Revolution 250 Podcast: Recent Episodes
Robert Allison
Revolution 250 is a consortium of organizations in New England planning commemorations of the American Revolution's 250th anniversary. https://revolution250.org/Through this podcast you will meet many of the people involved in these commemorations, and learn about the people who brought about the Revolution--which began here. To support Revolution 250, visit https://www.masshist.org/rev250Theme Music: "Road to Boston" fifes: Doug Quigley, Peter Emerick; Drums: Dave Emerick
The Battle of Bunker Hill was one of the defining moments of the American Revolution. Although the British claimed the battlefield, the staggering cost of victory demonstrated that defeating the colonial rebellion would be far more difficult than anyone had expected.
In this episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast, Professor Robert Allison is joined by historians Daniel T. Davis and Phillip S. Greenwalt to discuss their new book, A Dear-Bought Victory. Together they explore the Battle of Bunker Hill, the Siege of Boston, and how the opening campaign of the Revolution shaped the war that followed. From the decisions of British and American commanders to the enduring myths surrounding the battle, this conversation offers a fresh look at one of the most important military engagements in American history.
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James Wilson was a brilliant Philadelphia lawyer, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and a driving force behind the Constitution. And yet in 1779 a Philadelphia mob attacked his home, and his forceful defense of ratifying the Constitution led to him being burned in effigy. An Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, Wilson died in a North Carolina boarding house on the run from his many creditors. Jesse Wegman recounts Wilson's fascinating and complicated life in his new book, The Lost Founder: James Wilson and the Forgotten Fight for a People's Constitution.
Order the Book!
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Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais was a man about Paris—watch-maker, inventor, and playwright best known for light comedies like "The Marriage of Figaro." But as the Americans struggled to secure independence, he took on a greater role, managing to ship arms and supplies to the rebels despite French neutrality and the British fleet. Harlow Giles Unger brought Beaumarchais's story back to life in Improbable Patriot: The Secret History of Monsieur de Beaumarchais, the French Playwright who Saved the American Revolution. We talk about Beaumarchais with historian Iris de Rode, who has written an introduction to a new edition of Unger's book.
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As Mercy Otis Warren in her "Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution" reminds us, not all of the battlefields of the American Revolution were in America. Although the conflict began in Massachusetts, it soon spread across the globe, with armies and navies fighting in North America, the Caribbean, Europe, India, Africa, and Central America. The struggle for American independence became part of a worldwide contest among the great powers, one whose outcome would reshape the modern world.
In the next episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast, Executive Director Jonathan Lane welcomes historian and author Derek Baxter to discuss his acclaimed book, The Forgotten World War: Exploring the Secret History of the American Revolution from Spain to India and Back Again. Together, they explore how the American Revolution needs to be seen and understood as a world war, and why viewing the Revolution through a global lens reveals a conflict that extended far beyond Lexington, Concord, and Yorktown.
Buy the Book! https://a.co/d/0hAHhvQh
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“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” These fundamental truths shape American identity. Ted Widmer explores their origins and impact in The Living Declaration: A Biography of America’s Founding Text¸ and joins us to talk about the Declaration as it was written, and how it has impacted Americans and the world since 1776. Drawing on speeches and writings from the long span of history—John Locke, the Natick Town Meeting, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, the Seneca Falls movement, Huey Long, Calvin Coolidge, H.L. Mencken, Emma Goldman, the Black Panther Party, the Tea Party, Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama, and others—we
discuss the enduring importance of the Declaration of Independence.
https://www.loa.org/books/the-living-declaration-a-biography-of-americas-founding-text/
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Before the ink was dry, the Declaration was already on its way to the people. In this special Independence Day episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast, recorded for America's 250th Birthday on July 4, 2026, Professor Robert Allison welcomes master printer Gary Gregory of the historic Edes & Gill Print Shop to explore how the words that founded a nation were transformed into printed broadsides and carried into towns across Massachusetts.
Their conversation centers on the remarkable story of the official Massachusetts printing of the Declaration by Ezekiel Russell in Salem, the broadside ordered distributed to every parish in the Commonwealth, where it was read aloud to congregations, entered into town records, and shared in one of the first truly statewide civic moments in American history. Gregory also offers a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the painstaking craft of recreating the 1776 document using period presses, hand-set type, traditional paper, and the same printing techniques employed two and a half centuries ago. Find out more in Haverhill's Museum of Printing!
Released on the 250th anniversary of American independence, this episode celebrates not only the ideals expressed in the Declaration, but also the printers, craftsmen, and ordinary citizens who helped carry those ideals from a single sheet of paper into communities across a new nation. It is a fitting reflection on how words became action, how print became revolution, and why the Declaration continues to inspire Americans 250 years later.
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Why did the British place so much importance on Charleston? How did a string of talented British commanders nearly crush the Revolution in the South, and why did they ultimately fail?
In this episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast, Professor Robert J. Allison is joined by historian Ken Scarlett, author of Victory Day: Winning American Independence, for a sweeping discussion of the Southern Campaigns that ultimately decided the outcome of the Revolutionary War.
Beginning with the British strategy to capture Charleston and restore royal authority in the southern colonies, Allison and Scarlett trace the campaigns led by commanders including Sir Henry Clinton, Lord Cornwallis, Banastre Tarleton, and Lord Rawdon. They examine why Charleston was the strategic prize of the South, how its fall in 1780 reshaped the war, and why British success there ultimately proved fleeting.
The conversation also highlights the remarkable American leaders who turned the tide. General Nathanael Greene's brilliant strategy of exhausting rather than destroying the British army, combined with the relentless efforts of partisan commanders Francis Marion, Thomas Sumter, and Andrew Pickens, transformed the Southern backcountry into one of the most contested theaters of the Revolution. Their campaigns forced the British to fight for every mile of territory and helped set Cornwallis on the path that ultimately ended at Yorktown.
From Charleston Harbor to the Carolina backcountry, this episode explores the commanders, campaigns, and hard-fought decisions that secured American independence and reminds us why the story of the Revolution cannot be fully understood without the South.
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The American Revolution was not fought on distant battlefields, but in private homes. British occupation produced an aggrieved American population, bound by shared domestic disorder and emotional distress. British officers usurped male authority to quarter themselves with families, patriot wives governed households in their husbands' absence, daughters flirted with officers, domestic servants disappeared with soldiers, and enslaved kin absconded to British lines in pursuit of freedom. Lauren Duval joins us to talk about her new book, The Home Front: Revolutionary Households, Military Occupation, and the Making of American Independence which captures daily life during the Revolution through the eyes and ears of those intimately experiencing it
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In his new book This Fierce People: The Untold Story of America’s Revolutionary War in the South, Alan Pell Crawford brings to life the three years between Monmouth and Yorktown. A brutal war in the South—a true civil war—set the stage for the victory at Yorktown, and here, Crawford argues, the War for Independence was won. What happened between 1778 and 1781 as the war shifted to the southern theater? Who were the “unsung patriots” that inevitably set the stage for Yorktown? The distinguished journalist and author Alan Pell Crawford joins to discuss This Fierce People and his research on the Revolution in the South.
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Renowned music historian and composer Roger Lee Hall takes us on a lively exploration of the music of the American Revolution. Far from being mere background entertainment, music in the Revolutionary era carried political messages, inspired soldiers, unified communities, and gave voice to both patriot fervor and loyalist resistance. From tavern ballads and marching tunes to hymns, broadsides, and satirical songs, Hall uncovers the soundtrack of rebellion that echoed through camps, meeting houses, and city streets in the years leading to independence.
Roger L. Hall has created the Center for American Music Preservation, where you can find more of this music!
Music shaped public opinion, preserved memory, and reflected the hopes, anxieties, and humor of Revolutionary Americans. The conversation also highlights the survival of period melodies, the stories behind famous songs, and the ways music connected ordinary people to extraordinary events. It is a fascinating journey into the sounds of 1776 and the cultural heartbeat of a Revolution that changed the world.
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Yorktown was not the end! Though Cornwallis surrendered, the British still held New York, Charleston, and Savannah, and the Americans did not control the western frontier. Would 1782 bring a renewed British campaign to secure the American colonies? Could the United States win its independence? Military historian Craig Bruce Smith, professor of history at National Defense University, joins us to talk about his new book, Securing Victory, 1781-1783, part of The U.S. Army Campaigns of the Revolutionary War series, which looks at this critical, but often under-reported period, when the United States actually able to secure its independence, control of the territory extending to the Mississippi River, and the hard-won gains of the war.
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The United States is not a nation like other nations, and it never has been. In July 1776, thirteen separate states, home to three million people with no common ancestry or identity, stretching along a narrow coastal strip between the Atlantic and the Appalachians, declared their independence as the United States. Could they form a common identity and survive? Today, with more than 350 million people drawn from all over the world, spanning the North American continent, we ask even more what holds us together? Gordon Wood, the premier historian of the American founding, author of The Creation of the American Republic, The Idea of America, Power and Liberty, Revolutionary Characters, and The Purpose of the Past, joins us to talk about this question, which he also addressed in his 2025 talk in accepting the Irving Kristol Award at the American Enterprise Insttitute. Gordon Wood was the guest on our first podcast in 2020; he came back for our 100 th episode in 2022; he returned in 2024 for our 200 th episode. Now he joins us on our 300 th episode, as we prepare to mark the 250 th anniversary of American Independence, and to help us answer the eternal questions, What is an American? What holds us together?
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Animals were critical to the War for Independence, both as livestock to feed the armies and navies, and as draft animals to pull cannon and provisions. Dogs and other animals served as mascots and companions, and insects spread diseases that upset the most careful military plans. While historians have looked at problems of supply and transportation for the armies at war, none has looked at the impact of animals on the War, or the War on animals. David Hsuing, an environmental historian and Charles and Shirley Knox Professor of History at Juniata College, tells us about the many roles of animals in shaping the War and its outcome, focusing on the siege of Boston.
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Mary Dalley's boarding house in Philadelphia is where history happened! In the early days of the Revoluiton it was called "Liberty Hall," and after 1787 it was "Constitution House." Gouverneur Morris lived here, had his law office here, and probably wrote the Constitution at Miss Dalley's Boarding House. Gathered around Miss Dalley's table at different times were fifteen signers of the Declaration of Independence, 12 signers of the Constitution, future governors, legislators, the Baron von Steuben, the Marquis de Lafayette, and George Washington, John Adams, and James Madison.
Adam Levinson, creator of the legal history blog Statutes and Stories, and public historian Tim Schantz have led a campaign to mark the site of Miss Dalley's boarding house, once known as Constitution House. Telling its history “from the boarding house out,” they show how the house reveals the relationships, and political culture that helped sustain the cause of independence in the streets of Philadelphia.
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Linda Thorsen and Tom Coots take us to Malden, whose Town Meeting on May 27, 1776 unanimously supported independence. The Malden Instructions boldly announced the town's support for independence from Great Britain—weeks before the Continental Congress would adopt the Declaration of Independence.
Thorsen and Coots examine the political climate, local leadership, and community resolve that produced one of the earliest formal calls for independence. The Malden Resolves reflect the broader transformation taking place across Massachusetts in 1776, as towns moved from protest to outright revolution.
This pivotal yet often overlooked moment reminds us that the drive for independence was not born in a single hall, but in towns and communities where people made the courageous decision to chart a new course for the future.
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The Declaration of Independence created a new nation, and has guided the United States ever since. Historian Steven Sarson argues in his new book,The Course of Human Events: The Declaration of Independence and the Historical Origins of the United States that the Declaration looks backward, to British history and Biblical and Classical history, as much as forward.
Sarson looks at the structure of the Declaration’s arguments, about “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,” and the story of the colonists’ “Immigration and Settlement” in the New World to show how the Declaration’s authors rooted its argument in their understanding of the world drawn from their knowledge of history. The indictment of the British government’s attempts to constrain them is also rooted in historical understanding of governance, and from this Americans would frame new governments, organizing them to preserve their lives, liberties, and pursuits of happiness.
Steve Sarson, a Professor of American Civilization at Jean Mouline University in Lyon, France, looks at the Declaration with fresh eyes, as he has been teaching it to French students curious about its meaning both to our world, and the world of its writers. The ideas of the 18th-century, drawn from history, continue to inform our world, and Sarson shows how rooted they were in history as its authors understood it.
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Janie Nitze and Justice Neil Gorsuch have written a book for young readers, Heroes of 1776: The Story of the Declaration of Independence, bringing to life the individuals—famous and overlooked—who shaped one of the most consequential documents in world history.
The book delves into the personalities, debates, and risks that defined the summer of 1776, revealing the Declaration not simply as a statement of ideals, but as a bold act of defiance undertaken by real people facing uncertain futures. From the familiar names like Jefferson and Adams to lesser-known figures like Elizabeth Lewis or Emily Geiger whose contributions have often been overshadowed, this conversation uncovers the rich human tapestry behind America’s “birth certificate.”
This episode invites listeners to reconsider the Declaration as both a political document and a profoundly personal commitment—one that continues to echo through the ongoing story of the American experiment.
ORDER THE BOOK HERE
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In this episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast, host Robert Allison welcomes historian and author Michael Gabriel to explore the life and legacy of one of the American Revolution’s earliest fallen heroes. Drawing on his new book, Major General Richard Montgomery: The Making of an American Hero, Gabriel traces Montgomery’s remarkable journey from Irish-born officer in the British Army to a committed leader in the Continental cause.
Together, Allison and Gabriel examine Montgomery’s transformation in the crucible of imperial conflict, his growing identification with the American colonies, and his leadership in the ill-fated campaign to capture Quebec in 1775. They also consider how Montgomery’s death in battle helped shape early Revolutionary memory—turning him into a martyr for the cause of independence at a moment when the outcome of the conflict was far from certain.
This episode offers a compelling look at identity, allegiance, and sacrifice in the Revolutionary era, highlighting how one man’s story reflects the broader currents of a world turned upside down.
Link to Mike's Book below:
https://a.co/d/0gKtsyqi
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Jeff Denman talks about his book Philadelphia Quakers and the American Revolution.
How did a community rooted in pacifism navigate a moment defined by war, rebellion, and political upheaval? Philadelphia’s Quakers— committed to principles of nonviolence, religious conviction, and civic order—found themselves caught in the crosscurrents of revolution, where neutrality itself could be seen as disloyalty.
Denman unpacks the difficult choices Quakers faced as the imperial crisis deepened into open conflict. Some sought to maintain their religious testimonies at all costs, while others were drawn, reluctantly or otherwise, into the orbit of revolutionary politics. The result was a story not of simple allegiance, but of internal division, moral struggle, and the challenge of remaining true to one’s beliefs in extraordinary times.
Denman's examination of the experience of Philadelphia’s Quakers complicates familiar narratives of the Revolution. Their story reminds us that the era was not only shaped by soldiers and statesmen, but also by those who wrestled with conscience, community, and conviction in the face of a transforming world.
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Genealogists David Allen Lambert and Melanie McComb of American Ancestors talk about how family history reshapes our understanding of the American Revolution. Drawing on the vast collections and scholarship of one of the nation’s oldest genealogical institutions, Lambert and McComb explore how military records, pension files, and local archives reveal stories far beyond famous names—illuminating the lives of women, immigrants, and Patriots of color whose contributions sustained the Revolutionary cause. From the remarkable longevity of Revolutionary War widows to the quiet resilience of families on the home front, the episode highlights how genealogy transforms “names and dates” into vivid human stories. Together, they make a compelling case that uncovering the past isabout rediscovering the ordinary people whose choices shaped a Revolution—and whose descendants still carry that legacy forward.
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Most revolutions end in failure. If they succeed in toppling the bad old regime, they often create a new one that is worse. "Like Saturn," a French journalist observed in the early 1790s, "the Revolution devours its children." Why was the American Revolution different? Legal scholar and political analyst Jonathan Turley explores this question in his new book, Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution. How did the Americans avoid the horrors other Revolutions? In this conversation we discuss the American Revolution, the history that American revolutionaries carried with them and informed their world, and the role of firebrands like Thomas Paine and Robespierre, and political theorists James Wilson and James Madison.
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On this episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast, host Professor Robert Allison welcomes Captain B.J. Armstrong, a 27-year officer in the United States Navy, Associate Professor of War Studies and Naval History at the U.S. Naval Academy, and Director of the Naval Academy Museum.
BJ Armstrong's books include Small Boats and Daring Men, about irregular warfare in the Revolution. HIs regular series of blog-posts, "The Maddest Idea," explores the development of the Continental and the United States Navy.
Their conversation explores one of the most daring and often overlooked decisions of the American Revolution: the creation of an American navy. Armstrong discusses the “maddest idea” debated by the Continental Congress in 1775, when a fledgling rebellion challenged the world’s most powerful maritime empire by taking to the sea. From small-boat raids and irregular warfare to the intellectual legacy of naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan, the discussion connects the Revolution’s naval origins to broader questions of maritime strategy and national power.
Together, Allison and Armstrong examine how the Revolutionary generation imagined sea power, why maritime history is central to understanding the struggle for independence, and what the early American Navy can still teach us today.
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In this episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast, host Robert J. Allison welcomes Richard Howell of the Nathanael Greene Homestead for a conversation about the life and legacy of one of the most remarkable commanders of the American Revolution, Nathanael Greene.
Born into a Rhode Island Quaker family and raised as an ironmaster, Greene’s path to military leadership was anything but ordinary. Yet he would rise to become one of George Washington’s most trusted generals, playing a decisive role in the Southern Campaign of the Revolutionary War. Howell and Allison explore Greene’s unlikely rise from self-educated militia officer to strategic mastermind, whose campaigns in the Carolinas reshaped the course of the war.
The conversation also examines Greene’s enduring legacy, from the preservation of his Rhode Island home to the broader challenge of remembering Revolutionary figures whose leadership unfolded far from the famous battlefields of Lexington and Concord. What made Greene such an effective commander, and why does his story still matter today?
Join us for a lively exploration of strategy, character, and the complicated legacy of one of the Revolution’s most brilliant generals.
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Why did an antislavery movement emerge at the time of the American Revolution, both in the American colonies and in Britain? Christopher Brown asks this question and many more in Moral Capital: Foundations of British Abolitionism. The American Revolution on both sides of the Atlantic brought together strands of thought and feeling which had been latent, as men and women grappled with questions of power and justice. Abolition was one way for Britons to restore their moral capital, and drew on many sources—economic, moral, religious. In a fascinating study Christopher Brown upends much of what we thought we knew about the antislavery movement, and allows us to see the 18th-century world with fresh eyes.
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In this episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast, host Robert Allison welcomes historian and author Ryan Cole for a sweeping conversation about memory, gratitude, and the young republic’s most celebrated guest.
Cole, author of Light Horse Harry Lee and his new work The Adieu explores the extraordinary 1824–1825 return tour of Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette. Nearly fifty years after the shots at Lexington and Concord, Lafayette’s journey across all twenty-four states became a rolling national reunion, a living bridge between the Revolutionary generation and a rising America eager to define itself.
Allison and Cole discuss why Lafayette’s visit was more than ceremonial pageantry. It was a reaffirmation of republican ideals, a masterclass in civic memory, and perhaps the most unifying event of the early nineteenth century. From parades and banquets to emotional reunions with aging veterans, the tour rekindled revolutionary spirit at a moment when the nation stood at a crossroads.
As Massachusetts and the nation commemorate the Semiquincentennial, this conversation reminds us that anniversaries are not simply about looking backward. They are about renewing vows. Lafayette’s farewell tour shows how a grateful republic honors its past while quietly shaping its future.
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. Why did Philadelphia matter so deeply to both the British and the Continental Army? How did strategy, logistics, and personalities shape the campaign that culminated in Brandywine, Germantown, and the winter at Valley Forge? And what did the occupation of the revolutionary capital mean for civilians caught between armies? Michael C. Harris tells this story in his new book, Fighting for Philadelphia: Forts Mercer and Mifflin, the Battle of Whitemarsh, and the Road to Valley Forge. This campaign around the new country's largest city, in the marshes, woods, and fields of Pennsylvania and New Jersey was a critical turning point testing the resilience of the American people and military and reshaping the war's momentum. .
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Who was Thomas Jefferson? Do we really need another book about him? Andrew Burstein has written other books on Jefferson, and his new book, Being Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate Portrait answers both questions with depth and grace. Jefferson was an extraordinarily interesting person, and Burstein navigates his ambition, friendships, rivalries, political controversies, and intellectual inquiries. Biography, Burstein shows, is not just storytelling but interpretation, recovering what Jefferson and his generation thought they were doing as they built a new nation, reconsidering the Revolution as lived experience rather than legend/ Burstein shows Jefferson and his contemporaries as vividly human architects of an unfinished experiment.
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On today’s episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast, host Professor Robert Allison charts a course across storm-tossed legal waters with historian Suzanne Amy Foxley, author of The American Experience of British Prize Law, 1776–1804.
From the decks of daring privateers to the hushed chambers of admiralty courts, Foxley reveals how the American Revolution was fought not only with muskets and cannon, but with writs, warrants, and meticulously argued cases. Together, they explore how captured ships became “prizes,” how neutral nations navigated perilous seas of diplomacy and commerce, and how early Americans learned to play a global legal game while still inventing their own nation.
Listeners will discover the human stories behind the paperwork: sailors gambling their lives for profit and patriotism, merchants insuring fortunes against the tides of war, and judges wrestling with British legal traditions in a world suddenly unmoored from the Crown.
It’s a conversation where maritime adventure meets courtroom drama, and where the Revolution emerges as a battle for legitimacy as much as liberty. Set your compass, trim your sails, and join us for a voyage into the law that helped shape America’s place on the world’s oceans
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Lights, camera, Revolution! In this episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast, host Professor Bob Allison sits down with acclaimed filmmaker Kirk Ellis to explore the alchemy that turns ink on a page into images that linger in the national memory.
Ellis, the creative force behind the celebrated screen portrayals of Benjamin Franklin (2024) and John Adams (2008), pulls back the curtain on shaping complex founders into compelling, human characters. From distilling intricate historical texts into sharp, resonant dialogue to balancing documentary truth with dramatic momentum, he shares how research, imagination, and restraint combine to build stories worthy of the era they depict.
The conversation wanders through script drafts, set designs, and the quiet, crucial choices that make a candlelit room feel alive and a political argument feel urgent. It’s a master class in storytelling, where history doesn’t just speak, it steps into the frame.
Whether you’re a filmmaker, a history lover, or a teacher seeking new ways to bring the founding generation to life, this episode offers a front-row seat to the craft of turning the written word into a cinematic legacy.
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Manufacturing Independence: Forging a Nation in the Crucible of War
What did it really take to turn rebellion into a revolution—and ideals into a functioning nation? In this episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast, host Professor Robert Allison welcomes Professor Robert Smith of the Valley Forge Military College, author of Manufacturing Independence: Industrial Innovation in the American Revolution, for a sweeping conversation about the workshops, foundries, supply lines, and human ingenuity that powered the American cause.
Smith peels back the romantic veneer of the Revolution to reveal a world of iron, timber, powder, and persistence. From cannon cast in makeshift furnaces to uniforms stitched by candlelight, listeners discover how farmers, artisans, merchants, and soldiers became the hidden engine of independence. Together, Allison and Smith explore how local industry, wartime logistics, and civilian resilience shaped strategy on the battlefield and survival on the home front.
This episode invites you into the noisy, smoky, and determined world behind the musket’s flash—where a nation was not only declared, but made. Whether you’re a history devotee or a curious first-time listener, Manufacturing Independence offers a fresh lens on how Americans forged freedom with their hands as much as with their words.
https://www.westholmepublishing.com/book/manufacturing-independence-robert-f-smith/
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In this episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast, host Robert Allison of Suffolk University speaks with Independent Historian Bob Hyldburg, who is leading the effort to erect a public statue honoring Sarah Bradlee Fulton in Medford.
Sarah Bradlee Fulton emerges as a figure woven through some of the most dramatic moments of the Revolution in Massachusetts. She took part in the Boston Tea Party, helping disguise and equip the participants who struck a symbolic blow against imperial authority. In the bloody aftermath of the Battle of Bunker Hill, she aided wounded Provincial soldiers and assisted families driven from their homes as Boston became an armed camp. Months later, in March 1776, Fulton carried critical intelligence out of British-occupied Boston to the American lines, information that helped secure the fortification of Dorchester Heights and hastened the British evacuation of the city.
This episode invites listeners to reconsider the Revolution not only as a story of famous generals and statesmen, but as a collective struggle sustained by courage, resolve, and individuals like Sarah Bradlee Fulton, whose legacy is finally being brought into view.
https://www.lookingbackatMedfordhistory.com
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Few figures of the American Revolution wielded words as powerfully as Thomas Paine. In this episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast, host Professor Robert Allison is joined by historian and journalist Jack Kelly, author of Tom Paine’s War, for a wide-ranging conversation about Paine’s outsized influence on the Revolutionary cause.
Kelly explores how Paine’s pamphlet Common Sense transformed colonial resistance into a popular movement for independence, reaching audiences far beyond elite political circles. The discussion traces Paine’s role as a wartime propagandist, the impact of The American Crisis during the darkest days of the war, and George Washington’s strategic use of Paine’s words to sustain morale in the Continental Army.
The episode also examines Paine’s complicated personality, his transatlantic radicalism, and his uneasy place in the postwar United States, where the man who helped ignite the Revolution found himself increasingly marginalized. Together, Allison and Kelly consider why Paine mattered so deeply in his own time and why his ideas about liberty, democracy, and popular sovereignty continue to resonate 250 years later.
A compelling look at the power of ideas in wartime America, this episode reminds us that the Revolution was fought not only with muskets and cannon, but with ink, paper, and the force of persuasion.
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Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Joseph J. Ellis joins host Professor Robert Allison to talk about his new book, The Great Contradiction: The Tragic side of the American Founding. Drawing on decades of scholarship, Ellis reflects on the ideas, personalities, and hard choices that shaped independence and the early republic.
Together, Allison and Ellis explore what made the Revolution truly revolutionary, how figures like Washington, Jefferson, Adams, and Madison, whose stories Ellis has told in works such as Founding Brothersand Passionate Sage, understood their moment in history, and why the founding era continues to challenge, inspire, and provoke debate 250 years later. Insightful, candid, and engaging, this episode offers listeners a master historian’s perspective on America’s most consequential generation—and the unfinished work they left behind.
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In this episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast, host Professor Robert Allison is joined by Reese Holmes, National President of the Children of the American Revolution, for a lively conversation about one of the nation’s oldest and most forward-looking patriotic youth organizations.
Together, they explore the origins of the Children of the American Revolution, founded in 1895 by Concord author Harriet Lothrop to foster knowledge of America’s founding ideals among young people, and the organization’s enduring mission to promote historical education, civic responsibility, service, and patriotism. Holmes discusses how C.A.R. members engage with Revolutionary history through research, preservation, public programs, and community service, while also developing leadership skills that prepare them to be thoughtful citizens.
In her presidential year, Reese Holmes has been focusing on the Revolutionary Valor program, and working toward creating "Founding Martyr," a documentary on Dr. Joseph Warren.
The conversation highlights how today’s C.A.R. brings the Revolutionary generation to life for new audiences and how youth involvement plays a vital role in the 250th Anniversary of the American Revolution. From lineage and memory to action and service, this episode underscores why the past still matters and why its stewardship increasingly rests in young hands.
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In this episode, our host Professor Robert Allison welcomes historian and educator Sean Heuvel, Director of Graduate and Professional Enrollment at Christopher Newport University, for a spirited exploration of the newly edited Revolutionary War Memoirs of General William Heath. Together they stroll through Heath’s vivid accounts of the Siege of Boston, the New York campaign, the intrigues of command, and the quiet burdens shouldered by a Massachusetts gentleman-general whose pen was often as sharp as his sword.
Heuvel shares why Heath’s memoirs remain an essential, underappreciated window into the Revolution’s early campaigns and the personalities who shaped them. With fresh annotations, contextual framing, and a keen editorial eye, Heuvel illuminates Heath not as a footnote, but as a thoughtful architect of the Continental cause.
It’s a conversation that lifts a lantern toward the lesser-known corners of the war and reminds us that every revolution depends on more than its marquee heroes. Tune in and meet General Heath anew.
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Join host Professor Robert Allison for a dynamic conversation with historian Ronald Angelo Johnson, author of Entangled Alliances: Racialized Freedom and Atlantic Diplomacy During the American Revolution. Together they explore how the American Revolution unfolded within a vibrant and contested Atlantic world shaped by Black leadership, Caribbean revolutions, and international diplomacy. Johnson, who holds the the Ralph and Bessie Mae Lynn Chair of History at Baylor University, highlights the global forces—from Haiti to Europe—that influenced American independence and redefined ideas of freedom. The Revolution was not an isolated struggle, but was part of a far-reaching web of alliances, conflicts, and revolutionary change.
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Host Professor Robert Allison welcomes historian Paul D. Lockhart to discuss Lockhart’s acclaimed book The Drillmaster of Valley Forge: The Baron de Steuben and the Making of the American Army. Together they explore the remarkable life and career of Baron de Steuben, the Prussian-born officer whose training, discipline, and organizational genius helped transform Washington’s ragged Continental Army into a professional fighting force.
Lockhart places Steuben in a broader European military and intellectual context, untangling the myths about his noble status and supposed “magnificent fraud,” and showing instead a serious soldier of the Enlightenment—well-read, imaginative, and deeply committed to his adopted country. The conversation ranges from Valley Forge and the famous “Blue Book” drill manual to Steuben’s volatile temper, gift for friendship, chronic money troubles, complicated relationships with Washington, Congress, Lafayette, and Jefferson, and his lonely final years in upstate New York. Along the way, Allison and Lockhart reveal how Steuben’s real legacy lies not just in drill on the parade ground, but in the systems, standards, and expectations that helped shape the American army for generations to come.
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In this episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast, host Professor Robert Allison welcomes historian Dr. Cynthia Hatch for a timely and eye-opening conversation about her forthcoming book, Enablers of Rebellion: The Colonial Court and the Road to the American Revolution, to be published by Savas Beatie in the spring of 2026.
Hatch reveals a dimension of the Revolution that is often overlooked: the pivotal role of colonial courts, local magistrates, sheriffs, and justices of the peace in the decades before independence. Far from being passive administrators, these officials shaped political culture, mediated local disputes, and—intentionally or not—created the civic space in which resistance could take root. Professor Allison and Dr. Hatch explore how legal institutions helped normalize dissent, how courtroom practices reflected changing ideas of authority, and how ordinary people used the law to renegotiate power long before shots were fired.
This conversation shines a fresh light on the machinery of colonial governance and the subtle but profound ways it helped prepare a people for rebellion. A must-listen for anyone interested in the legal, political, and social foundations of America’s fight for independence.
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This week t Professor Robert Allison welcomes Dr. Matthew Keagle, Curator at Fort Ticonderoga, for a vivid exploration of one of the most audacious logistical feats of the American Revolution: Henry Knox’s Noble Train of Artillery. Together they trace Knox’s remarkable mid-winter journey of 1775–1776—300 miles across frozen rivers and lakes, treacherous terrain, and sometimes snow-choked roads—to deliver more than 60 tons of captured British artillery to General George Washington. He also tells us about Real Time Revolution, Ticonderoga's plans for commemorating the 250th!
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In The American Revolution and the Fate of the World, historian Richard Bell explores how the struggle for American independence reverberated far beyond the thirteen colonies—reshaping politics, empires, and ideas of liberty around the globe. Bell reveals how revolutionaries from Boston to Bengal, Paris to Port-au-Prince, drew inspiration and warning from the events of 1776. The American Revolution became a test case for freedom in an age of empire. Looking at the stories of individuals caught up in its ferment, Bell shows how the Revolution reshaped the world.
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Host Professor Robert Allison welcomes Dr. Kathryn P. Viens, public historian and scholar, to explore how local histories have shaped Americans’ understanding of patriotism and the Revolution from the nineteenth century to today. Drawing from her essay “Mobs or the Martial Ideal? The Mutable Definition of Patriotism in Local Historical Narratives,” published in the online journal Remembering the American Revolution at 250, Viens discusses how community-based histories—often written by nineteenth-century antiquarians—both preserved and reframed the Revolution’s memory.
Together, Allison and Viens delve into the evolution of civic identity, how shifting cultural values influenced interpretations of the Revolution, and why local stories remain essential to the broader national narrative. This episode invites listeners to reconsider how patriotism has been defined, remembered, and reinterpreted in the generations since America’s founding.
https://journals.h-net.org/.../2025_Viens_mobs_martial_ideal
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In listening to James Otis, Jr.'s arguments against the Writs of Assistance in 1761, John Adams remarked that it was there that American Independence was born. There is no question of Otis' erudition or passion for liberty, but while he fought for the rights of his country, he was also fighting a personal battle for his mental health. We talk with Gerald Holland, aurhor of a new biography of Otis, Lucy Pollock, Kate LaPine, and Paul Piwko as they discuss the new online exhibit. Patriot, Hero, and Distracted Person. a collaboration between Revolutionary Spaces and the National Museum of Mental Health Project on the life and struggles of James Otis, Jr.
https://www.nmmhproject.org/jamesotisjr
https://revolutionaryspaces.org/
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What does it cost to stay loyal when a world is breaking apart? Historian Greg Brooking explores the life and legacy of Sir James Wright, Georgia’s last royal governor, and the turbulent path from Crown colony to revolutionary state in his new book, From Empire to Revolution: Sir James Wright and the Price of Loyalty in Georgia. In this conversation he digs into loyalty and dissent, political power and personal risk, and how events in the southern colonies reshaped the course of the American Revolution. Join us for a sharp, story-rich look at Georgia’s revolution—and the people who gambled everything on their principles.
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Emily Sneff, author of When the Declaration of Independence Was News explores how the Declaration spread across the colonies and the wider world—not as a sacred founding text, but as breaking news. Her book traces how printers, sailors, and town criers turned Congress’s resolution into headlines that shaped the very idea of independence. Historian of the Declaration of Independence, Emily Sneff is of the curators of the new exhibit, "Declaration's Journey, at the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia, and writes the newsletter Declaration Storiessharing her research on the Declaration of Independence, its global echoes in newspapers and pamphlets, how revolutionary ideas went viral in the 18th century—and how that moment still defines what it means to announce freedom today.
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Join host Professor Robert Allison as he speaks with historian and author Edward Andrews about his new book, Newport Gardner’s Anthem: A Story of Slavery, Struggle, and Survival in Revolutionary America. Together, they explore the remarkable life of Newport Gardner—born Occramer Marycoo in Africa, enslaved in Newport, and later freed to become a composer, community leader, and founder of one of America’s first Black churches. This story is a powerful look at how music, faith, and freedom intertwined in America’s first Black communities.
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Donna Curtin, Executive Director of Pilgrim Hall Museum, the oldest continuously operating public museum in America, tells us about the surprising links between Plymouth’s Pilgrims and the Revolution. They spotlight the bold voices of James and Mercy Otis Warren, and explore Pilgrim Hall’s Revolutionary collections that connect 17th-century ideals to the fight for independence.
On October 11, they are hosting a performance of "Revolutionary Voices: Plymouth Debates Liberty & Loyalists," a play drawn from the town records on the debates over Independence.
Tickets for the "Plymouth Voices" play can be purchased HERE!
Website for Pilgrim Hall is Here!
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We are just months away from the 250th Anniversary of Henry Knox's Noble Train. Join Professor Robert Allison in conversation with Revolution 250 Executive Director Jonathan Lane as we review the history of the Knox Trail and discuss plans for the coming commemorations.
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Due to a technical difficulty this morning we are offering a "Revolution 250 Re-Podcast." Today's podcast will be from December 7, 2021 on the epic biography of King George III by Andrew Roberts, the Bonnie and Tom McCloskey Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. In this podcast, Professor Allison and Professor Roberts discuss the many remarkable qualities of George III as a monarch which are overshadowed by the events of the American Revolution. It is worth noting that since the original airing of this podcast in 2021, Professsor Roberts has been elevated to the Peerage of the United Kingdom as Baron Roberts of Belgravia for his voluminous work in history.
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Johnson Hall, designed in 1763 by noted colonial architect Peter Harrison, was the grand estate of Sir William Johnson, the influential British Superintendent of Indian Affairs in New York. From this stately home, Johnson shaped alliances that helped keep many Indigenous nations aligned with the Crown during the struggle for American independence. Today, the Johnson Hall is preserved as a New York State Historic Site, offering a window into the complex relationships between empire, Native peoples, and the Revolution.
Join Professor Robert Allison in conversation with Ian Mumpton, Interpretive Programs Assistant at Johnson Hall, as they explore Johnson’s legacy, the role of diplomacy and cultural exchange on the frontier, and how this landmark continues to tell stories of power, conflict, and negotiation on the eve of the Revolution.
https://parks.ny.gov/historic-sites/johnsonhall/details.aspx
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Host Robert Allison talks with Ron Peterson and David Martin about dramatic and little-known stories from Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, and Nantucket during the Revolution. From the fierce 1779 Battle of Falmouth to Nantucket’s divided loyalties, British shipwrecks, and the vital roles of African American and Native American patriots, this episode reveals how the Cape and Islands were anything but quiet backwaters in America’s fight for independence.
To order a copy of the Book, The Revolutionary War on the Cape and the Islands:
To Order, Send:
1. Check for $30 made out to “MMHS”
(tax and shipping included)
2. Mailing address
To:
David Martin
10 Colonial Farm Circle
Marstons Mills, MA 02648
(Allow 10 days for delivery)
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It is easy to see the Franklin stove as just an invention to improve the lives of colonial Americans. The stove, like many of Franklin's inventions, went through a series of improvements as he explored the science of heat convection and thermal dynamics. Other changes and considerations came about as Franklin changed the fuel from wood to coal. This is just one aspect of the impact of Franklin's stove on the 18th-century world. We talk with Professor Joyce Chaplin about her new book, The Franklin Stove: An Unintended American Revolution, which explores the world which brought about Franklin's invention and how it was part of a changing world.
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From Lucifer’s rebellion to Adam and Eve’s expulsion, from Lancelot’s betrayal to Macbeth’s downfall, stories of greatness undone have gripped audiences for centuries. For America’s Revolutionaries, the cautionary examples of Julius Caesar and Oliver Cromwell warned of leaders who turned against the people.
No figure embodies this tragic arc in American history more than General Benedict Arnold. Once a brilliant and passionate commander whose daring made him one of the Revolution’s most effective leaders, Arnold’s defection to the Crown became a devastating blow to the patriot cause—and forever branded him the nation’s most infamous traitor.
Historian Joyce Lee Malcolm joins us to explore Arnold’s rise, fall, covered in her acclaimed book The Tragedy of Benedict Arnold: An American Life.
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July 4, 2026 the United States of America will celebrate the 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. There will be thousands of commemorations across the nation, but the national effort is being led by America 250, the Semiquincentennial Commission with its mission to Educate, Engage, and Unite for our national celebration. We had a chance to speak with Rosie Rios, Chair of America 250 and to learn more about America 250’s efforts to lead the nation in commemoration of our nation’s birthday.
https://america250.org/
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What a story about the American incursion into Canada, 1774-1776! Mark R. Anderson learned about this episode in a military history class--and then, as an officer in the United States Air Force during the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns earlier in this century, he recalled what he had learned, and wanted to find a good book on the Canadian campaign. Finding none, he wrote The Battle for the Fourteenth Colony: America’s War of Liberation in Canada, 1774–1776, explores this fascinating chapter of the Revolution, with its lessons learned and forgotten.
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How does a Boston-born, Philadelphia printer, scientist and entrepreneur, journey from the position of a proud member of the British Empire with many friends at Court, to a leader in the movement for American Independence. Join Professor Robert Allison (Suffolk University) as we delve into the life and experiences of Benjamin Franklin.
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John Trumbull's paintings have done more to etch the key events of the American Revolution into America's memory than perhaps anyone else. The son of the Governor of Connecticut and the brother of a Governor of Connecticut, Trumbull served in the Continental Army during the American Revolution. He knew many of the key figures of these events, and when he painted them, he painted them as he knew them. We talk with Damien M. Cregeau, author of "Portraits of Patriots: Colonel John Trumbull and Five Fellow Patriots From Connecticut in the American Revolution" as we delve into the life and times of John Trumbull.
Portraits of Patriots at Amazon.com
https://a.co/d/hgloLc6
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Taverns in the 18th century were more than watering holes: they were centers of cultural, political and social influence, gathering places for communities and conduits through which news was conveyed by traders and travelers from far away. We talk with Professor Malcolm Purinton, author of Globalization in a Glass: The Rise of Pilsner Beer through Technology, Taste, and Empire, about the role of taverns in the American Revolution, as well as about what people were drinking in the 18th-century.
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Since parting ways 250 years ago, the United States and the United Kingdom have spent the intervening centuries building one of the most enduring and supportive international relationships. On today's Revolution 250 Podcast, Professor Robert Allison (Suffolk University) is in conversation with the UK Consul-General for New England, David Clay, MBE. Join us as we discuss two and a half centuries of diplomacy between our two nations.
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Join us as we uncover the remarkable, complex life of John Laurens—soldier, diplomat, abolitionist, and one of the most passionate idealists of the American Revolution. Gregory D. Massey speaks with us about his acclaimed biography John Laurens and the American Revolution. Together we'll explore the fiery convictions and bold actions of a young South Carolinian who fought not only against British tyranny but also against the hypocrisy of slavery in a nation proclaiming liberty.
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We just celebrated the 250th Anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill in which the men of Connecticut under Colonel Thomas Knowlton played a pivatol part. Today we investigate the life of another Connecticut patriot, Colonel John Durkee of Norwich, Connecticut. To help us learn more about Col. Durkee and his friends and neighbors in eastern Connecticut Professor Robert Allison (Suffolk University) is in conversation with Dayne E. Rugh, author of John Durkee; The Forgotten Story of Connecticut's Bold Man from Bean Hill.
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If Joseph Warren had lived, Peter Oliver said, no one would have heard of Washington. This might be an exaggeration, but few patriot leaders were as important to the cause as Joseph Warren—Roxbury physician, chair of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, chair of the Committee of Safety, Grand Master of the Masonic Lodge—he did not seek office, but his compatriots recognized his talents and put him to work. His death at the Battle of Bunker Hill, at the age of 34, deprived the cause of one of its greatest leaders. And today he is almost forgotten. Janet Uhlar tells his story in her biography, Liberty's Martyr,and she shares more on Warren and his brief but extraordinary life with us.
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For our 250th Episode, Pulitzer-prize winning author Rick Atkinson joins us to talk about his best-selling new book, The Fate of the Day: From Ticonderoga to Charleston,which focuses on the War between the British capture of Ticonderoga in 1777 to the fall of Charleston in 1780. HIs book, and our conversation, plumb the depths of the American Revolution and the characters who shaped the war. This is the second volume of his Revolutionary War trilogy, and leaves us wanting to know more.
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Captain John Parker is famously supposed to have said on Lexington Green, "If they mean to have a war, let it begin here." Even if the attribution is true, did the British or the Provincials mean to have a war in April of 1775? Join Professor Robert Allison (Suffolk University) as he explores the aftermath of the events of April 19, 1775 through the end of the year.
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Jane McCrea’s death in 1777 became a powerful tool of Revolutionary propaganda, fueling anti-British sentiment across the colonies. Her murder by British-allied Native warriors was portrayed as savage and unjust, rallying support for the Patriot cause and highlighting the perceived brutality of British alliances. We talk with Blake Grindon about her book on the life, death, and legacy of Jane McCrea.
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2027 will be the 250th Anniversary of the Battle of Saratoga and the surrender of General John Burgoyne's forces to those of General Horatio Gates. Often called the "Turning Point of the Revolution" the victory over Burgoyne was instrumental in earning America its first European ally, France. Long a subject of legend and story, Burgoyne's expedition is now the subject of a new series of novels by Avellina Balestri titled All Ye That Pass By.Join Revolution 250 guest host Jonathan Lane as he discusses Book 1 of the series, titled Gone for a Soldierwith the author.
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The monuments of Washington D.C. are among the most visited sites in our nation's capital. The legacies of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Franklin Roosevelt are carried through the generations by their stone memorials in D.C. Today, there is a national commission to investigate and plan for a new addition to those memorials, one dedicated to John Adams and the many notable members of his family, including Abigail, John Quincy, Louisa Catherine, Charles Francis and Henry Adams. We talk with Jackie Cushman, Chair of the Adams National Memorial Commission.
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What is a "turning point"? We talk with John Mass, whose new book From Trenton to Yorktown: Turning Points in the Revolutionary War looks at five episodes that changed the course of the war and lead toward the American victory. Which were the decisive moments? Listen to find out!
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Don Troiani's magnificently detailed battle paintings and meticulously-researched uniforms bring to life early-American military history. He has collaborated with historian John Rees on a visual and artistic look at Black soldiers from the Seven Years War to the Civil War, in this richly-illustrated Don Troiani's Black Soldiers in America's Wars 1754-1865. Historian John Rees, whose previous book, They Were Good Soldiers, told the story of African-Americans in the Revolutionary War, tells us about the world of Black soldiers which his and Troiani's book brings documents.
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After World War II, book publishers and film makers worked to identify American heroes that they could promote to the world. Frequently these heroes were self-made men who used specialized knowledge or skills to defeat an overwhelming enemy. One such character was Francis Marion, a South Carolina plantation owner who utlized his knowledge of the countryside to prey upon British garrisons and foraging parties. We talk with John Oller, author of The Swamp Fox: How Francis Marion Saved the American Revolution.
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As we get close to Patriots Day, let us remember that the fighting along "Battle Road" and the entire siege of Boston involved thousands of men from hundreds of communities. On April 19, 1775 as the "Lexington Alarm" spread throughout the region, towns mustered their militia and they marched towards the fight. Needham sent 185 men to fight the Redcoats that day, losing five men in the process. Join Gloria Greis of the Needham History Center & Museum in conversation with Professor Robert Allison on the history of Needham's role in the revolution and their plans to commemorate these "Moments that Changed the World."
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On the afternoon of April 19, as the people of Plymouth and Barnstable counties heard of the battles at Lexington and Concord, they mustered their militia and sent them. .. to Marshfield. We talk with Patrick Browne of the Plymouth Antiquarian Society about the "almost battle of Marshfield," the only town outside of Boston that had a detachment of Redcoats. We hear about why the British were in Marshfield, and what the militia did to force them, and Marshfield's many loyalists out. We also hear about other events on the South Shore, and about how Plymouth is commemorating its local heroine, Mercy Otis Warren.
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For 50 years the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum and Library in Lexington has been telling the story of America and the Masonic traditions that are interwoven with that narrative. The museum has a collection of more than 17,000 objects and manages another 11,000 objects belonging to the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts. Objects from that collection and pieces from their world-class library are being used to launch a new exhibit on April 13, 2025 entitled Protest & Promise: The American Revolution in Lexington. Join Professor Allison in conversation with Assistant Curator Stacey Fraser on this iconic museum, its connection to the Bicentennial and the special exhibits and projectsthey have planned for the 250th.
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Loyalty and Patriotism in the American Revolution: Which side are you one? Are "loyalist" and "patriot" useful terms in deciphering the sides to the American Revolution? A conversation with Robert A. Gross, author of The Minutemen and their World, about the changing meanings of loyalty and patriotism in the era of the American Revolution.
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Christina Carrick, an editor at the Papers of Thomas Jefferson, formerly an editor at the Robert Treat Paine Papers, joins us to talk about Jefferson and Paine. She also talks about the loyalist family networks she has studied--New England merchants sent into exile who maintained connections with home. She also discusses editorial projects, and how to become part of these important projects through organizations like the Association for Documentary Editing.
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Some of the bloodiest fighting on April 19, 1775 happened in the village of Menotomy, the community lay along the main road from Cambridge to Concord. It had numerous mills, taverns and a meetinghouse and burial ground along this road, some of which still show scars from that day. We talk with Matthew Beres, Executive Director of the Arlington Historical Society, based in the Jason Russell House, about the fighting there and in the rest of Arlington, and the town's commemorations of those events'
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There is a lot of focus on the events of April 19, 1775, events that set in motion America's call for Independence from Great Britain. Securing our independence took 8 long years of war. What is the impact of the war for American independence on a community? Beth van Duzer of the Concord 250 Subcommittee on History and Education tell us about the community of Concord's project to gather up Revolutionary war stories of the people who lived and died in that town.
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"Place is of very little consequence," Mary Sewall of Marblehead wrote to her sister in Nova Scotia in 1799," except as it brings you near to those whom by nature you are most nearly allied." The Sewall sisters had been separated by war, yet family ties endured and complicated their relationships in the post-Revolutionary world. Patrick O'Brien of the University of Tampa, writing about the divided families of Marblehead, joins us to talk about the ties sundered by the Revolution and those that remained.
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As word spread of the British march to Lexington and Concord, communities from all over Massachusetts and greater New England responded. Historian Alan Foulds tells us about the Lynn End (now Lynnfield) militia, who were warned by medical student Martin Herrick, and their march to Menotomy, where they fought the British at the Jason Russell House. The Lynnfield Historical Society has told these stories in a series of videos, and will re-enact these events, and will put on a play, "Shadows of 1775," in which the men and women in the town of 1775 will tell their stories to their townsfolk and visitors today.
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Acting on intelligence that the Provincial militia had cannon in a Salem blacksmith shop, Beneral Thomas Gage sent Lt. Colonel Alexander Leslie and the 64th Regiment of Foot to Marblehead and then to Salem to find the weapons. We talk with Charlie Newhall and Jonathan Streff about this expedition, known as "Leslie's Retreat," which is re-enacted in Salem every February. Leslie did not get the cannon, but he and the people of Salem avoided war.
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The Boston Town Watch kept order on the streets of Boston, particularly at night. When soldiers of the Crown arrived in 1768 their overlapping authorities came into conflict, which deepened as Crown and colony careened towards war. We talk with Nicole Breault of the University of Texas, El Paso, who is writing a book on the Boston Town Watch.
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Few things shocked American patriots as the betrayal of General Benedict Arnold. After attempting to surrender West Point to the British, Arnold led a series of raids, first in Virginia, and then in his native state of Connecticut. Matthew E. Reardon has written a new account of Arnold's raid on New London and attack on Fort Griswold, The Traitor's Homecoming; Benedict Arnold's Raid on New London September 4-13, 1781.
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The first engagement against the Crown forces that involved soldiers from multiple provinces operating under a unified command. The first use of field artillery by the Provincial forces. The destruction of the HMS Diana, whose mainmast was to be used to hoist the "Grand Union Flag" atop Prospect Hill on January 1, 1776. Few engagements can boast so much, and yet the engagement that has become known locally as "The Battle of Chelsea Creek" has all of those stories and so much more. We talk with local author, journalist and historian Jeff Pearlman about the engagement on Noddle's and Hog Islands and the loss of the HMS Diana on the 27th of May 1775.
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Few men were as highly esteemed and just a decade later despised beyond measure as Timothy Ruggles. Ruggles was a hero of the French & Indian War, a delegate to the Stamp Act Congress from Massachusetts, a land owner, legislator and community leader who had a large and prosperous family. His daughter Bathsheba married a Boston man, Joshua Spooner, and their marriage was once described as "inharmonious." Imagine then the country gossip when Joshua was found in March 1778 beaten and murdered and stuffed into his own well, and that two British prisoners of war and a young man from Topsfield were found in possession of his personal property. Join Professor Robert Allison in conversation with Andrew Noone, author of ‘Bathsheba Spooner, A Revolutionary Murder Conspiracy.'
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Founded in 1923 through the gift of William Lawrence Clements, the William L. Clements Library at the University of Michigan is a fount of historical manuscripts, maps and rare books, particularly on the American Revolution. Their collections include the papers of General Thomas Gage, and General Henry Clinton, two of the leading British military leaders during the American Revolution, as well as Lord George Germain, a cabinet minister and Hessian General von Jungkenn. The Clements library is currently engaged digitizing the Gage and Clinton papers, making these resources available to scholars world-wide, and an exhibit on April 19, 1775, which will open on April 18, 2025. We talk with Paul J. Erickson, the Randolph G. Adams Director of the Clements Library, and Cheney Schopieray, Curator of Manuscripts, about the treasures the Clements hold, how scholars and students can access them, and what are their favorite things (today) in this tremendous archive.
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We are now deep into the Semiquincentennial commemoration of the events that led to American Independence. 2025 represents a watershed year as we commemorate the Battles of Lexington & Concord, Chelsea Creek and Bunker Hill. Just in time to help us remember these events, and why we are commemorating the 250th, Professor Abby Chandler of UMass Lowell, has launched a new journal, Remembering the American Revolution at 250. Professor Chandler joins us to talk about this new project, along with Professor Marianne Holdzkom, author of its first article, "Based on a True Story; Remembering the Revolution through Film."
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After a stint in the Navy and forty years teaching history, Larry Kidder was curios about the lives of ordinary people in Hunterdon County, New Jersey. He could not find a good book on the subject, so he started writing , and how he has told stories of the Revolution from the vantage point of New Jersey's militia. On Christmas Eve he joins us to share the epic story of General Washington crossing the Delaware, and introduces us to the Revolutionary World of Jacob Francis, a Free Black man from New Jersey who, as a "Massachusetts" soldier, participated inn the crossing. Larry Kidder tells us of Jacob Francis and other stories from New Jersey in the Revolution's ten crucial days--from the Delaware crossing to the Battle of Princeton.
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John Dickinson burst onto the scene with his "Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania" published in a Philadelphia newspaper in 1767 and 1768. He wrote "The Liberty Song," sung all over America, including at the 1769 Sons of Liberty dinner in Dorchester, Massachusetts, and the Continental Congress's Olive Branch Petition and with Jefferson the "Declaration on the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms." While he opposed the Declaration of Independence, he drafted the Articles of Confederation, and in 1787 was a member of the Constitutional Convention. We talk about Dickinson with Dr. Jane Calvert, author of the new biography, Penman of the Founding: A Biography of John Dickinson , and the Director and Chief Editor of the John Dickinson Writings Project.
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In the place of Professor Cornelia Dayton who could not join us today, Professor Robert Allison presents a lecture on the military career of Benjamin Lincoln, who, with General George Washington and General Nathanael Greene were to only General officers to serve from the Siege of Boston to Yorktown. Lincoln came from a distinguished family in Hingham, Massachusetts where the family held various town offices since the 17th century. While Lincoln never anticipated a military career, his quiet and steady capability soon recommended him to Washington for a number of posts. Wounded at Saratoga, Lincoln would also be forced to surrender Charleston, SC to the British, but also accepted (at Washington's urging) the surrender of the British at Yorktown.
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Today, the Revolution 250 Podcast revisits an episode from 2021. Next May will be the 250th Anniversary of the Battle of Chelsea Creek and plans are in preparation for the commemoration of this important event.
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 Massachusetts Archaeology Society on this important, but little known May 1775 battle, and their work to map the site.
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Frederick Douglass’ 1852 speech, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July” remains one of the defining rebukes to the work of the Founders. While Douglass admired the ideals of the Founders, their inability to extend their precepts of liberty to people of color Douglass considered a breach of the promise of America. Frederick Douglass scholar and performer Nathan Richardson talks with us about Douglass’ use of the founding ideals to fight for the emancipation of people of color and the absolute abolition of slavery.
Nathan Richardson is a published author, performance poet, and Frederick Douglass Historian.
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Lexington, Massachusetts has long been a tourist destination. The Marquis de Lafayette famously made a visit during his tour of 1824 and the crowds have only grown since then. The Inn at Hastings Park, established by Cordon Bleu-trained chef Tricia Perez Kennealy is where Revolutionary history and revolutionary hospitality have come together, just in time for the 250th Anniversary of the American Revolution. The Inn at Hastings Park is a 22-room luxury boutique hotel with a restaurant called "Town Meeting Bistro." Join Professor Robert Allison in conversation with the owner and operator of the Inn at Hastings Park Tricia Perez Kennealy on how the Inn is preparing for the 250th Anniversary in Lexington.
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He was born the year before the Revolution began. His mother died before his 7th birthday. His father ended up in debtor's prison and provided material aid to men involved in Shays's Rebellion. Yet his story is known to many and has been portrayed in song, story and animated movies across the world. This is the story of John Chapman, aka "Johnny Appleseed" who left his impoverished home in Longmeadow, Massachusetts to spendhis life wandering the Northwest Territory creating nurseries for apple trees as far away Ohio and Indiana. Melissa M. Cybulski, Vice President of the Longmeadow Historical Society and author of Appleseeds: A Boy Named Johnny Chapman she shares with us the role of the Chapman family, Longmeadow & Western Massachusetts in the age of the American Revolution.
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For the last 250 years Americans remain conflicted over the meaning and legacy of the Revolution—including the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. All of the social and political movements of the last two centuries have been shaped by the work of the founders and they in turn shape the way the next generations view the founding of the nation. Join Professor Robert Allison in conversation with Michael Hattem, author of "The Memory of '76" (Yale University Press) on how we have, and do, remember the American Revolution.
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On July 4, 1776, two hundred miles northwest of Philadelphia, on Indigenous land along the West Branch of the Susquehanna River, a group of colonial squatters declared their independence. They were not alone in their efforts. This bold symbolic gesture was just a small part of a much broader and longer struggle in the Northern Susquehanna River Valley, where diverse peoples, especially Indigenous nations, fought tenaciously to safeguard their lands, sovereignty, and survival. We talk with Christopher Pearl about his new book, Declarations of Independence: Indigenous Resilience, Colonial Rivalries, and the Cost of Revolution, which examines this intense struggle among Indigenous Americans, rebellious colonial squatters, opportunistic land speculators, and imperial government agents which shaped the American Revolution.
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Congregationalists--clergy and congregations—were the driving force in New England's Revolution. Interpreting liberty through their own religious framework, which included principles of autonomy, fellowship, and consensus, Congregationalists had much to say about liberty in church records, letters, and sermon literature. Kyle Roberts, Executive Director of the Congregational Library and Archives, and Tricia Peone, Project Director for New England Hiddien Histories, join us to talk about their new on-line exhibit Religion of Liberty, and what we can learn from the Congregational Library about the beginnings of the American Revolution.
https://www.congregationallibrary.org/
https://www.congregationallibrary.org/events/open-house-2024
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In between the abortive call from Governor Thomas Gage for the legislature to convene in Salem on the 5th of October 1774, and the formation by those same legislators of a Provincial Congress on the 7th October 1774, a terrible fire took place in Salem. The fire destroyed more than a dozen buildings and numerous homes and caused more than £20,000 in damage. Join Professor Robert Allison in conversation with retired National Parks Ranger Curtis White as we examine the evidence of the fire and debate the causes of the fire. Was it carelessness or a deliberate attempt to prevent the formation of the Provincial Congress.
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Was it the embattled farmers and Sons of Liberty, or the indebted planters shouting "Give me Liberty or give me Death!" that brought on the Revolution? Who held the first Provincial Convention or Congress? Who was first to resist the Crown's troops? Join us for a debate between Robert A. Gross, author of The Minutemen and their World, and Woody Holton, author of Forced Founders, and hear what lead these two very different places to revolution. Moderated by the ever-impartial Robert Allison.
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June 14, 2025 will be the 250th anniversary of the formation of the US Army by the 2nd Continental Congress. In preparation to celebrate the Army's birthday and to comemmorate the 250th Anniversary of the American Revolution, the Museum of the United States Army at Fort Belvoir will debut a new exhibit on April 19, 2025. Bringing together more than 200 artifacts from around the nation, the Army Museum will commemorate the leaders and men who formed the first army. Join Professor Robert Allison in conversation with Chief Curator of the National Museum of the United States Army, Paul Morando.
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A conversation with award-winning author Ray Anthony Shepard, who is introducing young readers to stories from American history focused on race. He has written on the the vaunted 54th Regiment of Massachusetts Infantry, as well as a book about Ona Judge, a seamstress who escaped from the Washington household, and is has just finished The Forgotten: Patriots of Color at Lexington & Concord,, focusing on the 19th of April 1775 from the perspective of African-Americans who were there that day fighting or observing---alarm-rider Abel Benson, soldiers Prince Estabrook and Peter Salem, Hartwell Tavern keeper Violet Thayer. We talk about the challenges of engaging younger readers and the importance of understanding the American story in all its complexity.
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The Sons of Liberty exulted over the Boston Tea Party, but they also would have been familiar with the proverb "he who dances must pay the piper." The "piper" in this case turned out to be General Thomas Gage who arrived in Boston in May of 1774 to replace Thomas Hutchinson as Royal Governor of Massachusetts. With Gage arrived several regiments of British soldiers and several punitive acts of Parliament. Join Professor Allison as he narrates the British imperial response to American defiance of parliament.
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Few images of the Battle of Bunker Hill are as evocative as Colonell William Prescott striding up and down the walls of the redoubt, his sword drawn, his banyan fluttering in the breeze as the British regiments marched up the hill. The stalwart defense of Prescott and his troops at the Battle of Bunker Hill established the American army as a formidable foe for the British army. For all this, there is much about Prescott's life we don't know. Author Don Ryan is completing a biography of Prescott wherein he will bring to life Colonel Prescott and all of his services to the people of Massachusetts in their effort to secure independence.
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Thomas Jefferson contained multitudes. Like the nation he helped to create, Jefferson was a fascinating man of contradictions: a party leader who did not believe in political parties, an apostle of liberty who owned others, and a "man of the people" who lived atop a mountain. His mountaintop home, Monticello, since 1923 has been maintained by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which presents all of Jefferson's legacy to visitors, scholars, students. We talk with historian Jane Kamensky, President of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, about Monticello and its architect.
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The Mullica River in southern New Jersey was a haven for American privateers, who in the fall of 1778 had eighteen captured British vessels at anchor, their cargoes delivered to Washington's army. Sir Henry Clinton sent a raiding party from New York, which burned the ships and the town of Chestnut Neck. The town rebuilt quickly, but the wrecks lay undisturbed on the river bottom until archaeologists discovered them. We talk with Captain Steve Nagiewicz, mariner, faculty member at Stockton University, diver, and underwater archaeologist about the search for these vessels (he has enlisted his Stockton University students in the search) and what we can learn about the maritime Revolution from the wrecks beneath the surface. Captain Nagiewicz is also the author of the Hidden History of Maritime New Jersey, which tells the story of other New Jersey shipwrecks.
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Ruthanne Paulson and Deborah Potee have created a musical, "Oh, That Dreadful Tea," designed to allow kids to experience the thrill of performing and telling the story of the Boston Tea Party through song and drama. Their musical is designed to make this pivotal event more memorable and impactful for elementary and middle school students. Find out more in our conversation!
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2024 marks the bicentennial of the return of the Marquis de Lafayette to the United States. In 1824, President James Monroe invited Lafayette, the last surviving Major General of the Revolution, to be the guest of the nation as a way to celebrate the nation’s 50th anniversary. Lafayette's arrival in New York inspired four days and nights of continuous celebration—a response replicated throughout the country, as what started out as a 3 month tour turned into a 13-month marathon as Lafayette visited each of the 24 United States. We discuss the tour with Elizabeth Reese, a public historian and author of Marquis de Lafayette Returns: A Tour of America's National Capital Region. Elizabeth Reese is also deeply involved with plans for the bicentennial of Lafayette's visit being planned by the American Friends of Lafayette--see if he is coming to your town!
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Since 1889 the Sons of the American Revolution have been working to preserve the memories of those who fought and supported the American Revolution. While the national headquarters is in Louisville, Kentucky, there are over 550 chapters world-wide, dedicated to commemorating the service and sacrifice of the men and women who fought to establish an independent United States of America. Join Revolution 250 Executive Director in conversation with T. Brooks Lyle, current Registrar General and former Historian General of the SAR on the work of the Sons of the American Revolution and their plans for a new museum and educational center at the national headquarters.
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In the summer of 1787, 55 delegates assembled at Philadelphia to write a new Constitution for the new United States of America. The document that was finally agreed upon on September 15, 1787 was not without controversy. The completed document was filled with compromises, particularly around how representation would be calculated, and lacked a Bill of Rights. Join Professor Robert Allison & Revolution 250 Executive Director Jonathan Lane in conversation with Professor Carol Berkin, Baruch Presidential Professor at the City University of New York on her book "A Brilliant Solution; Inventing the American Conversation."
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Agents, double-agents, spies, secret messages, codes, cyphers are the words that evoke the world of intelligence gathering, a necessary tool for the success of any army. George Washington knew better than anyone the value of knowing what your enemy's plans were and to prevent them, if at all possible, from learning your own plans. Amazingly there are still many sites associated with the Culper Spy Ring that you can visit. Bill Bleyer, journalist and historian, tells us about his book, George Washington's Long Island Spy Ring: A History and Tour Guide.
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"Listen my children, and you shall hear, of the midnight ride of Paul Revere." With this one line, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ensured the legacy of 18th-century Boston silversmith, mechanic and entrepreneur, Paul Revere. The poem, published in January of 1861 in the Atlantic Monthly magazine was simply entitled "Paul Revere's Ride," and purports to detail the ride of Paul Revere to warn Middlesex county farmers and minute men about the approach of Regular Army soldiers to capture a cache of weapons and supplies hidden in Concord, Massachusetts. However, that dramatic ride was just one of dozens of rides that Paul Revere was hired to do on behalf of the people of Massachusetts. Join Professor Bob Allison in conversation with Tegan Kehoe, the Research and Adult Programs Director of the historic Paul Revere House on the many rides of Paul Revere.
https://www.paulreverehouse.org/
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The effort to bring the federal treasury into balance as well as to exert some control over the peoples living on the western frontier resulted in the passage of the Whiskey Act in 1791. The act placed an excised tax on the production of whiskey that weighed heavily upon the smaller producers of American whiskey. These small-time producers and their neighbors reacted violently to this assertion of federal control and beat, whipped, tarred and feathered the tax collectors who came to enforce the act. In the first major test to his authority as President of the United States, George Washington responded by raising 13,000 men to quell the nascent rebellion. Join us as we speak with Brady Crytzer, author of "The Whiskey Rebellion; A Distilled History of an American Crisis."
http://www.bradycrytzer.com/
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We see him as the artist who gave us the iconic imagery of our nation's founding. He saw himself as a historian. John Trumbull, soldier, spy, and artist was the son of a Connecticut Governor, a scion of the first-families of New England. Join Professor Robert Allison in conversation with award-winning author Richard Brookhiser on his book Glorious Lessons; John Trumbull, the Painter of the American Revolution.
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Mount Vernon sits atop the pantheon of historic sites that Americans hold sacred. Its historical status was secured by the ownership of the plantation by America's founding father, George Washington, but its full history cannot be told without examining the other people resident on the site. Sarah Johnson, first living enslaved at Mount Vernon and later emancipated, saw the change in Mount Vernon from family home to national treasure. Join Professor Robert Allison in conversation with Scott E. Casper, President of the American Antiquarian Society about his book "Sarah Johnson's Mount Vernon: The Forgotten History of an American Shrine."
http://www.americanantiquarian.org
https://www.amazon.com/Sarah-Johnsons-Mount-Vernon-Forgotten/dp/0809084155
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Following in their father's footsteps, he being a veteran of the French & Indian Wars, William and Benjamin Frank joined the Second Rhode Island Regiment in the spring of 1777. The brothers became part of a cohort of free Black soldiers serving in an integrated Continental Army, before being transferred to the newly segregated First Rhode Island Regiment. This regiment with a high proportion of free & enslaved people of color as well as local indigenous and mixed-race peoples, gained fame for its stalwart defense of a redoubt at the Battle of Rhode Island. Join us as we speak with Dr. Shirley Green, author of "Revolutionary Blacks: Discovering the Frank Brothers, Freeborn Men of Color, Soldiers of Independence."
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As we approach our 200th episode we engage with Gordon Wood on his first book, "The Creation of the American Republic, 1776 - 1787" which ranks among the most important books ever written about the American Revolutionary period and the formation of the American Republic. Join us as we talk about what the founders got right, what they got wrong, and how it continues to influence and evolve in America today.
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June 2024 marks the 250th Anniversary of General & Governor Thomas Gage's attempt to move the Massachusetts government to Salem. Join us as we learn how this important seaport town reacted to 2 regiments of Redcoats moving into town. Join us as we speak with Emily Murphy of the Salem Maritime National Historic Site on the impact of Gage's plan to run Massachusetts from Salem and how Salem Maritime is planning to mark the occasion on June 15 & 16, 2024 in Salem, Massachusetts.
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The Revolution 250 tag line is that these Revolutionary moments in America are "Moments that Changed the World." Within two generations of the end of the French and Indian wars, social and political hierarchies lay in ruins across the Americas and Europe and new republics rose up to take their place. Join us as we converse with award-winning author Nathan Perl-Rosenthal, Professor of History at the University of Southern California, about these new republics, the people they raised up and the new political dispensation they left behind. which is the subject of his new book, The Age of Revolutions and the Generations who Made It.
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How well do we know George Washington, the man—and why have we created so many myths about him? We talk with Edward G. Lengel, award-winning author and teacher, and long-time editor-in-chief of the Washington Papers Project, about this well-known but enigmatic character. Ed Lengel has written about Washington the General, General George Washington: A Military Life, and about Washington the First Entrepreneur: How George Washington Built His-and the Nation’s—Prosperity, and about our continued invention of new Washington’s to suit our times and tempers (Inventing George Washington: America’s Founder in Myth and Memory). We will explore the many facets of Washington and his long career—during his life and after—in American culture.
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Matthew Skic from the Museum of the American Revolution and I talk about their exhibit on the Forten Family of Philadelphia. 9-year old James Forten heard the Declaration of Independence read in July of 1776, and never forgot its promise of liberty and equality. At the age of 14 he signed aboard a privateer, was captured, taken to New York where a British officer offered to release him and send him to England. He refused rather than betray his country. Back in Philadelphia after the war he became a successful businessman--a sail maker--one of the wealthiest Black men in the country, and the chief benefactor of William Lloyd Garrison's newspaper The Liberator. Join us to hear more about James Forten and his family's story.
https://www.amrevmuseum.org/
https://www.amrevmuseum.org/exhibits/black-founders-the-forten-family-of-philadelphia
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A successful military campaign requires the collection of information and the denial of like information to your enemy. George Washington at the head of a nascent army, without such skills, relied heavily upon many clever and entrepreneurial men. To help us shine a light on the murky world of secret communications, Damien Cregeau, scholar and frequent contributor to the Journal of the American Revolution speaks with Professor Robert Allison on espionage in the American War for Independence.
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Do you think partisan intrigue and accusations of foreign meddling are new things? We talk with Tyson Reeder, author of Serpent in Eden: Foreign Meddling and Partisan Politics in James Madison's America, about how threat of foreign influence propelled Madison's thoughts on forming a stronger union, and how Federalists and Republicans tried to secure their own advantage by accusing each other of foreign entanglements. What was the destructive symbiosis between the two political sides, and did Madison—or do we—see a way to overcome the chasm of distrust?
A story from the 19th century told that British soldiers marched off the surrender ground at Yorktown to the tune of "The World Turned Upside Down." Whether true or not is beside the point. The world may indeed have seemed upside down. To help us come to grips with the myriad of ways in which life in the British Atlantic world changed, we talk with historian James Patrick Ambuske, producer and narrator for the "Worlds Turned Upside Down" podcast, a production of R2 Studios at the Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. Jim Ambuske is also the co-director of the Scottish Court of Sessions Digital Archives, and other projects to inspire historians.
Birthplace of American Independence--Ipswich, Massachusetts? In 1687, when King James II tried to take away the power of people in Massachusetts towns to govern themselves, Reverend John Wise of Ipswich lead the town into resistance--leading to his arrest, and the arrest of town leaders. But they stood together--and in an unrelated development, Parliament sent King James packing off to France. When Parliament in the 1760s again tried to assert control, Ipswich stood together, and reminded other Massachusetts patriots of the writings of John Wise. We talk with Gordon Harris, town historian and organizer of the Historic Ipswich website, about the town of Ipswich, the Ipswich Resolves of 1774, and why this small town had such a big impact on the Revolution.
Congress has bestowed on National Mall Liberty Fund DC the honor of establishing a memorial in Washington’s Monumental Core to tens of thousands of African American solders, sailors, marines, patriots and liberty seekers of the Revolutionary War. In preparation for the design and construction of such a memorial, the National Mall Liberty Fund has been working to document the histories and stories of these valiant soldiers. We talk with Maurice Barboza, the Executive Director of the National Mall Liberty Fund.
November 5, 1774, at Fort Gower on the Ohio River, Virginia militiamen vowed that their" Love of Liberty, and Attachment to the real Interests and just Rights of America outweigh every other Consideration," and resolved to use "every Power within us for the Defence of American Liberty, and for the Support of her just Rights and Privileges; not in any precipitate, riotous, or tumultous Manner, but when regularly called forth by the unanimous Voice of our Countrymen." We talk with Chris Matheny, Historic Site Manager at Ohio's Statehouse, about this important event and its impact on the future of Ohio and of the American people.
South Carolina's impact on the outcome of the war as well as the founding of the new nation cannot be overstated. We turn to Walter Edgar, retired George Washington Distinguished Professor of History at the University of South Carolina, host of the popular podcast, “South Carolina from A to Z.” and author of the must-read volume Partisans and Redcoats: The Southern Campaign that Turned the Tide of the American Revolution to untangle the complicated story of the Revolution at its most violent and fascinating.
Did you know that the generation that declared independence from Great Britain were closer to the Mayflower generation than we are to the Independence generation? 150 years after the landing of the Mayflower with 102 passengers on the tip of Cape Cod, their descendants were leading 13 Colonies in a spirited and armed defense of the rights and liberties of mankind. Now, 250 years later we talk with Mark Schmidt, Executive Director of the General Society of Mayflower Descendants, on the lasting impact of that first generation of Colonists, how their descendants saw themselves connected to the empire and how tens of thousands of modern Americans help preserve, promote and commemorate the lives and legacies of their ancestors, passengers of the Mayflower.
https://themayflowersociety.org/
George Rogers Clark conquered the Northwest. Or did he? We talk with Larry Nelson, historian of Ohio, co-author (with David Curtis Skaggs) of The Sixty Years War for the Great Lakes 1754-1814, about the Northwest Territory in the Revolution, and a book about Alexander McKee. This area, larger than the existing 13 colonies, was contested by the Native People who lived in it, the British, Spanish, French, and Americans. Clark could invade it, could win it, but could not keep it. The Revolutionary period was one episode in a long series of wars over this contested middle ground.
She was a wife, mother, confidant, and a social and political advisor during one of the most tumultuous periods of American history. Despite never being elected to an office, in recognition of her power of influence and sagacity her portrait now hangs permanently in the Senate Chamber of the Massachusetts General Court. Few women in the period of the American Revolution and early Republic left behind such a voluminous correspondence as Abigail Adams. As her husband John got further involved in the cause of American independence and sovereignty, Abigail's circle of friends and admirers grew in like proportion, eventually leading her from Weymouth, Massachusetts to the great courts of Europe. We talk with John L. Smith, Jr., , author of The Unexpected Abigail Adams: A Woman not Apt to be Intimidated.
Richard Brookhiser has been writing about American politics for half a century, though he has refreshed himself by writing a dozen books about the founding period, beginning with Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington, with additional books on Gouverneur Morris, James Madison, the Adamses, Alexander Hamilton, and Abraham Lincoln, "the Founders' Son." We talk with him about the political ideas of the founding generation, and how they were viewed in their day-- his next book is on the artist Jonathan Trumbull—and ours.
Henry Knox, Boston book-seller and emerging patriot, in 1774 married Lucy Flucker, daughter of the Provincial Secretary and leading loyalist. Lucy's family would leave with the loyalist evacuation in March 1776, forced out by the cannon Henry brought from Ticonderoga. Lucy would never see them again. She and Henry would exchange more than 500 letters over the course of their married life, letters which Philip Hamilton has used for this window into the Revolutionary world. The Revolutionary War Lives and Letters of Lucy and Henry Knox are from the war--Henry would be with the army from the siege of Boston through Yorktown, and he and Lucy, young, bright, and in love, shared it all.
Phillis Wheatley's poetry continues to inspire and to challenge us. Poets Artress Bethany White and Danielle Legros Georges brought together twenty contemporary Black women poets to reinterpret, or reimagine, Phillis Wheatley Peters' poems. Today, in addition to Artress and Danielle, we are joined by two of the poets, Florence Ladd and Yalie Saweda Kamara. Their collection Wheatley at 250: : Black Women Poets Re-Imagine the Verse of Phillis Wheatley Peters, a poetic conversation among past, present, and future, features both the poems of Phillis Wheatley and their contemporary re-imagining.
Get your copy of Wheatley at 250 here: https://www.pangyrus.com/product/wheatley-at-250/
Liberty Poles were central to the Revolution, as Patriots raised them to symbolize their resistance, and British soldiers tore them down. Americans in the 1790s revived the custom of Liberty Poles, in opposition to the policies of the Washington and Adams administrations. We talk with Shira Lurie, author of .The American Liberty Pole: Popular Politics and the Struggle for Democracy in the Early Republic, about these symbols of liberty and the contentious politics in the Revolution era.
The American Revolution began along the waterfront. We talk with Christopher Magra, author of two books on different aspects of the maritime war: The Fisherman's Cause delves into the role of Massachusetts' cod fishery in the years before the war. and the transformation of fishing vessels into warships; and Poseidon's Curse e shows how Britain's impressment of sailors into the Royal Navy brought on resistance from American sailors and fishermen.
The history of the American Revolution is peppered with the stories of women who perform acts of heroism in service to the cause of Liberty. Women such as Mary Ludwig Hays, Margaret Corbin & Deborah Sampson are among the many heralded for their service. Many more women served as information gatherers for General Washington, and today, Aly Riley, auther of "She Spies; Women of the Revolution" will join us to discuss the role of women in the spy rings of General Washington.
Why are there so few—if any—good movies about the Revolution? Maybe because the right people with the right passion have not made them. Mark O'Rourke is a veteran of the U.S. Army, and an attorney, and has now launched a new mission—producing a film about :1777: Saratoga, the Turning Point of the War.. We talk with Mark O'Rourke about the battle of Saratoga, and the film he hopes to have made in time for the battle's 250th anniversary in October 2027, and how you can help get this story to the screen.
Franklin and Washington loom large for civic virtue and disinterested patriotism, and Madison warned that good and wise statesmen would not always be at the helm, because many of their contemporaries were self-interested schemers and outright liars. We hear from Timothy Hemmis and David Head editors of A Republic of Scoundrels,which introduces us to the schemers, intriguers, and adventurers—such as Aaron Burr, Mathew Lyon, Benedict Arnold, James Wilkinson—who also helped create the new nation.
Maritime insurers not only assessed risk--they built markets and the new nation. During times of war and peace they formed a vital communication and information network. Their capital also helped to finance the war and the development of the American republic. We talk about their world with Hannah Farber, historian of the Revolution and early Republic, and her award-winning book Underwriters of the United States: How Insurance Shaped the American Founding.
The rebellion nearly ended in December 1776, with Washington's army beaten in New York and chased across New Jersey, which the enemy then garrisoned with Hessian troops in Trenton to keep an eye on Washington's dwindling forces across the Delaware. Washington now had fewer than 3000 men, and their enlistments would expire at the end of the year. In this moment of crisis, Washington devised a plan. "There is a natural firmness in some minds," Thomas Paine wrote, "which cannot be unlocked by trifles, but which, when unlocked, discovers a cabinet of fortitude." We discuss what was in that cabinet of fortitude unlocked in December 1776.
Benedict Arnold remains one of the most controversial actors in the history of the American Revolution. His being an undeniable hero of the early years of the conflict made his later betrayal of the American cause all the more shocking. We talk with Jack Kelly about his new book, God Save Benedict Arnold: The True Story of America's Most Hated Man.
With only 4 days to go until the 250th Anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, we talk with Evan O'Brien, Creative Manager of the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum on the weekend of events, the culmination of two years of commemorations and the beginning of the Revolution's 250th. A lot going on between the Tea Party Ships & Museum and Revolutionary Spaces. If you cannot join us in person on December 16, you can livestream the Tea Party on December 16 here, at https://www.december16.org!
Two unlikely tourists traveled through the Hudson Valley and New England in the early summer of 1791, wanting to study the region's flora and fauna as well as the Native American languages. Or were Thomas Jefferson and James Madison on a political mission? We talk with Louis P. Masur, cultural historian, who has written books about Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, photography, baseball, and rock and roll, and is now writing a book about Jefferson and Madison's exploration of this distant country, where they are looking for the Hessian Fly, become enraptured with sugar maples, meet with Native Americans, and meet Prince Taylor, a free African-American farming near Fort George. Masur, the Board of Governors Professor and Distinguished Professor of American Studies and History at Rutgers University, unpacks the world from a grain of sand, and this encounter with Jefferson and Madison in the summer of 1791 tells us much about the remarkable friendship of these two men and the country they helped to bring into being.
Jarheads, Devil Dogs, and Leathernecks are all nicknames that have been used to describe members of the United States Marine Corps. However, their esprit de corps and valor stand as their most iconic and reliable qualities. Many are unaware how The Corps got their start during the American Revolution as a valuable multi-faceted and innovative fighting force equally comfortable in sea fights and land engagements. Join Professor Robert Allison (Suffolk University Department of History, Language & Global Culture) in conversation with Major General Jason Q. Bohm, a 30-year veteran of the United States Marine Corps and author of "Washington's Marines; The Origins of the Corps and the American Revolution, 1775 - 1777."
During his audience with King George III after becoming the first Minister from the United States to the Court of St. James, John Adams said "I have the Honor to assure your Majesty of their unanimous Disposition and Desire to cultivate the most friendly and liberal Intercourse between your Majesty’s Subjects and their Citizens." Adams' assurance has stood the test of time, in no small part due to the many able Ambassadors, Consuls and Diplomats who have represented the United Kingdom in the United States, particularly in Boston Consul-General's office, which opened in 1817. We talk with the current British Consul-General, Dr. Peter Abbott, OBE, who has come to Boston after representing his government in Lisbon, Islamabad, and Washington.
