Ben Franklin's World

The Declaration of Independence stands first in a series of documents that founded the United States. It also stands as an early step in the long process of establishing a free, independent, and self-governing nation. In this preview episode of the Doing History: To the Revolution! Series, we explore how the Second Continental Congress drafted the Declaration of Independence.

Nathaniel Bowditch worked as a navigator, mathematician, astronomer, and business innovator. Over the course of his lifetime, his fellow Americans hailed him as the “American Sir Isaac Newton.” Tamara Thornton, a professor of history at the University of Buffalo and author of Nathaniel Bowditch and the Power of Numbers: How a Nineteenth-Century Man of Business, Science, and the Sea Changed America, leads us on a detailed exploration of the life of Nathaniel Bowditch.

When we think of slavery in early America, we often think of the practice of African and African-American chattel slavery. However, that system of slavery wasn’t the only system of slavery that existed in North America. Systems of Indian slavery existed too. Andrés Reséndez, author of The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in Americas, leads us on an investigation of this “other" form of American slavery.

During the 1760s, Connecticut invaded and captured the northeastern corner of Pennsylvania just as Virginia invaded and captured parts of western Pennsylvania. And Pennsylvania stood powerless to stop them. In this episode, Patrick Spero, the Librarian of the American Philosophical Society and author of Frontier Country: The Politics of War in Early Pennsylvania, takes us through these invasions and reveals why Pennsylvania proved unable to defend its territory.

137 Erica Dunbar: The Washingtons' Runaway Slave, Ona Judge

What do the objects we purchase and use say about us? Jennifer Van Horn, author of The Power of Objects in Eighteenth-Century British America, leads us on an exploration of the 18th-century British material world and how objects from that world can help us think about and explore the lives of 18th-century British Americans.

If early Americans desired slaves mostly to produce sugarcane, cotton, rice, indigo, and tobacco, what would happen if Europeans and early Americans stopped purchasing those products?
 Would boycotting slave-produced goods and starving slavery of its economic sustenance be enough to end the practice of slavery in North America? Julie Holcomb, author of Moral Commerce: The Transatlantic Boycott of the Slave Labor Economy, leads us through the transatlantic boycott of slave produced goods.

In Colonial America, clergymen stood as thought leaders in their local communities. So what happened to these trusted, educated men during the American Revolution? How did they choose their political allegiances? Spencer McBride, an editor at the Joseph Smith Papers documentary editing project, joins us to explore some of the ways politics and religion intersected during the American Revolution with details from his book, Pulpit and Nation: Clergymen and the Politics of Revolutionary America.

Many slaves plotted and conspired to start rebellions, but most of the plotted rebellions never took place. Slaveholders and whites discovered them before they could begin. Therefore, North America witnessed only a handful of slave revolts between 1614 and 1865. Nat Turner’s Rebellion in August 1831 stands as the most deadly. Patrick Breen, author of The Land Shall Be Deluged in Blood: A New History of the Nat Turner Revolt joins us to investigate the ins and outs of Nat Turner's Rebellion.

Today, we explore early American history through a lens that allows us to see interactions that occurred between Native American peoples and English men and women who lived in London. Our guide for this exploration is Coll Thrush, an Associate Professor of History at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver and author of Indigenous London: Native Travelers at the Heart of the Empire.

Thomas Jefferson, the man who drafted the Declaration of Independence, which severed the 13 American colonies’ ties to the most powerful empire in the mid-to-late 18th-century world, had strong views about empire. Jefferson wanted the United States to become a great and vast “Empire of Liberty.” Frank Cogliano, author of Emperor of Liberty: Thomas Jefferson’s Foreign Policy, joins us to explore how Thomas Jefferson came to be a supporter and promoter of empires.

On April 18, 1775, Paul Revere rode to spread the alarm that the Regulars were marching. Revere made several important rides, so why is it we only remember his ride on April 18? In this episode, we explore Paul Revere’s ride through history.

How did the colonists of Massachusetts go from public protests meant to shame government officials and destroy offending property, to armed conflict with British Regulars in Lexington and Concord? John Bell, the prolific blogger behind Boston1775.net and the author of The Road to Concord: How Four Stolen Cannon Ignited the Revolutionary War, leads us on an investigation of what brought colonists and redcoats to the Battles of Lexington and Concord.

Historians often portray the American Revolution as an orderly, if violent, event that moved from British colonists’ high-minded ideas about freedom to American independence from Great Britain and the ratification of the Constitution of 1787. Was the American Revolution an orderly event? Was it really about high-minded ideas? Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Alan Taylor joins us to explore the American Revolution with details from his book, American Revolutions: A Continental History. 1750-1804.

In many ways, the Enlightenment gave birth to the United States. Enlightened ideas informed protests over imperial governance and taxation and over whether there should be an American bishop. If we want to understand early America, we need to understand the Enlightenment. Caroline Winterer, a Professor of History at Stanford University and author of American Enlightenments: Pursuing Happiness in the Age of Reason, takes us through her ideas about the Enlightenment and how it influenced early America.