Ben Franklin's World

In 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue as part of the great European quest to find new routes and shortcuts to the spice islands and territories of Asia. Columbus’ “discovery” of the Caribbean and North America caused European peoples to colonize North and South America. It also encouraged Europeans to keep up their search for new ways to access Asia.

We live in an age of information. The internet provides us with 24/7 access to all types of information—news, how-to articles, sports scores, entertainment news, and congressional votes. Alejandra Dubcovsky, an Associate Professor at University of California, Riverside and author of Informed Power: Communication in the Early South takes us through the early American south and how the Native Americans, Europeans, and enslaved Africans who lived there acquired, used, and traded information.

On April 18, 1775, Paul Revere rode to Lexington, Massachusetts to spread the alarm that the Regulars were marching. Revere made several important rides between 1774 and 1775, including one in September 1774 that brought the Suffolk Resolves to the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia. So why is it that we remember Paul Revere’s ride to Lexington and not any of his other rides? We speak with four scholars to explore Paul Revere’s ride through history.

How do you uncover the life of an enslaved person who left no paper trail? What can the everyday life of an enslaved person tell us about slavery, how it was practiced, and how some enslaved people made the transition from slavery to freedom? We explore the life of Charity Folks, an enslaved woman from Maryland who gained her freedom in the late-18th century. Our guide is Jessica Millward, an Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Irvine and author of Finding Charity’s Folk.

What was everyday life like for average men and women in early America? Listeners ask this question more than any other question and today we continue to try to answer it. Michelle Marchetti Coughlin, author of One Woman’s Colonial World: The Life and Writings of Mehetabel Chandler Coit, joins us to explore the life of an average woman who lived in early New England. This episode originally posted as Episode 032

Benjamin Franklin serves as a great window on to the early American past because he pursued many interests: literature, poetry, science, business, philosophy, philanthropy, and politics. But one aspect of Franklin’s life has gone largely unstudied: his childhood and early life. Nick Bunker, author of Young Benjamin Franklin: The Birth of Ingenuity, joins us to explore Franklin’s early life and how family, childhood, and youthful experiences shaped him as a scientist and diplomat.

How did the people of early America experience and feel about winter? Thomas Wickman, an Associate Professor of History and American Studies at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut and author of Snowshoe Country: An Environmental and Cultural Winter in the Early American Northeast, joins us to investigate how Native Americans and early Americans experienced and felt about winter during the 17th and early 18th centuries.

How did early Americans educate their children? How and when did Americans create a formal system of public education? Johann Neem, a Professor of History at Western Washington University and author of Democracy’s Schools: The Rise of Public Education in America, joins us to further explore how early Americans educated their children and how early American children learned the trades they would practice later in life.

On July 1, 1790, Congress formalized a plan to move the capital of the United States from New York City to Philadelphia, for a period of 10 years, & then from Philadelphia to Washington D.C., where the United States government would make its permanent home. What buildings did Congress erect to house the government? Lindsay Chervinsky, White House Historian for the White House Historical Association, joins us to explore the history of one of the earliest buildings in Washington D.C., the White House.

The Treaty of Paris 1783 ended the American War for Independence, but it did not bring peace to North America. After 1783, warfare and violence continued between Americans and Native Americans. So how did the early United States attempt to create peace for its new nation? Michael Oberg, author of Peacemakers: The Iroquois, the United States, and the Treaty of Canandaigua, joins us to investigate how the United States worked with the Six Nations to create peace through the Treaty of Canandaigua, 1794.

Did you know that imagination once played a key role in the way Americans understood and practiced medicine? Sari Altschuler, an Assistant Professor of English at Northeastern University and author of The Medical Imagination: Literature and Health in the Early United States, joins us to investigate the ways early American doctors used imagination in their practice and learning of medicine.

History is an important tool when it comes to understanding American law. Sarah Seo, an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Iowa and Fourth Amendment expert, joins us to investigate how and why the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Fourth Amendment has changed over time and how that change has impacted the way the Fourth Amendment protects us from unreasonable search and seizures.

The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution doesn’t always make headlines, but it’s an amendment that undergirds foundational rights. It’s also an amendment that can show us a lot about the intertwined nature between history and American law.  
 In this 3rd episode of our 4th Doing History series, we explore the early American origins of the Fourth Amendment with Thomas Clancy, a Professor Emeritus at the University of Mississippi School of Law and an expert on the Fourth Amendment.

How and why did Congress draft the First Ten Amendments to the Constitution? In this second episode of our 4th Doing History series, we’re investigating how and why Congress drafted the First Ten Amendments to the Constitution. Our guide for this investigation is Kenneth Bowling, a member of the First Federal Congress Project and a co-editor of A Documentary History of the First Federal Congress.


Law is all around us. And the basis of American Law comes not only from our early American past, but from our founding documents. In this episode we go inside the United States National Archives to investigate the Constitution and Bill of Rights. During our visit we’ll speak with Jessie Kratz, First Historian of the National Archives, and Mary Sarah Bilder, the Founders Professor of Law at Boston College, to better understand our founding documents and the laws they established.