Matthew Wilding is the Director of Education & Interpretation at Revolutionary Spaces, the caretaker for two of Boston's most historic buildings, the Old State House and Old South Meeting House. We talk about their new interpretive ventures--plays, immersive games, walking tours, and exhibits, and about public history in Boston. Matt Wilding discusses new ways to interpret history, including immersive games and comics, such as the "Free Hands" series he has created based on the Golden Age of Piracy.
The allure of America with all of its possibilities brought many people to its shores during the Colonial period. Jewish congregations in Savannah, Charleston, Philadelphia, New York, and Newport formed small but important parts of American society. We talk with Professor Jonathan Sarna, the Joseph H. and Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History at Brandeis University about the impact Jews had on American independence--as soldiers and officers, and as merchants and financiers--and about the impact the American Revolution had on Jews in the United States and beyond. Professor Sarna is the author or co-author more than 30 books on American Jewish history, including American Judaism: A History, which includes a chapter on the Jewish contributions to the Revolution.
The Epic Revolutionary Saga is a planned 7-volume series of novels following Max (Scottie dog), Liz (a French cat) and a coterie of animal friends through the American Revolution. Along the way they meet the central characters on both sides--the Patrick Henry (the Voice), George Washington (the Sword), Thomas Jefferson (the Pen), along with the Marquis de Lafayette, Colonel Banastre Tarleton, and a host of others in the founding of the United States. We talk with author Jenny L. Cote, creator of the series, about the ways these books and her related projects engage younger audiences in the story of the American Revolution and the ideals it represents. She has partnered with the National Park Service to create Epic Patriot Camp, to inspire young authors to write their own stories about the Revolution.
In her new book "Battle Green Vietnam," Elise Lemire examines what must be the most controversial anti-war march ever. On Memorial Day weekend in 1971, 400 Vietnam Veterans engaged in "Operation POW" during which the Veterans marched from Concord Bridge to Bunker Hill. Join Professor Robert Allison (Suffolk University Department of Language, History & Global Culture) in conversation with Elise Lemire, Professor of Literature at Purchase College, SUNY.
https://www.battlegreenvietnam.com/
Playwright Patrick Gabridge uses theatre to convey the human story of the Revolution and other historic events. Through his "Plays in Place" he and actors have told the stories of the Boston Massacre in the Council Chamber of the Old State House, the decision for independence at Old North Church, as well as the stories of abolitionists and others at Mount Auburn Cemetery. The scenes are local, the human dimension is universal. He is also the author of non-historical plays, screenplays, and novels, and an engaging story-teller using the power of place to tell America's Revolutionary story.
http://www.gabridge.com
Stacy Schiff's biography of Samuel Adams, The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams
is a milestone in Revolutionary-era biographies, and introduces a complex and engaging political character--his main focus was liberty, and he learned how to shape a revolutionary movement to secure it. Pulitzer-prize winning biographer Stacy Schiff--born in the town of Adams, Massachusetts tells us about the Samuel Adams we thought we knew, and the one we should know.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow forever etched Paul Revere's name in the pantheon of Revolutionary heroes with his poem "Paul Revere's Ride." William Dawes and Samuel Prescott have joined Revere as celebrated alarm riders of April 18, 1775. However, even the addition of those two riders does not fully tell the story of the Lexington Alarm. Alan Foulds tells us about others, including Martin Herrick of Reading, who spread the alarm on April 18 and 19 and the role of the communities of Lynn, Lynnfield & Reading in the American Revolution.
Tadeusz Kościuszko was 30 years old when he emigrated to America to join the cause in support of American Independence. The recommendation he carried from Benjamin Franklin and other friends in France earned him a Colonel's commission, and his engineering skills were especially useful as Kościuszko designed the fortifications along the Hudson River, most notably, West Point. After the War, he was active in trying to establish a free Poland, and trying to eradicate slavery in America. We talk with Kiersten Marcil, author of a series of time-travel novels about the Revolution, including Witness to the Revolution.
In December of 1777, the 12,000 man army of General George Washington marched into Valley Forge to build a winter encampment. In addition to the soldiers, more than 400 women were in the column. They were not only the wives of senior officers but the wives of soldiers who had followed the army since it was assembled. We learn about these women, as well as others who nursed, cooked, sewed, washed and otherwise helped keep the army together from Nancy K. Loane, author of Following the Drum: Women and the Valley Forge Encampment.
On December 14, 1774, John Langdon and a group New Hampshire Patriots stomed the lightly garrisoned Fort William & Mary to seize upon the store of gunpowder held in the fort. Join Professor Robert Allison (Suffolk University Department of History, Language & Global Culture) in conversation with Independent historian Sarah Vedrani on the 1774 raid on Fort William & Mary.
How well do we know the Boston Tea Party? Did you know that almost as much tea landed in Charleston, South Carolina--and in Boston--as was destroyed? What happened to the tea that went to Charleston, Philadelphia, and New York? What happened to the tea from the William, that wrecked on Cape Cod? We talk with James Fichter, author of Tea: Consumption, Politics, and Revolution 1773-1776, about the tea's arrival in places other than Boston, and how tea became a symbol and why boycotts were so difficult to maintain. Why was the tea so important? Why didn't the colonists break bottles of Madeira? How old was the tea the East India Company was selling? Where did the tea come from? Who drank tea? This conversation gives us much to think about!
George and Martha Washington did not have any children together although Martha had several from her first marriage to Daniel Parke Custis. These children and numerous nieces and nephews became a regular part of the Mt. Vernon family and due to George Washington's high profile public offices, they played an outsized role in the Early American Republic. Join Professor Robert Allison (Suffolk University Department of History, Language & Global Culture) in conversation with Professor Cassandra Good (Marymount University), author of First Family, George Washington's Heirs and the Making of America.
https://cassandragoodhistorian.com/
https://www.amazon.com/First-Family-George-Washingtons-America/dp/1335449515
Amongst the other cargo carried to Boston on the ships that brought "the detested tea," in 1773 was a doll that has become known as the "Polly Sumner Doll" named for its original owner. This common-place and familiar object is a powerful tie between the community of Boston and the dramatic events that took place on December 16, 1773. The story of the Polly Sumner doll is now told in a beautiful storybook written by Richard C. Wiggin. The doll is also currently on display in an exhibit at the Old South Meeting House on the Revolutionary Spaces campus. Join Professor Robert Allison (Suffolk University Department of History, Language & Global Culture) in conversation with Richard C. Wiggin, author of "Polly Sumner; Witness to the Boston Tea Party."
http://www.pollysumner.com
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/polly-sumner-witness-to-the-boston-tea-party-richard-c-wiggin/1142740730
We go on the road, for the first of our "Revolution 'Round the Corner" podcasts! Today we visit the Edmund Fowle House in Watertown. Built by cordwainer Edmund Fowle in 1772, it was still unfinished when the Massachusetts Provincial Congress leased it two years later to house the Provincial Council--with Boston occupied by British troops and the charter government suspended by General Gage, the elected government moved to Watertown. The Provincial Congress met in the Meeting House across the street, and the Council met upstairs at the Edmund Fowle House. Here on July 19, 1776, they made the independent country's first international treaty, with the Mi'kmaq Nation, the first to recognize American independence.
We take a tour of the Edmund Fowle House with Marilynne Roach and Joyce Kelly from the Historical Society of Watertown, which has been restoring this remarkable place!
From the moment he made his appearance at the Siege of Boston, Nathanael Greene impressed his superior officers. Despite being from a Quaker family, Greene put aside his Quaker faith and successful business to lead Rhode Island troops in support of the people of Massachusetts. Join Professor Robert Allison (Suffolk University Department of History, Language & Global Culture) in conversation with author Janet Uhlar on her book, "Freedom's Cost: The Story of General Nathanael Greene."
https://www.amazon.com/Freedoms-Cost-General-Nathanael-Greene/dp/B0C6N948LL/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1M5J51LDUFWKN&keywords=janet+uhlar&qid=1691549404&sprefix=janet+uhlar%2Caps%2C115&sr=8-1
When the British surrendered at Yorktown, the war ended and American independence was secure. Or was it? The British still occupied Savannah, Charleston, and New York City, and the Congress was not able to pay the American army. During the two years between Cornwallis's surrender and the final British evacuation, George Washington faced one of the gravest crises in American history--an attempt by some of his officers to usurp the authority of Congress and establish themselves in power. Would Washington go along? We talk with William M. Fowler, author of American Crisis: George Washington and the Dangerous Two Years After Yorktown 1781-1783. You thought winning the war was difficult--wait till you hear about winning the peace!
Adam Smith, born in 1723 and the father of modern economic theory, remains one of the most influential writers on markets development and state formation. Join Professor Robert Allison (Suffolk University Department of History, Language & Global Culture) in conversation with Professor Peter Onuf, Thomas Jefferson Foundation Professor Emeritus in the Corcoran Department of History at the University of Virginia and the Senior Research Fellow at the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies (Monticello) and currently Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School.
New Jersey was the "Crossroads of the American Revolution." Historian Todd Braisted's book The Grand Forage 1778gives us insight into the events in New Jersey as both armies sought provisions and advantage. Todd Braisted also maintains the website Royal Provincial telling the stories of the New Jerseyans and others who fought for the Crown.
While the American Revolution brought independence to much of colonial America, the indigenous peoples of America, even those like the Oneida who supported the American cause, found themselves suffering in the new Republic. Historian James Kirby Martin joins us to talk about Forgotten Allies: The Oneida Indians and the American Revolution.
For this 4th of July - Iconic words. Life. Liberty. Pursuit of Happiness. Life and Liberty may be self explanatory, but what, to the minds of the Founders, was the Happiness to be Pursued. In his new book "Pursuit of Happiness," President and CEO of the National Constitution Center chases down the meaning of happiness according to the men who wrote those immortal words. Join Professor Robert Allison (Suffolk University Department of History, Language & Global Culture) & Jeffrey Rosen (National Constitution Center) in a conversation on the pursuit of happiness.
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Pursuit-of-Happiness/Jeffrey-Rosen/9781668002476
https://constitutioncenter.org/
Fashion has always been a sign of status and wealth and even in colonial America this was true. The outbreak of protests against British ministerial tyranny resulted in boycotts against British imports, a newly inspired interest in domestic manufacture, and cloth and clothing imports from other European nations. Join Professor Robert Allison (Suffolk University) in conversation with Professor Kimberly Alexander (University of New Hampshire) on fashion and fabric during the American Revolution.
Josiah Quincy, known as "Josiah the Patriot" was one of the brilliant lights of the Revolutionary cause in Boston. He came from a well-known and well-respected family and as a young lawyer he worked with John Adams to defend Captain Thomas Preston in his trial for murder stemming from the Boston Massacre. Learn more about this impressive young man who died in 1775, depriving a soon-to-be independent America from his passion for liberty and the rights of man. Professor Robert Allison (Suffolk University) speaks with author Janet Uhlar on Josiah Quincy, Jr.
The Jeffersonians, a new book by Professor Kevin Gutzman, is a chronicle of three presidents, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and James Monroe, also known as the Virginian Dynasty. Together they oversaw 24 years of governing the Early American Republic. While they are generally considered among the best Presidents in American history, yet they struggled with some of America's thorniest issues. Join Professor Robert Allison (Suffolk University Department of History, Language & Global Culture) in conversation with Professor Kevin Gutzman, Professor of History at Western Connecticut University.
https://www.amazon.com/Jeffersonians-Kevin-R-C-Gutzman/dp/1250135451/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=the+jeffersonians+by+kevin+gutzman&qid=1686678332&sprefix=the+jeffersonians%2Caps%2C151&sr=8-1
John Hancock, the most famous signer of the Declaration of Independence, was a man of contradictions. He was a man born into privilege, and yet he became one of the most passionate voices for the rights of the common man. He was a wealthy man of business, but longed for military glory. Join Professor Robert Allison (Suffolk University Department of History, Language & Global Culture) in conversation with Brooke Barbier, author of the soon to be released "King Hancock, the Radical Influence of a Moderate Founding Father."
https://www.yeoldetaverntours.com/
https://www.amazon.com/King-Hancock-Influence-Moderate-Founding/dp/0674271777
April 19, 1775 is long remembered for the march of the British Army to Lexington & Concord and the resulting day-long retreat under heavy fire by local militia units. Less well known is the tale of the hundreds of women, children and elders who fled their homes, some of them burning, along the route of the battle. Join Professor Robert Allison (Suffolk University) in conversation with Alexander Cain, founder of the popular blog "Historical Nerdery," and the author of "We Stood Our Ground: Lexington in the First Year of the American Revolution" and "I See Nothing but the Horrors of a Civil War."
https://www.historicalnerdery.com/
https://www.amazon.com/See-Nothing-But-Horrors-Civil/dp/1090942036/ref=sr_1_4?crid=1B702L3T75UWO&keywords=alexander+cain&qid=1685462063&sprefix=%2Caps%2C139&sr=8-4
https://www.amazon.com/Stood-Our-Ground-Alexander-Cain/dp/1980780366/ref=sr_1_6?qid=1685462092&refinements=p_27%3AAlexander+Cain&s=books&sr=1-6&text=Alexander+Cain
George Wythe is one of the most interesting, important, and least known of the founders. The second law professor in the English-speaking world (the first was William Blackstone), he taught the law to Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, Henry Clay, and others. He also was one of the few Virginia leaders to free the people he owned, and he taught at least one Latin, Greek, and the Law before being poisoned, at the age of 80, by a jealous nephew. George Wythe, signer of the Declaration of Independence, deserves to be better known, and Wythepedia is where to begin. Join us in conversation with Steven Blaiklock and Linda Tesar from the Wolf Law Library at the College of William and Mary in a conversation about George Wythe, the law, and the Revolution in Virginia.
Colin G. Calloway, the John Kimball, Jr. 1943 Professor of History and a professor of Native American Studies at Dartmouth College has led the study of Indigenous Americans. He has written more than a dozen books, including The American Revolution in Indian Country (1995) and The Chiefs Now in This City (2021) on Native Americans and early American urbanization. His 2018 The Indian World of George Washington was a finalist for the National Book Award, and received Mount Vernon's George Washington Prize. Join us for a conversation about Native Americans and the Revolution.
The Oneida Nation supported the Americans in the War for Independence, an alliance that would have profound consequences for the Americans, the Oneida, and the Iroquois Confederation. James Kirby Martin, one of the Revolutionary-era's leading scholars, joins us to give the background to the Oneida's decision, in the first of two parts of a conversation on the Forgotten Allies: the Oneida in the Revolutionary War, the subject of one of Professor Martin's many books.
December 20, 1777, the kingdom of Morocco became the first to recognize the United States of America as an independent and sovereign nation. Join Professor Robert Allison (Suffolk University) in conversation with Anouar Majid, Vice President for Global Affairs at the University of New England and Director of the Center for Global Humanities.
The institution of slavery impacted American foreign relations in significant ways from the Revolution to the Civil War. Historian Steve Brady from the Columbian College of Arts & Sciences discusses these connections in his new book, Chained to History: Slavery and United States Foreign Relations to 1865. He sits down to discuss these many connections, from Article 7 of the Treaty of Paris, to the Haitian Revolution, prohibition of the international slave trade in 1807, the War of 1812 and acquisition of Florida, the Amphictyonic Conferencein Panama, and the role of the Adams generations in the tangled history.
What better way to commemorate Patriot's Day than the discuss with award-winning author Bob Gross his inspirational study of Concord on the eve of the American Revolution, The Minutemen and their World: 50th Anniversary Edition. First published in 1976 and long considered a touchstone in historical study, and now in a revised and expanded edition, Gross's changed how we understand the experiences of one small town on the road to American Independence, and how history is researched, written and presented. We also discuss Professor Gross's sequel, The Transcendentalists and their World, a community study of Concord in the era of Thoreau and Emerson.
The publication of Thomas Hutchinson's secret letters to London politicos outraged Massachusetts citizens, as Hutchinson advised the British establishment on how to suppress colonial dissent and insulted those who disagreed with British policy. Ultimately, when it was learned that Benjamin Franklin had leaked the letters, Franklin's reputation was ruined in England, and he became an undisputed revolutionary. But how did Franklin get the secret letters? Jeremy Bell, author of three books on William Hogarth, joins us to unravel this 250-year old mystery, and tell us about Franklin as an associate of Sir Francis Dashwood and other members of the "Hell-Fire Club" one of many stories that Jeremy weaves in "Ben Franklin's Sit-down Walking Tour of Boston," at the Bell in Hand. He shares some of this, as well as other enduring questions, and tells us his own favorite dramatic portrayal of Franklin, was in "Sons of Liberty," with Dean Norris from "Breaking Bad" as "Bad Ass Ben."
The greatness of George Washington is undeniable. He gave his all, not only in securing independence for the United States of America, but in uniting those states. George could not have done what he did without the love and support of his beloved Martha who not only aided George while on campaign, but also, with Lund Washington, kept Mt. Vernon a vibrant plantation in his absence. Join Professor Robert Allison (Suffolk University Chair, Department of History, Language & Global Culture) in conversation with Sandy Spector as Martha Washington.
https://themrswashington.com/
Join Professor Robert Allison (Chair, Suffolk University Department of History, Language & Global Culture) in conversation with Eugene Procknow, author of "William Hunter; Finding Free Speech." During the American Revolution, William Hunter accompanied his father & the 26th Regiment of Foot on a campaign to fight the American Rebels. Hunter's diary is the only surviving account written by a child of a British soldier during the American Revolution.
https://www.amazon.com/William-Hunter-Finding-Soldiers-American/dp/1620065657/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1YUJZMV751AHD&keywords=william+hunter+finding+free+speech&qid=1680018333&sprefix=william+hunter+finding+free+speech%2Caps%2C145&sr=8-1
https://researchingtheamericanrevolution.com/
From 1776 through the end of the war, Anthony Wayne was at the forefront of a defensive line, or in leading the rear guard staving off a British attack on American forces. Intelligent, stubborn, argumentative, bold and daring, Wayne also was a womanizer with a fondness for drink who semed to have lost the trust of Washington when, in 1791, the President entrusted him with building an army to maintain peace in Ohio after two American armies had already been devastated by Native American forces led by Litle Turtle and other warriors. Wayne was Washington's 16th choice for the assignment. We talk with Mary Stockwell author of Unlikely General: "Mad" Anthony Wayne and the Battle for America about Anthony Wayne's unlikely career, and his fidelity to the cause of American liberty.
Benjamin Franklin was one of America's most famous citizens. He was a printer, scientist, philosopher, diplomat, inventor, postmaster and a self-proclaimed lover of women. Nancy Rubin Stuart tells us about some of the women Franklin loved, in three countries and two continents, including his wife Deborah, Madame Brillon and Madame Helvetius, Margaret Stevenson and her daughter Polly, and Kitty Ray of Block Island, whose lives intertwined with Franklin's, and whose stories she tells in her new book, Poor Richard's Women: Deborah Read Franklin and the Other Women behind the Founding Father.
Though he didn't arrive in America until 1780, the impact of Major General Francois-Jean de Chastellux on the outcome of the siege of Yorktown and the life-long friendship he enjoyed with General George Washington was profound. Join Professor Robert Allison (Chair, Suffolk University Department of History, Language & Global Culture) in conversation with Iris de Rode, author of a new biography of Major General Francois-Jean Chastellux.
We talk with Joel Bohy, Director of Historic Arms & Miltaria at Bruneau & Co. Auctioneers, and a regular appraiser on Antiques Road Show, about the weapons and equipment used on April 19, 1775. Muskets, powderhorns, and the stories of the people who carried them.
Smallpox--the most devastating disease in human history--struck the American colonies in 1773. Andrew Wehrman (Central Michigan University) joins us to talk about the political responses to the disease, in Marblehead and Salem, Massachusetts, and Norfolk, Virginia, and what Americans learned about the contagion and how to combat it, as he discusses in his new book, Contagion of Liberty: The Politics of Smallpox in the American Revolution.
We talk with James Madison, President, Secretary of State, Congressman, architect of the Constitution, and political player in a wide-ranging conversation about politics, religion, slavery, Dolley Madison, and some of the people he knew. Our discussion was facilitated by Kyle Jenks, and we are grateful to @madisonportrayer for this opportunity to talk with the "Great Little Madison."
Find Mr. Madison on Instagram @Madisonportrayer, or @leaguemostinterestinggentlemen
Every year on Election Day the new Massachusetts Assembly would take their seats, and would mark the occasion with a sermon delivered by one of the clergy. Jeffrey Griffith has analyzed the Election Sermons from 1763 to 1793, and the themes and messages clergy delivered during this time of Revolution and change. Among his other interests are the career of John Hancock--whose grandfather delivered the sermon in the 1720s--and whose visage graced a trading card in the 1890s--and hockey cards.
Historians owe their livelihoods to the archives of historical material spread throughout the world. However, archives were not established as mere repositories of historical memory, but rather as tools of statecraft and empire! We talk with Asheesh Kapur Siddique, (from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, about archives and empire, and his path-breaking scholarship into 18th-century history. .
The John Carter Brown Library is one of the premier research libraries in America, with collections on the entire hemisphere. We talk with https://kariKarin Wulf, the Beatrice and Julio Mario Santo Domingo Director of the John Carter Brown Library about their extraordinary holdings, as well as her pioneering work in early American history, and her forthcoming work on genealogy and on the historical world of Esther Forbes.
The American privateer Marlborough set out in 1777-1778 to disrupt British trade and enrich its crew and owners by capturing British merchantmen. The Marlborough focused on Britain's slave trade, attacking the slave-trading port at the Isle de Los off today's Guinea. This successful raid, and other attacks by American privateers on British slavers, had repercussions for the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. We talk with Christian McBurney, author of Dark Voyage: An American Privateer's War on Britain's African Slave Trade.
What did the French hope to gain by siding with the Americans in the Revolution? We talk with Norman Desmarais, Professor emeritus from Providence College, about his book America's First Ally: France in the Revolutionary War, and we hear other stories of this fraught alliance. Norm Desmarais has also translated the Gazette Francois, a newspaper the French forces published in Newport, and has written a six-volume Guide to the Revolutionary War, and Battlegrounds of Freedom, a guide to Revolutionary-war battlefields.
Merchant, smuggler & patriot, William Molineux if forgotten now, but was a leading voice among the Boston Sons of Liberty. His hands were in many if not most of the protests that occurred in Boston between the 1765 Stamp Act and the protests of 1774, when he died suddenly, some think by his own hand. One historian who has not forgotten Molineux is J. L. Bell, creator of the Boston 1775 blog and author of The Road to Concord: How Four Stolen Cannons Ignited the Revolutionary War.We learn more about William Molineux and his extraordinary career and influence.
Shays's Rebellion--or the Regulators of Massachusetts--tested many of the precepts for which the American Revolution was fought. We talk with author Daniel Bullen, about his book, Daniel Shays' Honorable Rebellion, which tells the story of regular people banding together and keeping the peace during five months of protests, protecting their liberty and property from the speculators and financiers and speculators seeking to profit at their expense.
Following the evacuation of Boston in March of 1776, London authorities knew that Britain's small British alone could not possibly conquer the American continent. King George III, also the Elector of Hanover, reached out to his German relations and other allied provinces to provide auxiliary forces to send to America. Arriving first at New York in 1776, about 30,000 German soldiers would serve in the American War for Independence. Friederike Baer, Associate Professor & Division Head of the Arts & Sciences at Pennsylvania State University's Abington College, joins us to talk about their experiences, which she tells in her new book Hessians: German Soldiers in the American Revolutionary War, the first comprehensive account of the German experience in the American war.
American colonial leaders in the 1760's and 1770's insisted that they were just asserting their rights as free-born subjects of British empire. They believed that English Constitution was the greatest source of freedom on Earth and their forefathers who came to America did not intend to separate themselves from that Constitution. In time, of course, they sought a different path. Guy Chet, Professor of History at the University of North Texas, talks with us about his latest book, The Colonists' American Revolution: Preserving English Liberty 1607-1783.
In "Ten Crucial Days" between December 25, 1776, and January 3, 1777, George Washington and his small force saved the Revolution. Roger S. Williams joins us to talk about these ten crucial days, and the programs he sponsors at Washington's Crossing Park, the Trenton Battlefield, and in Princeton. Find out about the tours and events in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and the musical, "The Crossing," offered here to high school groups who want to perform this story--or hear the music. Inspiring stories!
On this day, 251 years ago, we would find ourselves in the middle of a trial of 8 British Soldiers on trial for murder over the events that occurred on the night of March 5, 1770, known as the Boston Massacre. During that night, British soldiers fired into a crowd of Bostonians who had gathered on King Street and were threatening a British sentry. The resulting skirmish left 4 Bostonians killed outright and several more wounded, some mortally.
This radio play was originally written by Professor Joseph McEttrick and originally produced by Suffolk University Law School and the Bostonian Society.
This production was produced by Revolution 250, recorded and edited by Chart Productions and directed by Evan O'Brien.
In museums and historical societies all across the nation there are artifacts related to the American Revolution and the cause of American Independence. J.L. Bell, who maintains a terrific blog on Boston in the Revolution, tells us about vials of tea found in museums throughout New England. Did they come off the ships in December 1773? J.L. Bell is also the author of The Road To Concord:, on four stolen cannon that ignited the Revolution, and countless articles, essays, and even comics on the Revolutionary period.
The Boston Town Meeting issued a report on the state of their liberties, and other towns responded, establishing Committees of Correspondence to communicate with one another. This revolutionary step brought the towns of Massachusetts together in a common cause. All this happened 250 years ago this fall, in October and November of 1772. Professor Robert Allison (Chair, Suffolk University Department of History, Language & Global Culture) explores these crucial local committees and their impact on America's Road to Independence.
The Boston Tea Party (December 16, 1773) was an event wreathed in secrecy and dissembling. John Adams famously declaimed that the never knew any person who was involved in the destruction of the East India Company tea, and yet as time passed and the American Republic seemed secure, participants claimed, were identified or admitted to being part of the tea's destruction. In preparation for the 250th Anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, The Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum is attempting to identify and commemoratively mark the graves of all known participants of the Boston Tea Party.
Join Professor Robert Allison (Chair, Suffolk University Department of History, Language & Global Culture) in conversation with Kristin Harris, Research Associate of the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum on the Boston Tea Party participant grave marking project.
The 1691 Massachusetts Charter established the office of Royal Governor. The office lasted 85, until 1776, when Governor Thomas Gage left with the British forces on March 17. While Gage was the last of the Royal Governors, the actions of his two predecessors, Francis Bernard and Thomas Hutchinson did much to make the bring down the royal governorship. Roberta DeCenzo on the Last Royal Governors of Massachusetts.
The Colonial Society of Massachusetts has digitized the papers of Governors Francis Bernard and Thomas Hutchinson.
One of the aspects of life in the American Colonies that was disrupted by the American Revolution is that of religion. British imperial protestantism helped to drive support for the British Empire but the conflict between the Colonies and the mother country forced a recalibration of the role of religion in the lives of 18th-century citizens across the empire.
Join Professor Bob Allison (Chair, Suffolk University Chair, Department of History, Language & Global Culture) in conversation with Professor Katherine Carté of Southern Methodist University on her award-winning book, "Religion and the American Revolution."
https://uncpress.org/book/9781469662640/religion-and-the-american-revolution/
African Founders, the latest work by award-winning author David Hackett Fischer, examines the interactions and intertwinings of Africans and their culture as it integrated into the European base culture that the American colonists brought from there. This majestic work illustrates how enslaved Africans and their descendants enlarged American ideas of freedom in varying ways in different regions of the early United States.
Join Professor Robert Allison (Chair, Suffolk University Department of History, Language & Global Culture) in coversation with David Hackett Fischer, Warren Professor of History emeritus at Brandeis University.
Ian Ruskin, author, actor, and activist joins us to talk about his one man-show, " To Begin the World Over Again: The Life of Thomas Paine," which he will be performing at the Boston Public Library on November 1, 2, and 3! We sit down to talk about the extraordinary life of Thomas Paine, the most radical of the founding generation, who still speaks to us today.
General Nathanael Greene is one of the most important officers of Washington's inner circle from the American Revolutionary War. Rising rapidly from the officer commanding Rhode Island troops at the siege of Boston to the officer responsible for supplying the nascent American army, Greene solidified his reputation as one of Washington's most dependenable general officers during his campaign in the South. We talk with Salina Baker, award winning author of the fantasy American Revolution series, Angels and Patriots,, about her forthcoming book on Nathanael Greene.
Professor Robert Allison (Chair, Suffolk University Department of History, Language & Global Culture) discusses the June 1772 King's Bench decision by Lord Chief Justice Mansfield in the case of Somerset v. Stewart, long heralded as the first shot fired in the long history of anti-slavery jurisprudence.
Join Professor Robert Allison (Chair, Suffolk University Department of History, Language & Global Culture) in conversation with the author of "Feeding Washington's Army" (UNC Press, 2022), Rick Herrera, an award-winning author and a professor in the Department of National Security Studies, US Army War College. Previously, he was Professor of Military History at the School of Advanced Military Studies, US Army Command and General Staff College. He specializes in eighteenth and nineteenth-century American military history, and is a recipient of the Society for Military History's Moncado Prize, Distinguished Writing Awards from the Army Historical Foundation.
Feeding Washington's Army - https://uncpress.org/book/9781469667317/feeding-washingtons-army/
For Liberty and the Republic - https://nyupress.org/9781479819942/for-liberty-and-the-republic/
Before he was a "Founding Father," James Madison was a politician. He shaped a political system to work when, as he said, "good and wise statesmen are not at the helm." Join Professor Bob Allison (Chair, Suffolk University Department of History, Language & Global Culture) talking with Jay Cost, Gerald R. Ford Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, Director of Grove City College's Institute for Faith and Freedom, author of James Madison: America's First Politician, about Madison's long political career, his allies and adversaries, and his influence on American politics.
Scholars have long advocated for a wider understanding and interpretation of the events of the American Revolution, with the idea that the fight for American Independence touched the lives of many who have not been adequately represented in our history books. Join Professor Robert Allison (Chair, Suffolk University Department of History, Language & Global Culture) in conversation with Kathleen Duval, Professor of History at the University of North Carolina, and author of "Independence Lost, Lives on the Edge of the American Revolution."
Old North Church , officially Christ Church in Boston, is the city's oldest church--built in 1723--and is still a functioning parish. It has one of the oldest church organs in the country, four seventeenth-century Belgian angels which were destined for a church in Quebec, and an eighteenth-century clock that still keeps time. It is most known for two lanterns hung in the steeple on April 18, 1775, but there is much more to the story, as we hear from Nikki Stewart, the Executive Director of the Old North Foundation, which organizes the educational and visitor programs at this venerable place. We find out more about the history of Old North and its parishioners.
Governor William Shirley built an elegant estate in Roxbury while serving as Royal Governor of Massachusetts. The fortunes of Shirley Place, now known as the Shirley-Eustis House, became tied up in the political upheaval of the Revolution, and ultimately the House became the home of William Eustis, a Revolutionary War surgeon who served as a member of Congress, Secretary of War, & as Ambassador to Netherlands before becoming Governor of Massachusetts. We talk with Tamsen George former Executive Director of the Shirley-Eustis House, and author of a new biography of William Eustis, Allegiance: The Life and Times of William Eustis.
The Mohawk River valley of New York was one of many "frontier" areas that saw constant raiding and skirmishing during the American Revolution. We talk with Brian Mack, one of the volunteers bringing to life the Fort Plain Museum & Historical Park, about the Revolution along the Mohawk River and the impact it had on the indigenous peoples and European settlers who lived there. We talk about Sir William Johnson, Molly Brant and her brother Joseph Brant (Thayendaga), and Walter Edmunds' Drums Along the Mohawk, book and movie, as well as the Conferences the Fort Plain Museum hosts every year.
The Massachusetts State Archives was created in the early 19th-century to organize and preserve the millions of pages of documents which a historian can use to trace the entire history of the Commonwealth from the original 1629 Royal Charter to the proceedings of last year's State Legislature. Join Bob Allison in conversation with Michael Comeau, Executive Director of the Massachusetts State Archives and John Hannigan, curator in an exploration of the Archives and the many treasures it contains.
Join Professor Robert Allison (Chair, Suffolk University Department of History, Language & Global Culture) in conversation with the award-winning novelist, and Boston native, William Martin. Together they will plumb the depths of "Citizen Washington," Martin's masterful exploration of America's first great hero, George Washington.
Benjamin Franklin was the most famous American of his day. But he became famous as a subject of the British Empire, and he believed in the Empire. How did he become an American? For our 100th episode, we talk with Gordon Wood, author of The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin, and many other books on the Revolutionary era, about this most fascinating and most elusive of the founders. It is always a pleasure to talk with Gordon Wood, who joined us for our first episode in 2020.
