Historian Mike Bunn tells us about the tumultuous political scene in this borderland colony of West Florida, stretching from the Appalachicola River to the Mississippi, featuring a host of bold and colorful characters on the fringes of the British and Spanish empires. Find out more in this episode, and in Mike Bunn's book, The Fourteenth Colony: The Forgotten Story of the Guf South During America's Revolutionary Era. Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!...
Jul 06, 2021•34 min•Season 2Ep. 28
Nathaniel Philbrick talks about the impact of the American Revolution on American culture and history; the importance of George Washington as a political unifier; the Battle of Bunker Hill as a seminal event on the road to American Independence; and Moby Dick. Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!
Jun 29, 2021•32 min•Season 2Ep. 27
Why was education such a critical goal of America's revolutionaries? We talk with Andrew J. O'Shaughnessy about his new book, The The Illimitable Freedom of the Human Mind, about Thomas Jefferson's idea of a university. Andrew O'Shaughnessy teaches at the college Jefferson founed, and he is director of the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies. His most recent book was The Men Who Lost America, on the British officers and politicians who lost the war. His new book looks at a...
Jun 22, 2021•34 min•Season 2Ep. 26
Now in its 70th year, the 2.5 mile route through historic downtown Boston sees millions of visitors every year. The marked route connects 16 nationally important historic sites in Boston covering three centuries of history. Suzanne Taylor, Executive Director of the Freedom Trail Foundation, and Emily Kovatch, the Trail's Experiences Manager and occasionally Mehitable Dawes, tell us how the Freedom Trail brings history to life for visitors and residents. Tell us what you think! Send us a text mes...
Jun 22, 2021•33 min•Season 2Ep. 25
Commander John A. Benda, the 76th commanding officer of the USS CONSTITUTION , tells us a bit about the oldest commissioned warship afloat in the world, and its crew of 80 active-duty sailors. We hear about George Sirian's 50-year naval career, which began when he arrived on the ship orphaned in the Greek war for independence, and about the Pope's visit, and CONSTITUTION's encounters in Vietnam in the 1840s, and how the ship represents the nation and the Navy today. Tell us what you think! Send ...
Jun 15, 2021•33 min•Season 2Ep. 24
Dr. John Concannon of the Gaspee Days Committee discusses the 1772 event the "first blow for Liberty" in Rhode Island. Was this a pre-coordinated event, or the passionate response of a seafaring people upon the Royal Customs Commission? Learn about the plans for the Gaspee Days 2022 - the 250th anniversary of the burning of the HMS Gaspee, and about where you can learn more about the burning of the Gaspee . Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!...
Jun 08, 2021•32 min•Season 2Ep. 23
For 132 years, the Sons of the American Revolution have been promoting patriotism, preserving American history & teaching American history to future generations. The largest male lineage organization in the United States, consisting of more than 33,000 members over 50 states and several international societes. A conversation with Joe Gauthier of the Massachusetts Sons of the American Revolution . Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!...
Jun 01, 2021•33 min•Season 2Ep. 22
Professor Frank Cogliano (University of Edinburgh) on the life of Thomas Jefferson, his legacy in the study of the American Revolution, his thoughts on diplomacy and why we might think about Jefferson differently today than we did in 1976. Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!
May 25, 2021•32 min•Season 2Ep. 21
A conversation with the hilarious British-American comedy duo Nick Afka Thomas and Sarah Ann Masse, who have together formed We are Thomasse, and tell the story of the "Awkward Exes" Britain and America as a messy divorce emerging "special relationship." They have followed this with more episodes and stories, "Real Founding Fathers of America," a series which they plan to tell the story of the difficult years between Yorktown and Ratification as a reality show. You can view these videos ahead of...
May 19, 2021•35 min•Season 2Ep. 20
Why is the Treaty of Paris important? Why do we know so little about it? Eliga Gould joins us to answer these and other questions. The 1783 Treaty of Paris ended the American War for Independence, defined the new nation's boundaries (see the John Mitchell Treaty Map ) and had tragic consequences for Native Americans as well as some of the African-Americans and Anglo-Americans who sided with the British. It also required complicated negotiations among the allies--France, Spain, and the United Sta...
May 11, 2021•31 min•Season 2Ep. 19
Why do we talk about Phillis Wheatley and the American Revolution? Vincent Carretta, Professor emeritus of the University of Maryland, and author of Phillis Wheatley: Biography of a Genius in Bondage joins us to talk about Wheatley's life, career, and influence. Professor Caretta has just edited The Writings of Phillis Wheatley , as well as the writings of The Letters of Ignatius Sancho , and he has written Equiano, the African: Biography of a Self-Made Man. We discuss these writers in this Revo...
May 04, 2021•34 min•Season 2Ep. 18
Lauren McCormack, ( Marblehead Museum ), Seamus Daly & Larry Sands (Glover's Regiment) about the lives and legacies of these two important figures in the history of the American Revolution. Jeremiah Lee, a merchant and importer in Marblehead played a lead role in connecting the American colonists with the financial and military resources of Europe. John Glover and his Marblehead regiment played an outsized role in the early days of the war by utilizing their boating skills along with their m...
Apr 29, 2021•32 min•Season 2Ep. 17
Join Professor Robert Allison (Suffolk University & Harvard Extension School) in conversation with Jonathan Lane (Revolution 250) about the events of the most recent Patriot's Day celebration and the history of Patriot's Day here in Massachusetts and in other states across the country. Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!
Apr 20, 2021•32 min•Season 2Ep. 16
Nina Zannieri, Executive Director of the Paul Revere Memorial Association which manages the Paul Revere House, talks with us about about the life and legacy of Paul Revere, the Midnight Ride, and Revere's entreprenuerial spirit. Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!
Apr 13, 2021•34 min•Season 2Ep. 15
James D. Moran, vice president for programs and outreach at the American Antiquarian Society joins us to talk about the amazing life and career of tsaiah Thomas (1749-1831), publisher of the Massachusetts Spy, and a leader in the Sons of Liberty, and founder of the American Antiquarian Society. Find out how Thomas stole his printing press out of Boston on April 16, 1775, and then published his account of the battles of Lexington and Concord (he was a witness to the fighting in Lexington) in Worc...
Apr 06, 2021•32 min•Season 2Ep. 14
Ruth Raphael, Landscape Architect, & Julia Mize, Lead Ranger, from the Boston National Historical Park, join us to discuss Dorchester Heights in South Boston, past, present and future. The Park Service has just completed a short documentary Dorchester heights and its importance, and is planning a multi-million dollar restoration of the Park and Monument. The Park Service has also installed 360 degree cameras atop both the Dorchester Heights and the Bunker Hill Monuments, check out the views ...
Mar 30, 2021•32 min•Season 2Ep. 13
Karin Wulf, the Executive Director of the Omohundro Institute , joins us to talk about many things. We learn about the Georgian Papers Programme ,a ten-year interdisciplinary project to digitise, conserve, catalogue, transcribe, interpret and disseminate 425,000 pages or 65,000 items in the Royal Archives and Royal Library relating to the Georgian period, 1714-1837. We also talk about #vastearlyamerica , and exciting developments in archives and scholarship as we approach the 250th anniversary o...
Mar 23, 2021•31 min•Season 2Ep. 12
A conversation with "Henry Knox" (portrayed by J. Archer O'Reilly, III) discussing the "Noble Train of Artillery," and Knox's subsequent career as General Washington's chief of Artillery and the 1st Secretary of War. We also hear about the Society of the Cincinnati , which Knox helped to found, which is now the nation's oldest patriotic organization, and its American Revolution Institute with great resources for teachers. And Montpelier, the grand home that Henry Knox built in Thomaston, Maine. ...
Mar 16, 2021•36 min•Season 2Ep. 11
Heather Breugl, Director of Cultural Affairs for the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of the Mohican Indians tells us about the Stockbridge and Mohican's role in the American Revolution. The Stockbridge Militia, led by Abraham Nimham and Jehoiaikim Mtohksin fought on the Patriot side from the "Shot Heard Round the World," through the Siege of Boston, through White Plains, Valley Forge, Saratoga and the British surrender at Yorktown. We also talk about the inter-relations between other indigenous tribes a...
Mar 09, 2021•31 min•Season 2Ep. 10
How does a man whose personal acts of bravery and leadership, wounded on multiple occasions, abandon his friends, comrades and cause for the enemy? Was Benedict Arnold seduced by gold, promotion or the adverse influence of his wife? Join Professor Bob Allison in Conversation with Stephen Brumwell, , author of the NY Times bestseller, Turncoat: Benedict Arnold and the Crisis of American Liberty. Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!...
