 Episode 202: An Early History of the United States Congress🎧 Episode 279: Lindsay Chervinsky, The Cabinet🎧 Episode 285: Elections and Voting in the Early Republic  REQUEST A TOPIC📨 Topic Request Form📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.comWHEN YOU'RE READY🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener CommunityLISTEN 🎧🍎 Apple Podcasts 💚 Spotify 🎶 Amazon Music🛜 PandoraCONNECT🦋 Liz on Bluesky👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn🛜 Liz’s WebsiteSAY THANKS💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts💚 Leave a rating on Spotify Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What made trade with China so important to the new United States that one of Americans’ first acts after securing the United States’ independence was to establish a trade with China and other Southeast Asian countries?Deal Norwood, an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Delaware, joins us to explore the lure of trade with China with details from his book, Trading Freedom: How Trade with China Defined Early America.Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/337 Complementary Episodes🎧 Episode 098: Gautham Rao, Birth of the American Tax Man🎧 Episode 111: Jonathan Eacott, India in the Making of Britain & America🎧 Episode 112: Mary Beth Norton, The Tea Crisis of 1773🎧 Episode 160: The Politics of Tea🎧 Episode 298: Lindsay Schakenbach Regele, Origins of American Manufacturing REQUEST A TOPIC📨 Topic Request Form📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.comWHEN YOU'RE READY🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener CommunityLISTEN 🎧🍎 Apple Podcasts 💚 Spotify 🎶 Amazon Music🛜 PandoraCONNECT🦋 Liz on Bluesky👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn🛜 Liz’s WebsiteSAY THANKS💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts💚 Leave a rating on Spotify Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What did it take to stage a successful slave uprising?Over the course of the early republic, we see a few violent slave uprisings in the United States. A particularly brutal rebellion took place in Louisiana in January 1811. Another violent rebellion took place in Southampton County, Virginia in August 1831. Neither of these rebellions led to the abolishment of slavery, but they did lead to the death of many enslaved people and their enslavers.Vanessa Holden, an Associate Professor of History at the University of Kentucky and the author of the award-winning book Surviving Southampton, leads us through the events and circumstances of the 1831-Southampton Rebellion, a rebellion we tend to know today as Nat Turner’s Rebellion.Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/336 Complementary Episodes🎧 Episode 052: Ronald Johnson, Early United States-Haitian Diplomacy🎧 Episode 124: James Alexander Dun, Making the Haitian Revolution🎧 Episode 133: Patrick Breen, The Nat Turner Revolt🎧 Episode 176: Daina Ramey Berry, The Value of the Enslaved🎧 Episode 282: Vincent Brown, Tacky’s Revolt🎧 Episode 295: Ibrahima Seck, Whitney Plantation Museum🎧 Episode 312: Joshua D. Rothman, The Domestic Slave Trade🎧 Episode 328: Warren Milteer, Jr., Free People of Color in Early America  REQUEST A TOPIC📨 Topic Request Form📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.comWHEN YOU'RE READY🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener CommunityLISTEN 🎧🍎 Apple Podcasts 💚 Spotify 🎶 Amazon Music🛜 PandoraCONNECT🦋 Liz on Bluesky👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn🛜 Liz’s WebsiteSAY THANKS💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts💚 Leave a rating on Spotify Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alexander Hamilton played important roles in the founding of the United States. He served in the Continental Army, helped frame the United States Constitution, and helped place the United States on a secure economic footing with his work as the first Secretary of the Treasury.But how did Hamilton come to know so much about the economic systems that could help the new United States build a strong economic footing?Why did Hamilton work for and believe that the new United States should be a nation that welcomed all religions and forms of religious worship?Andrew Porwacher, the Wick Cary Associate Professor of History at the University of Oklahoma and the Ernest May Fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center, joins us to investigate the Jewish world and upbringing of Alexander Hamilton.Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/335 Complementary Episodes🎧 Episode 057: Max Edling, War, Money, and the American State, 1783-1867🎧 Episode 180: Kate Elizabeth Brown, Alexander Hamilton and the Making of American Law🎧 Episode 203: Joanne Freeman, Alexander Hamilton🎧 Episode 279: Lindsay Chervinsky, The Cabinet 🎧 Episode 317: Jews in Early America REQUEST A TOPIC📨 Topic Request Form📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.comWHEN YOU'RE READY🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener CommunityLISTEN 🎧🍎 Apple Podcasts 💚 Spotify 🎶 Amazon Music🛜 PandoraCONNECT🦋 Liz on Bluesky👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn🛜 Liz’s WebsiteSAY THANKS💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts💚 Leave a rating on Spotify Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Spanish explorers and colonists visited, settled, and claimed territory in 42 of the United States’ 50 states. So what does the history of Early America look like from a Spanish point of view?Brandon Bayne, an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and author of the book Missions Begin with Blood, joins us to investigate some of the religious aspects of Spanish colonization. Specifically, the work of Spanish missionaries.Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/334 Complementary Episodes🎧 Episode 082: Alejandra Dubcovsky, Information & Communication in the Early American South🎧 Episode 090: Caitlin Fitz, The Age of Revolutions 🎧 Episode 115: Andrew Torget, The Early American History of Texas🎧 Episode 139: Andrés Reséndez, The Other Slavery🎧 Episode 178: Karoline Cook, Muslims & Moriscos in Colonial Spanish America🎧 Episode 189: Sam White, The Little Ice Age🎧 Episode 241: Molly Warsh, Pearls & the Nature of the Spanish Empire  REQUEST A TOPIC📨 Topic Request Form📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.comWHEN YOU'RE READY🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener CommunityLISTEN 🎧🍎 Apple Podcasts 💚 Spotify 🎶 Amazon Music🛜 PandoraCONNECT🦋 Liz on Bluesky👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn🛜 Liz’s WebsiteSAY THANKS💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts💚 Leave a rating on Spotify Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What was everyday life like during the American War for Independence?Our Fourth of July series continues with an investigation of how the American War for Independence impacted those who remained on the home front. As episode 332 explored how the war impacted the lives of people who lived in urban Philadelphia, this episode investigates how the war impacted the lives of people who lived in the more rural setting of Yorktown, Virginia.Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/333 Complementary Episodes🎧 Episode 162: Dunmore’s New World🎧 Episode 208: Nathaniel Philbrick, Turning Points of the American Revolution🎧 Episode 245: Celebrating the Fourth🎧 Episode 250: Virginia 1619🎧 Episode 277: Whose Fourth of July?🎧 Episode 289: Marcus Nevius, Maroonage in the Great Dismal Swamp🎧 Episode 306: The Horse’s Tail: Revolution & Memory in Early New York City🎧 Episode 332: Occupied Philadelphia REQUEST A TOPIC📨 Topic Request Form📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.comWHEN YOU'RE READY🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener CommunityLISTEN 🎧🍎 Apple Podcasts 💚 Spotify 🎶 Amazon Music🛜 PandoraCONNECT🦋 Liz on Bluesky👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn🛜 Liz’s WebsiteSAY THANKS💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts💚 Leave a rating on Spotify Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What was everyday life like during the American War for Independence?In honor of the Fourth of July, we’ll investigate answers to this question by exploring the histories of occupied Philadelphia and Yorktown, and how civilians, those left on the home front in both of those places, experienced the war and its armies.  These episodes will allow us to see how the war impacted those who remained at home. They will also allow us to better understand the messy confusion and uncertainty Americans experienced in between the big battles and events of the American Revolution. This first episode investigates everyday life in British-occupied Philadelphia.Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/332 Complementary Episodes🎧 Episode 050: Marla Miller, Betsy Ross & The Making of America🎧 Episode 149: George Goodwin, Benjamin Franklin in London🎧 Episode 175: Daniel Mark Epstein, The Revolution in Ben Franklin’s House🎧 Episode 208: Nathaniel Philbrick, Turning Points of the American Revolution🎧 Episode 245: Celebrating the Fourth🎧 Episode 277: Whose Fourth of July?🎧 Episode 306: The Horse’s Tail: Revolution & Memory in Early New York City REQUEST A TOPIC📨 Topic Request Form📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.comWHEN YOU'RE READY🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener CommunityLISTEN 🎧🍎 Apple Podcasts 💚 Spotify 🎶 Amazon Music🛜 PandoraCONNECT🦋 Liz on Bluesky👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn🛜 Liz’s WebsiteSAY THANKS💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts💚 Leave a rating on Spotify Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In a town as old as Williamsburg, Virginia, which was established in 1638, it’s often the case that historic buildings with interesting pasts stand unnoticed and in plain sight.Such was the case for the building that once housed Williamsburg’s Bray School. A school founded by a group of Anglican clergymen with the express purpose of educating Black children in the ways of the Anglican faith. It was an education that included reading, possibly writing, and the Book of Common Prayer.In honor of Juneteenth, we explore the exciting rediscovery of Williamsburg’s Bray School with three scholars: Maureen Elgersman Lee, Director of the Bray School Lab at William & Mary; Ronald Hurst, Vice President of Museums, Preservation, and Historic Resources at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, and Nicole Brown, a historic interpreter, American Studies graduate student, and the graduate student assistant at William & Mary’s Bray School Lab.Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/331 Complementary Episodes0🎧 Episode 025: Jessica Parr, Inventing George Whitefield🎧 Episode 073: Mark Noll, The Bible in Early America🎧 Episode 133: Patrick Breen, The Nat Turner Revolt 🎧 Episode 311: Katherine Carté, Religion and the American Revolution🎧 Episode 320: Ben Franklin’s London House  REQUEST A TOPIC📨 Topic Request Form📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.comWHEN YOU'RE READY🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener CommunityLISTEN 🎧🍎 Apple Podcasts 💚 Spotify 🎶 Amazon Music🛜 PandoraCONNECT🦋 Liz on Bluesky👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn🛜 Liz’s WebsiteSAY THANKS💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts💚 Leave a rating on Spotify Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We’ll never know for certain how many Americans supported the American Revolution, remained loyal to the British Crown and Parliament, or tried to find a middle way as someone who was disaffected from either loyalty. But we can know about the different ideologies that drove people to support the Revolution, to remain loyal to crown and parliament, or to become disaffected from both sides. Brad Jones, Professor of History at California State University, Fresno and author of the book, Resisting Independence: Popular Loyalism in the Revolutionary British Atlantic, joins us to investigate what loyalists believed and how loyalism was not just a loyalty or ideology adopted by British Americans living in the 13 rebellious colonies, but by Britons across the British Atlantic World.Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/330 Complementary Episodes🎧 Episode 119: Steve Pincus, The Heart of the Declaration🎧 Episode 122: Andrew O’Shaugnessy, The Men Who Lost America🎧 Episode 151: Defining the American Revolution🎧 Episode 232: Christopher Hodson, The Acadian Diaspora🎧 Episode 238: Stephen Brumwell, Benedict Arnold🎧 Episode 283: Anne Marie Lane Jonah, Acadie 300🎧 Episode 306: The Horse’s Tail🎧 Episode 311: Katherine Carté, Religion and the American Revolution   REQUEST A TOPIC📨 Topic Request Form📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.comWHEN YOU'RE READY🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener CommunityLISTEN 🎧🍎 Apple Podcasts 💚 Spotify 🎶 Amazon Music🛜 PandoraCONNECT🦋 Liz on Bluesky👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn🛜 Liz’s WebsiteSAY THANKS💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts💚 Leave a rating on Spotify Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices