Ben Remillard joins us to talk about his research into the lives and military service of New England's African-American and Native American Revolutionary War soldiers. We learn more about their complex stories, and their lives before, during, and after the war. He also shares the story of Cato Newell, Wenham Carey, and Luck (or Luke) Russell and the 1788 kidnapping case that shook Boston . Ben Remillard is a doctoral candidate at the University of New Hampshire, and has been combing the archives...
Feb 01, 2022•34 min•Season 3Ep. 5
2023 with be the 250th Anniversary of the Boston Tea Party. Evan O'Brien, the Creative Manager of the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum joins us to tell us what is planned for the anniversary, and what else is now at the Museum. If you cannot make it in person, check out their virtual programs, and mark your calendars for December 16! Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!...
Jan 25, 2022•36 min•Season 3Ep. 4
With more than 2,000 original artifacts, including one of George Washington's campaign tents, and 100,000 square feet of exhibition space, the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia stands poised to help lead the United States into the commemoration of the 250th Anniversary of the American Revolution. We hear more in conversation with Dr. R. Scott Stephenson, CEO of the Museum of the American Revolution. Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!...
Jan 18, 2022•33 min•Season 3Ep. 3
Stacy Schiff, best-selling and Pulitzer-prize winning author, joins us to talk about the extraordinary story of Benjamin Franklin in Paris, which she has recounted in her A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America. Franklin was doing more in Paris than simply negotiating--he was establishing the United States as a nation worthy of recognition on the world stage, and he became for France the model of American. We hear about his relationships with Madame Helvetius and Madame...
Jan 11, 2022•33 min•Season 3Ep. 2
Rosemarie Zagarri of George Mason University, author of a biography of Mercy Otis Warrren tells us about the Revolution's poet, who also wrote one of its first histories. We also discuss her book Revolutionary Backlash: Women and Politics in the Early American Republic , and the only authorized biography of George Washington, David Humphrey's Life of General Washington, and a fascinating project for which Rosemarie Zagarri is the lead historian, Mapping Early American Elections, which is a detai...
Jan 04, 2022•35 min•Season 3Ep. 1
The Battle of Brandywine, September 11, 1777 was General Washington's attempt to prevent the General Howe from capturing Philadelphia. Washington failed, but absolute disaster was prevented by the exertions of Major General Gilbert de Motier, Marquis de Lafayette who was wounded during the battle. Bruce Mowday joins us to talk about his new book, Lafayetter at Brandywine: The Making of an American Hero. Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!...
Dec 28, 2021•33 min•Season 2Ep. 53
Few families were more integral to the colonial and Revolutionary history of Amrica than the Howes. Join us for a conversation with Julie Flavell, author The Howe Dynasty: The Untold Story of a Military Family and the Women Behind Britain's Wars for America. We know a lot about Lord Richard, the Admiral, and Sir William, the General, but their sister Caroline, who played chess with Benjamin Franklin and politics with just about everyone, was the power behind the public men. A fascinating look at...
Dec 22, 2021•36 min•Season 2Ep. 52
Opened on April 19, 2017, the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia, has brought national and international attention to the history of the people, places and ideals of the American Revolution. In addition to its exhibits, the Museum engages its audience through educational and community programs. Join a conversation with Adrienne Whaley, Director of Education and Community Engagement at the Museum of the American Revolution. Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!...
Dec 15, 2021•35 min•Season 2Ep. 51
George III--the tyrant of the Declaration of Independence, or the Patriot King? Join us for a conversation with Andrew Roberts, prolific historian whom Henry Kissinger has called "always relevant to contemporary thinking and contemporary problems," about his new biography, The Last King of America: The Misunderstood Reign of George III. Roberts has written biographies of Churchill and Napoleon, and books about the Napoleonic and Second World Wars. Now hear about the only European monarch to brin...
Dec 07, 2021•32 min•Season 2Ep. 50
Jack Kelly, author of Valcour: The 1776 Campaign that Saved the Cause of Liberty tells us about this critical--and nearly forgotten--naval battle on Lake Champlain. It was not an American victory--but it did prevent the British from moving down the Hudson and winning the war. Find out how Benedict Arnold built a fleet in the summer of 1776 to slow down the British invasion, and make victory possible. Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!...
Nov 30, 2021•33 min•Season 2Ep. 49
The Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library , with a collection of more than 200,000 maps, has joined forces with the Fred W. Smith Library for the Study of George Washington at Mount Vernon, which holds the Richard H. Brown Revolutionary War Map Collection to create "ARGO: American Revolutionary Geographies Online." These on-line, digitized Revolutionary-era maps will help us understand the Revolutionary era as its participants saw it. We talk with Garrett Dash Nelson, President and H...
Nov 24, 2021•36 min•Season 2Ep. 48
Did Washington really cut down the cherry tree? Steven C. Bullock tells us about his new project--the life of Mason Locke "Parson" Weems, Washington's most popular biographer, who shaped the legend of Washington, and Francis Marion, as he tried to shape American character for the better. Steven Bullock, author of Tea Sets and Tyranny: The Politics of Politeness in Early America, and Revolutionary Brotherhood, on the Masons in early America, is a professor of history at Worcester Polytechnic Inst...
Nov 16, 2021•36 min•Season 2Ep. 47
An exciting collaboration between the American Philosophical Society, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania , and the Library Company of Philadelphia, is changing the way future historians will be able to access historical collections. Kyle Roberts, Sabrina Bocanegra, and Bayard Miller tell us about the " Revolutionary City Portal " a ground-breaking one-stop portal into Philadelphia’s role in the American Revolution. This remarkable collaboration, and mining of metadata, will bring to life the...
Nov 10, 2021•35 min•Season 2Ep. 46
Patrick Griffin looks at the nexus of the American Revolution and the British Empire. The Madden-Hennebry Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame, he talks about his books including The Townshend Moment, about two brothers trying to reform the empire, and he and Frank Cogliano co-edited Ireland and America: Empire, Revolution, and Sovereignty, . Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!...
Nov 02, 2021•33 min•Season 2Ep. 45
The history of the American Revolution is often simplified for easier digestion by the American public, but it is a complex and shifting story that can be viewed from thousands of different perspectives. Woody Holton, author of Liberty is Sweet: The Hidden History of the American Revolution joins us to talk about some of these different perspectives in the complex story. Holton , the McCausland Professor of History at the University of South Carolina, focuses on economic history, as well as the ...
Oct 26, 2021•32 min•Season 2Ep. 44
During the New Deal era there was a tremendous increase in public infrastructure. As part of that story, the United States federal government hired artists to help decorate public spaces with works of art that spoke to the community in which these structures were built. Susan Brauner tells us about some of the artists and their work. Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!
Oct 19, 2021•31 min•Season 2Ep. 43
Who was Lafayette, and why was he so important? Alan Hoffman, President of the American Friends of Lafayette who has translated Auguste Levasseur's Lafayette in America, . an account of Lafayette's American tour in 1824-1825. Find out why May 20 is Lafayette Day in Massachusetts, and what you can do to commemorate it. Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!...
Oct 12, 2021•34 min•Season 2Ep. 42
Best remembered now for the eponymous beer that started the craft brewing industry, Samuel Adams was a great political leader in Massachusetts. Yet this fervent author of editorial pieces in support of the rights and liberties of the people is little known today. We learn more thanks to Ira Stoll, author of Samuel Adams: A Life. Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!...
Oct 05, 2021•34 min•Season 2Ep. 41
The first time the patriots use artillery, the first time they sink a British ship, and the first time officers and men from different colonies stage a joint operation--the battle of Chelsea Creek, in what today are the cities of Chelsea and Revere, and the East Boston neighborhood, along an industrial waterway that still retains much of its 18th-century contour. We hear from archaeologists Craig Brown, a PhD candidate at the University of Ediburgh, and Victor Mastone, President of the Massachus...
Sep 29, 2021•33 min•Season 2Ep. 40
Benjamin Carp (Associate Professor and Daniel M. Lyons Chair of History at Brooklyn College) about the Great Fire of New York that occurred September 20 & 21, 1776, the Boston Tea Party and urban life during the Revolution . Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!...
Sep 21, 2021•33 min•Season 2Ep. 39
Professor Robert Bellinger on the lives and experiences of African Americans in the American Revolution, the presence of free and enslaved persons at Lexington and Concord and the connections between Massachusetts and Middleton Place in South Carolina. Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!
Sep 15, 2021•34 min•Season 2Ep. 38
With over 190,000 members nationwide, the Daughters of the American Revolution have been preserving America's heritage, awarding scholarships and supporting American civics and patriotism for more than 100 years. Paula Renkas, State Regent for the Massachusetts Daughters of the American Revolution , tells us about their work in education, historic preservation, and fostering patriotism by supporting veterans. Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!...
Sep 07, 2021•32 min•Season 2Ep. 37
Virginia DeJohn Anderson (University of Colorado) eminent scholar of life in Colonial America and most recently the author of The Martyr and the Traitor: Nathan Hale, Moses Dunbar, and the American Revolution talks with us about these two men from Connecticut, both hanged in the first year of the War--Hale hanged by the British as a spy, Dunbar hanged in Connecticut as a loyalist. What lead each one his particular path? What do their stories tell us about the Revolution? Tell us what you think! ...
Aug 31, 2021•32 min•Season 2Ep. 36
The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, passed by the Virginia legislature in 1786 is both a statement on religious conscience and the concept of the separation of church and state. A conversation with John Ragosta, author of Wellspring of Liberty , historian at the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello, which maintains a great database of Jefferson materials, on the topic of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, and on why Jefferson and Patrick Henry...
Aug 24, 2021•32 min•Season 2Ep. 35
Christina Proenza Coles new work, AMERICAN FOUNDERS reveals men and women of African descent as key protagonists in the story of American democracy. It chronicles how black people developed and defended New World settlements, undermined slavery, and championed freedom throughout the Americas from the 16th through the 20th century. Join Professor Bob Allison in conversation with the author in a discussion on the lives and legacies of the thousands of African-Americans who supported the cause of I...
Aug 17, 2021•31 min•Season 2Ep. 34
We talk with Kelly Cobble, Curator at the Adams National Historical Park in Quincy, home to four generations of the Adams family. We hear about Louisa Catherine Adams's harrowing trip across war-torn Europe in 1815, and about the two Adams birthplaces--the John Adams birthplace is the oldest Presidential birthplace in the nation. What did these four generations of Adamses have in common? Courage. Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!...
Aug 10, 2021•33 min•Season 2Ep. 33
Jack Rakove . Pulitzer-prize winning historian and political scientist from Stanford, joins us for a discussion of religious freedom, (see his book, Beyond Belief, Beyond Conscience) the Continental Congress, (the subject of his first book, The Beginnings of National Politics ), the Federalist papers, James Madison, John Dickinson and other Revolutionaries. Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!...
Aug 04, 2021•33 min•Season 2Ep. 32
He was trained to cure the sick and aid the wounded. He wrote eloquently in the cause of liberty. He organized resistance to tyranny and oppression. He was a political leader admired and respected throughout the colonies. He volunteered to stand in the front lines, and died in the name of freedom, at the Battle of Bunker Hill. The role of Dr. Joseph Warren in bringing about American Independence cannot be overstated. We talk with Dr. Samuel Forman, about his book Dr. Joseph Warren: The Boston Te...
Jul 27, 2021•33 min•Season 2Ep. 31
When the King heard his forces had taken Ticonderoga in August 1777, he thought he had won the war. What went wrong? We talk with Kevin Weddle about his new book, The Compleat Victory, about the decisive battle of Saratoga. How did the British strategy go so badly wrong--and why did the Americans win? And what did the victory mean? Kevin Weddle is an historian, but also a graduate of West Point with a 28-year career in the United States Army. He now teaches military theory and strategy at the U....
Jul 20, 2021•33 min•Season 2Ep. 30
Originally built as Fort Carillon by the French army between 1755 - 1757, Fort Ticonderoga sits at a strategic junction of Lake Champlain, La Chute River, and Lake George. British forces--including soldiers from Massachusetts--captured it in 1759, and then in May 1775 forces from Massachusetts and Connecticut, and from what is now Vermont took it from the British. Henry Knox brought sixty tons of artillery from Ticonderoga to help General Washington drive the British from Boston. Fort Ticonderog...
Jul 13, 2021•35 min•Season 2Ep. 29