Mar 02, 2021•36 min•Season 2Ep. 9
Join Bob Allison (Suffolk University), Jonathan Lane (Revolution 250) in conversation with J.L. Bell ( Boston1775 ) as we discuss the life and death of Christopher Seider, an 11 year old killed in an affray at the shop of Theophilus Lillie just days before the Boston Massacre. We also get into the celebration of George Washington's birthday on February 22...or is it February 11? Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!...
Feb 23, 2021•34 min•Season 2Ep. 8
Shawn Quiqley of the National Parks of Boston discusses the legacy of Crispus Attucks, killed at the Boston Massacre, and how abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass and Black Bostonians such as William Cooper Nell and Lewis Hayden used the Revolution and revolutionary rhetoric as a tool to advance the antislavery cause, and made Boston a hub on the Underground Railroad. Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!...
Feb 17, 2021•32 min•Season 2Ep. 7
Renowned scholar of the American Revolution, T.H. Breen joins us to discuss his . latest book, The Will of the People ,: The Revolutionary Birth of America, the story of ordinary Americans who created the Revolution through their local communities. Professor Breen also talks about prisoners of war, and how his essay "Making History: The Force of Public Opinion and the Last Years of Slavery in Massachusetts," Through a Glass Darkly: Reflections on Personal Identity in Early America was turned int...
Feb 09, 2021•33 min•Season 2Ep. 6
Rick Atkinson talks with us about his trilogy on the War for Independence, beginning wit the first volume, The British Are Coming: Lexington to Princeton 1775-1777, a masterpiece of historical narrative. He helps us see past the familiar history and to understand the war for Independence in a new and interesting ways. The first volume of Rick Atkinson's World War 2 trilogy, An Army at Dawn, received the Pulitzer Prize in History. A veteran journalist and war correspondent, Atkinson has written a...
Feb 02, 2021•34 min•Season 2Ep. 5
Nancy Rubin Stuart joins us to talk about her books, The Muse of the Revolution , a biography of Mercy Otis Warren; and Defiant Brides , a dual biography of the parallel lives of Lucy (Flucker) Knox & Peggy (Shippen) Arnold. Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!...
Jan 26, 2021•34 min•Season 2Ep. 4
Jane Kamensky, the Director of the Schlesinger Library , and Jonathan Trumbull Professor of American History at Harvard, joins us to talk about John Singleton Copley (see her book Revolution in Color (2016) and what she has learned in teaching the American Revolution. Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!...
Jan 19, 2021•30 min•Season 2Ep. 3
A conversation with Professor Marla Miller (University of Massachusetts), Lisa Acker-Moulder ( Betsy Ross House ), and Betsy Ross (portrayed by Carol Spacht ) as we sort fact from fiction in the Betsy Ross story and learn about middle-class women in 18th century America. Marla Miller is the author of Betsy Ross and the Making of America (2010) and directs the U-Mass Public History program. Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!...
Jan 12, 2021•35 min•Season 2Ep. 2
Jonathan Lane, Coordinator of Revolution 250 in conversation with Catherine Allgor, President of the Massachusetts Historical Society ( https://www.masshist.org/ ). She tells us why the Massachusetts Historical Society was founded after the Revolution, and its continuing role in preserving the history of the American Revolution; the effect of Covid on the historical and cultural communities, its support of National History Day ( https://www.nhd.org/ ) and her own work on Dolley Madison (https://...
Jan 08, 2021•28 min•Season 2Ep. 1
Mary Beth Norton, the Mary Donlon Alger Professor of History emerita at Cornell, joins us to talk about her new book, 1 774: Long Year of Revolution . We learn about the response to the destruction of the tea, about the cargo of tea that wound up on Cape Cod, and how Charleston, South Carolina had its own response to the tea--and the unfortunate end of the Peggy Stewar t in Annapolis. This was the critical year--and also the year the terms "loyalist" and "unconstitutional" entered the vocabulary...
Dec 22, 2020•31 min•Season 1Ep. 15
Author, poet, actress, and enterpreneuer Valerie Foxx joins us to talk about interpreting Phillis Wheatley, who arrived in Boston as a seven-year old captive from Senegal, and became the first published African-American poet in 1773. The multi-talented Valerie Foxx presents as Phillis Wheatley and through Butterfly Foxx Productions brings stories like Phillis Wheatley's to life. Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!...
Dec 15, 2020•35 min•Season 1Ep. 14
