

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

Jan 21, 2025 • 1h 12min
BFW Revisited: The Cabinet: Creation of an American Institution
January 20th, marked Inauguration Day in the United States, the day a new president and his administration takes office. So it seems a fitting time for us to revisit a conversation we had in 2020 about the creation of the Executive Branch, and more specifically, the creation of the president’s cabinet.
Lindsay Chervinsky is an award-winning presidential historian and the Executive Director of the George Washington Presidential Library. In 2020, she published her first book called The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution.
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/279
Complementary Episodes
Episode 040: Kathleen Bartoloni-Tuazon, For Fear of an Elected King
Episode 137: Erica Dunbar, The Washington’s Runaway Slave, Ona Judge
Episode 193: Partisans: The Friendship and Rivalry of John Adams & Thomas Jefferson
Episode 202: The Early History of the United States Congress
Episode 203: Joanne Freeman: Alexander Hamilton
Episode 265: Lindsay Chervinsky, An Early History of the White House
SUPPORT OUR WORK🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s WorldREQUEST A TOPIC📨 Topic Request Form📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.comWHEN YOU'RE READY🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩💻 Join the BFW Listener Community🌍 Join the History Explorers ClubLISTEN 🎧🍎 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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jan 14, 2025 • 1h 5min
402 Clocks, Watches, and Life in Early America
Join horologist Bob Frishman, a scholar of clocks and watches, as he explores the enchanting world of early American timekeeping. Discover how people in bustling cities like Philadelphia accessed the time without their own clocks. Uncover the fascinating life of Edward Duffield, a prominent clockmaker and friend of Benjamin Franklin. Frishman highlights the craftsmanship behind luxury timepieces and the essential roles of artisans and women in sustaining clockmaking traditions, all set against the backdrop of a transforming society during the American Revolution.

Jan 7, 2025 • 1h 29min
BFW Revisited: The Politics of Tea
To close out our mini-series on Tea in early America, we’re going to revisit Episode 160: The Politics of Tea. This episode was part of our Doing History: To the Revolution series with the Omohundro Institute in 2017.
In this episode, we’ll revisit how early Americans went from attending tea parties to holding the Boston Tea Party. We’ll also explore more in-depth information about how tea became a central part of many early Americans’ lives.
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/160
SUPPORT OUR WORK🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s WorldREQUEST A TOPIC📨 Topic Request Form📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.comWHEN YOU'RE READY🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩💻 Join the BFW Listener Community🌍 Join the History Explorers ClubLISTEN 🎧🍎 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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dec 31, 2024 • 1h
401 Tea, Boycotts, and Revolution
During the early days of the American Revolution, British Americans attempted to sway their fellow Britons with consumer politics.
In 1768 and 1769, they organized a non-consumption movement of British goods to protest the Townshend Duties. In 1774, they arranged a non-importation and non-exportation movement to protest the Tea Act and Coercive Acts.
Why did the colonists protest the Tea Act and Coercive Acts? Why did they chose to protest those acts with the consumer politics of a non-importation/non-exportation program?
James Fichter, the author of Tea: Consumption, Politics, and Revolution, 1773-1776, joins us to explore the Tea Crisis of 1773 and the resulting non-importation/non-exportation movement the colonists organized after Parliament passed the Coercive Acts.
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/401
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WHEN YOU'RE READY
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CONNECT
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SAY THANKS
💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
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Dec 24, 2024 • 45min
BFW Revisited: The Tea Crisis of 1773
In Episode 401, we’ll be exploring the Tea Crisis and how it led to the non-importation/non-exportation movement of 1774-1776.
Our guest historian, James Fichter, references the work of Mary Beth Norton and her “The Seventh Tea Ship” article from The William and Mary Quarterly.
In this BFW Revisited episode, we’ll travel back to December 2016, when we spoke with Mary Beth Norton about her article and the Tea Crisis of 1773.
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/112
Complementary Episodes
Episode 135: Moral Commerce: The Transatlantic Boycott of the Slave Labor Economy
Episode 160: The Politics of Tea
Episode 228: The Boston Massacre
Episode 229: The Townshend Moment
Episode 337: Early America's Trade with ChinaSUPPORT OUR WORK🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s WorldREQUEST A TOPIC📨 Topic Request Form📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.comWHEN YOU'RE READY🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩💻 Join the BFW Listener Community🌍 Join the History Explorers ClubLISTEN 🎧🍎 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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dec 17, 2024 • 45min
400 Ben Franklin's world
How do historians define Ben Franklin’s “world?” What historical event, person, or place in the era of Ben Franklin do they wish you knew about?
In celebration of the 400th episode of Ben Franklin’s World, we posed these questions to more than 20 scholars. What do they think? Join the celebration and discover more about the world Ben Franklin lived in.
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/400
Complementary Episodes
🎧 Episode 114: Karin Wulf, The History of the Genealogy
🎧 Episode 285: Elections & Voting in the Early Republic
🎧 Episode 300: Vast Early America
🎧 Episode 389: Indigenous Justice in Early America
🎧 Episode 393: Politics and Political Culture in the Early American Republic
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

Dec 10, 2024 • 59min
BFW Revisited: The Nat Turner Revolt
In our last episode, Episode 399, we discussed Denmark Vesey’s revolt and the way biblical texts and scripture enabled Vesey to organize what would have been the largest slave revolt in United States history if the revolt had not been thwarted before Vesey could put it into action.
Early American history is filled with revolts against enslavers that were thwarted and never made it past the planning stage. But, one uprising that did move beyond planning and into action was the Southampton Rebellion or Nat Turner’s Revolt in August 1831.
In this BFW Revisited episode, Episode 133, which was released in May 2017, we met with Patrick Breen, an Associate Professor of History at Providence College. Patrick joined us to investigate Nat Turner’s Revolt with details from his book The Land Shall Be Deluged in Blood: A New History of the Nat Turner Revolt.
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/133
Complementary Episodes
Episode 016: The Internal Enemy
Episode 083: Slavery in Colonial Boston
Episode 091: Rumors, Legends, and Hoaxes in Early America
Episode 124: Making the Haitian Revolution
Episode 125: Death, Suicide, and Slavery in British North America
Episode 336: Suviving the Southampton Rebellion
Episode 399: Denmark Vesey's Revolt
SUPPORT OUR WORK🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s WorldREQUEST A TOPIC📨 Topic Request Form📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.comWHEN YOU'RE READY🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩💻 Join the BFW Listener Community🌍 Join the History Explorers ClubLISTEN 🎧🍎 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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dec 3, 2024 • 57min
399 Denmark Vesey's Bible
Denmark Vesey’s failed revolt in 1822 could have been the largest insurrection of enslaved people against their enslavers in United States history. Not only was Vesey’s plan large in scale, but Charleston officials arrested well over one hundred rumored participants.
Jeremy Schipper, a Professor in the departments for the Study or Religion and Near and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Toronto and the author of Denmark Vesey’s Bible: The Thwarted Revolt that Put Scripture and Slavery on Trial, joins us to investigate Vesey’s planned rebellion and the different ways Vesey used the Bible and biblical texts to justify his revolt and the violence it would have wrought.
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/399
Complementary Episodes
🎧 Episode 052: Early United States-Haitian Diplomacy
🎧 Episode 124: Making the Haitian Revolution in Early America
🎧 Episode 133: Nat Turner’s Rebellion
🎧 Episode 165: The Age of Revolutions
🎧 Episode 190: Origins of the American Middle Class
🎧 Episode 226: Making the State of South Carolina
🎧 Episode 384: Making Maine: A Journey to Statehood
🎧 Episode 390: Objects of 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
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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

Nov 26, 2024 • 54min
BFW Revisited: World of the Wampanoag, Pt. 2
This week is Thanksgiving week in the United States. On Thursday, most of us will sit down with friends, family, and other loved ones and share a large meal where we give thanks for whatever we’re grateful for over the last year.
In elementary school, we are taught to associate this holiday and its rituals with the religious separatists, or pilgrims, who migrated from England to what is today Plymouth, Massachusetts. We are taught that at the end of the fall harvest, the separatists sat down with their Indigenous neighbors to share in the bounty that the Wampanoag people helped them grow by teaching the separatists how to sow and cultivate crops like corn in the coastal soils of New England.
In this BFW Revisited episode, Episode 291, we investigate the arrival of the Mayflower and the Indigenous world the separatists arrived in. We’ll also explore how the Wampanoag and Narragansett peoples interacted with their new European neighbors and how they contended with the English people who were determined to settle on their lands.
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/291
Complementary Episodes
Episode 104: The Saltwater Frontier: Native Americans and Colonsits on the Northeastern Coast
Episode 132: Indigenous London
Episode 184: Thundersticks: Firearms and the Violent Transformation of Native America
Episode 220: New England Indians, Colonists, and the Origins of Slavery
Episode 235: A 17th-Century Native American Life
Episode 267: Snowshoe Country
Episode 290: The World of the Wampanoag, Pt 1
SUPPORT OUR WORK🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s WorldREQUEST A TOPIC📨 Topic Request Form📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.comWHEN YOU'RE READY🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩💻 Join the BFW Listener Community🌍 Join the History Explorers ClubLISTEN 🎧🍎 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*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nov 19, 2024 • 1h 9min
398 The Shawnee-Dunmore War, 1774
After the Seven Years’ War (1754-1763), Great Britain instituted the Proclamation Line of 1763. The Line sought to create a lasting peace in British North America by limiting British colonial settlement east of the Appalachian Mountains.
In 1768, colonists and British Indian agents negotiated the Treaties of Fort Stanwix and Hard Labour to extend the boundary line further west. In 1774, the Shawnee-Dunmore War broke out as colonists attempted to push further west.
Fallon Burner and Russell Reed, two of the three co-managers of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation’s American Indian Initiative, join us to investigate the Shawnee-Dunmore War and what this war can show us about Indigenous life, warfare, and sovereignty during the mid-to-late eighteenth century.
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/398
Complementary Episodes
🎧 Episode 223: A Native American History of the Ohio River Valley & Great Lakes Region
🎧 Episode 310: History of the Blackfeet
🎧 Episode 353: Women and the Making of Catawba Identity
🎧 Episode 367: Brafferton Indian School, Part 1
🎧 Episode 368: Brafferton Indian School, Part 2
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