Privateering enjoys a somewhat spotty historical reputation being considered little more than state-sponsored piracy. There is no denying the importance of privateers to the cause of Independence during the American Revolution for which they provided necessary military supplies, foodstuffs and merchantable goods that were sold to help supply the Continental treasury. Moreover, privateering provided the people with some of their first American maritime heroes. Join Professor Bob Allison (Chair, Suffolk University Department of History, Language & Global Culture) in conversation with Eric Jay Dolin, author of "Rebels at Sea; Privateering in the American Revolution."
How did Americans in the generations following the Declaration of Independence translate its lofty ideals into practice? A conversation with Richard D. Brown, author of Self-Evident Truths: Contesting Equal Rights from the Revolution to the Civil War. We talk about religious liberty, Ephraim Wheeler, the rights (or lack of rights) of women, and also about Richard Brown's first book Revolutionary Politics in Massachusetts: The Committees of Correspondence and the Towns 1772-1774, and about the September issue of the New England Quarterly,which will focus on the influence of Bernard Bailyn.
Two portraits that hang in the collection of the Hingham Historical Society have been identified as those of Henry & Christian (Arbuthnot) Barnes, a merchant-farmer and his wife who lived in Marlborough, Massachusetts at the outset of the American Revolution. The artist of their portraits was an enslaved African man who signed his only other known portrait, "Prince Demah Barnes," an enslaved African in the Barnes household. Join Professor Bob Allison (Chair, Suffok University Department of History, Language & Global Culture) in conversation with Paula Bagger, President of the Hingham Historical Society on the life of Prince Demah, the Barnes portraits and the work of the Hingham Historical Society.
The Boston of today is vastly different from that of 1775 so how can we find the 18th century landscape that the Sons of Liberty knew in the landscape of today? Josiah George, Assistant Creative and Production Manager of the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum n a virtual ramble over the 18th-century Boston landscape, using the John Bonner Map (1722) as a guide. We also discuss aspects of the Boston Tea Party--where were the ships built? --you might not have thought about.
June 10, 2022 marked the 250th anniversary of the burning of the HMS Gaspee by members of the Sons of Liberty in Rhode Island. It was preceded by the Stamp Act protests and the armed conflict between the colonial militia of North Carolina and a group of protestors known as "The Regulators." Join Professor Bob Allison (Chair, Suffolk University Department of History, Language, & Global Culture) in conversation with Abby Chandler, Associate Professor of Early American History at the University of Massachusetts Lowell as they explore the strife and colonial disputes of the 1760's and 1770's.
In this provocative new biography of Eliza Harriot, Mary Sarah Bilder looks to the 1780s—the Age of the Constitution—to investigate the rise of a radical new idea in the English-speaking world: Female Genius.. Bilder finds the perfect exemplar of this phenomenon in English-born Eliza Harriot Barons O’Connor. This pathbreaking female educator delivered a a lecture at the University of Pennsylvania attended by George Washington as he and other Constitutional Convention delegates gathered in Philadelphia. A conversation with author and Professor Mary Sarah Bilder, Founders Professor of Law at Boston College Law School.
On September 5, 1778, Major General Charles Grey landed a column of 4,000 men at New Bedford, Massachusetts to suppress privateering. The column marched swiftly and destroyed all of the maritime trade in the harbor and many of the support facilities on shore. Unfortunately many houses and shops were destroyed in the conflagration. They marched on to Fairhaven looting and burning as they marched. Join Professor Bob Allison (Suffolk University Chair of the Department of History, Language, & Global Culture) in conversation with Jonathan Lane, Coordinator of Revolution 250.
Some of the American Colonies managed to escape a major military engagement happening within their borders. That is not to say that they excaped from the trials and deprivations of war, however, and some of the colonies closest to the British Headquarters of New York suffered from continuous raids by the Britsh army and navy. Join Professor Bob Allison (Suffolk University Department of History, Language & Global Culture) in an exploration of the American Revolution along the Connecticut coast.
History is written by the victors, but to understand history we need to take a more nuanced look. What about the people who not only were skeptical about American Independence, but actively opposed it? Join this conversation about Loyalists with Eileen Ka-May Cheng, the Sarah Yates Exley Chair in Teaching Excellence at Sarah Lawrence College, author of The Plain and Noble Garb of Truth,and a forthcoming book about the loyalists.
Who were the privateers who helped win American independence--and what were their motives? We talk with Kylie Hulbert from Hampden-Sydney College about her book, The Untold War At Sea: America's Revolutionary Privateers.Some 52,000 men served on between 1500 and two thousand privateering voyages, sailing after British vessels in the Caribbean, off the coast of Brazil, and in European waters. How effective were the privateers? What motivated these men to sail? ho financed the voyages?
The burning of the HMS Gaspee in June 1772 had a profound impact on the struggle for American Independence. Was it an opportune act of defiance, or was it a carefully orchestrated statement against the growing power of the British crown? Steven Park, author of The Burning of His Majesty's Schooner Gaspee: An Attack on Crown Rule before the American Revolution , an event commemorated every June with Rhode Island's Gaspee Days.
New Jersey occupies a unique position in the American Revolution. We talk with Jim Gigantino, historian at the University of Arkansas, who has written and researched on the role of New Jersey in the Revolution, and the impact of the American Revolution on the Garden State, which became a battleground. His first book, Ragged Road to Abolition, on slavery and emancipation in New Jersey (where slavery continued until the Civil War). Professor Gigantino also edited The American Revolution in New Jersey: Where the Battlefront meets the Home Front. His most recent book William Livingston's American Revolution, explores the career of Livingston, a prominent New Yorker political writer who "retired" to New Jersey, only to become its war-time governor, as well as a signer of the Constitution. New Jersey played a pivotal role in the Revolution, and the Revolution may have impacted the people of New Jersey more than any other state.
When the British captured Philadelphia, the seat of the American Congress, in September of 1777 General Howe delivered a decisive blow to American morale. A month later, Howe tried to consolidate his gains with an attack on the American fortification on the Delaware River at Fort Mercer, now Red Bank, New Jersey, and across the river at Fort Mifflin. The Americans not only repulsed the attack by a combined British & Hessian force, but in the process destroyed 64-gun ship HMS Augusta, the largest ship the British lost during war. We talk about this with historian James McIntyre, analyst of the Delaware campaign, editor of the Seven Years War Association Journal, and biographer of Hessian officer Johann-Ewald.
As the Continental Army besieged Boston in 1775, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress coordinated efforts with local towns to support the outflux of dislocated Bostonians while attempting to protect the countryside and the army from smallpox. Families, including aged, ill and infirm individuals, as well as mothers with small children, were removed and relocated to the Massachusetts countryside, enduring much hardship and upheaval along the way. Join the conversation with researcher and historian Katie Turner Getty.
On April 19, 1894. Frederic T. Greenhalge (1842 - 1896), the British-born Governor of Massachusetts declared the day a state-wide holiday, calling it Patriot's Day. The holiday replaced the centuries old "Fast Day" that had been the spring holiday throughout the Commonwealth. Now in its 128th year, events of Patriots Day still enthralls the public. Join Professor Bob Allison (Suffolk University Chair of the Department of History, Language & Global Culture) in conversation with Jonathan Lane of Revolution 250 for an overview of the weekend's events.
Join us for a conversation about the moral, intellectual, and political world of the American founders, in a discussion with C. Bradley Thompson, Professor of Political Science at Clemson University, and author of America's Revolutionary Mind: The Moral History of the American Revolution and the Declaration that Defined it (2019). This major re-interpretation of the Revolution, looks at the ideas of America's Revolutionaries and the Declaration in which they announced them. What did the "self-evident truths" of equality, of the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness mean to the Revolutionary generation, and what do they mean to us?
Follow C. Bradley Thompson on his Redneck Intellectual blog on Substack.
Jane McRea is one of the most famous women of the Revolution. Her story has been told in paintings, novels, and poems, and embellished by folklorists and historians. , But we know very little about this 24-year old who died tragically in the summer of 1777. We know that as General Burgoyne's army marched toward Albany she was killed, and though her betrothed was a Tory marching with Burgoyne, her death at the hands of Burgoyne's Native American allies became a cause celebre, which may have roused the New England militia to defend the frontier. Who was Jane McCrea? What was she doing at Fort Edward in July of 1777?
James Kirby Martin, the Cullen Professor of History emeritus at the University of Houston, joins us to talk about Benedict Arnold: Revolutionary Hero, his book which is now a major motion picture "Benedict Arnold: Hero Betrayed." We also talk about Joseph Plumb Martin, whose story lives on thanks to Martin's book Ordinary Courage,the Forgotten Allies,, the Oneida and the American Revolution, and his World War 2 novel Surviving Dresden. If you don't have time for the books or the movie, check out his article "Benedict Arnold: Natural Born Military Genius: in the Journal of the American Revolution.
Alan Taylor joins us to talk about American Revolutions: A Continental History 1750-1804, and much else. Few scholars have influenced our understanding of Early American history more than Taylor, the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation Professor of History at the University of Virginia. HIs second book, William Cooper's Town,, was hailed as a triumph of "micro-history," examining in detail a small place and from it illuminating a larger world. His three "continental histories" take a broad approach to early American history, and tell a big, complicated story in an elegant way. The recipient of two Pulitzer Prizes in history, Taylor talks about the American frontiers, slavery, constitutions, Lord Dunmore, and Nathaniel Hawthorne's "My Kinsman, Major Molineux."
Few British officers names from the American Revolution come to mind as readily as Charles, First Marquis of Cornwallis (1738–1805). What happened to him after his surrender at Yorktown? Richard Middleton, author of the new biography Cornwallis: Soldier and Statesman in a Revolutionary World joins us to discuss Lord Cornwallis's career after Yorktown, the lessons learned in America which he applied to India and to Ireland, and Cornwallis's role in British politics and the military.
Wright Tavern has been at the center of Concord for 275 years. It hosted some of the most dramatic events in American history. The Massachusetts Provincial Congress's committees met here in the Fall of 1774, beginning the colony's transition from colony to commonwealth. On morning of April 19, 1775, both the Concord militia and the British military command met--separately--at the tavern to plot their interactions with each other. Tom Wilson of the Wright Tavern Legacy Trust joins us to discuss their work to restore this historic building to its 1774-1775 appearance, and the role Wright Tavern has played in Concord, and the nation's, history.
John Kaminski, the founder and director of the Center for the Study of the American Constitution, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Editor in Chief of the Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution project, now up to 37 volumes and also available ow online as a digital archive, joins us to talk about this landmark publication project, and about the struggle to ratify the Constitution in 1787-1788. We learn why Rhode Island kept saying No, why Elbridge Gerry is such a fascinating figure, and why Massachusetts was critical to the ratification.
The American Revolution Institute imagines a future in which every American is inspired by the American Revolution, the vast event that created our nation, and embraces our revolutionary ideals of universal liberty and responsible citizenship. The American Revolution Institute hosts an annual Master Teacher's Seminar, as well as author's talks, events, and exhibits to keep alive the spirit of liberty.
The Society of the Cincinnati, the nation’s oldest patriotic organization, created the American Revolution Institute in 2012 to renew appreciation of the history and ideals of our revolutionary generation. Like the Continental Army officers who founded the Society of the Cincinnati, we believe the American Revolution was, in the words of the Institution of the Society of the Cincinnati, a “vast event” that set our nation, and the world, on the path to universal liberty.
From its headquarters at Anderson House in Washington, D.C., the Society of the Cincinnati is looking ahead to the Revolution's anniversaries. We talk with Emily Schulz Parsons, Deputy Director & Curator of the American Revolution Institute.
Professor Ashli White (University of Miami) joins us to talk about her book, Encountering Revolution: Haiti and the Making of the Early Republic on the impact of the Haitian Revolution in the United States in the Washington, Adams, and Jefferson administrations. We also talk about her forthcoming book, Revolutionary Things, on objects of Revolution in the United States, France, and Haiti--like the cockades worn in hats, and wax figures. Madame Tussaud opened her waxworks in London, and in Boston you could see a wax re-enactment of Louis XVI's execution.
Eric Schnitzer, military historian and park ranger at the Saratoga National Historic Park joins us to talk about the campaign of General Burgoyne and his armies--British, German, Native American, and Americans--which captured Ticonderoga and was marching on to Albany in 1777. But Burgoyne became the first British general ever to surrender his army to a foreign foe in modern times. What happened to stop them? We hear about Horatio Gates and the New England militia, Hubbardton and Bennington, and the extraordinary journals of the Baroness Reidesel.
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 for these stories and more.
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!
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.
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 Brillon, with the French court, and with fellow-American diplomats like John Adams (who hated Franklin), and with his estranged son Wiilliam. A Shakespearean story, told in extraordinarily well.
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 detailed and usable look at American politics from the first federal election until 1824.
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.
Few families were more integral to the colonial and Revolutionary history of Amrica than the Howes. Join us for a conversation with Julie Flavell, authorThe 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 British politics and intrigue.
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.
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 bring his throne through the turmoil of the French Revolution unscathed, and how George III was a patron of the arts and architecture, a collector of books, and man devoted to his family and his country.
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.
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 Head Curator of the Leventhal Map Center, and Alexandra L. Montgomery, a post-doctoral fellow in the digital history and cartography of the American Revolution at Mount Vernon, about this exciting collaborative project.
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 Institute.
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 people who brought on the American Revolution.
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,.
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 Revolutionjoins 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 stories of Native Americans, African-Americans, and women in the Revolutionary era. His biography Abigail Adams: A Life received the Bancroft Prize for its portrayal of our favorite founding mother as an economic player.
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.
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.
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.
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 Massachusetts Archaeology Society on this important, but little known May 1775 battle, and their work to map the site.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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 were political foes.
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 Independence and used their new-found policial and social power to further the cause of liberty down the generations.
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.
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.
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 Tea Party, Bunker Hill, and the Birth of American Liberty.
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.S. Army War College, and brings a lifetime of experience and a depth of research to bear in giving a new history of this important battle, and the characters involved--Burgoyne and Gates, Arnold and Gansevoort, and many others.
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 Ticonderoga is one of the great historical sites--and museums--in the country, and we talk with its curator, Matthew Keagle about its history and its collections.
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.
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.
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.
Why was education such a critical goal of America's revolutionaries? We talk with Andrew J. O'Shaughnessy about his new book, TheThe 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 what a difference it made that the Americans won.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 time at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UavxguiQrFQ.
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 States, and among the American commissioners, who posed afterward for a portrait by Benjamin West. Professor Gould teaches at the University of New Hampshire, and among his many works is Among the Powers of the Earth, focusing on the United States' early quest to make treaties with other nations.
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 Revolutionary moment in the Black Atlantic.
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 military skills. Glover is famous for saving Washington's army following the defeat on Long Island, as well as transporting the army for their Christmas Day attack on Trenton in 1776.
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.
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.
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 Worcester on May 3. Thomas: Patriot Printer
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 here!
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 of the American Revolution.
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.
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 and peoples. Why did some side with the British and some with the Americans? What impact did the war have on the Haudenosaunee confederation? Heather Breugl also talk about preserving the lives, language, and legacy of the Mohicans, and the Arvid E. Miller Library and Museum where you can learn more.
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.
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?
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.
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 into a 2-act opera by the legendary T.J. Anderson & Pulitzer-Prize-winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa.
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 about the Vietnam and Persian Gulf Wars, and is now turning his keen eye on the War for Independence.
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.
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.
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.
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://www.goodreads.com/book/show/178637.A_Perfect_Union).
Mary Beth Norton, the Mary Donlon Alger Professor of History emerita at Cornell, joins us to talk about her new book, 1774: 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 Stewart in Annapolis. This was the critical year--and also the year the terms "loyalist" and "unconstitutional" entered the vocabulary--and no one knew how it would end. Find out more!
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.
Bob Allison and Bradley Jay speak with Prof. Chernoh Sesay of DePaul University about the role of political activism among the community of African-Americans in Revolutionary Boston; the role of the Prince Hall in establishing a Masonic tradition among African-Americans, the 1773 petitions for freedom, and the ongoing research into under-represented voices on the road to American Independence.
Was Thomas Hutchinson the most hated man in America during his lifetime? Does he deserve the heaps of invective and abuse laid upon him by the Sons of Liberty, or was he merely a victim of the times? Join Bob Allison & Bradley Jay as they discuss the life of Thomas Hutchinson with John Tyler, the editor of The Correspondence of Thomas Hutchinson and Editor of Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts.
Join Bradley Jay, Bob Allison & Jonathan Lane as they discuss the events surrounding the Boston Massacre Trials, Pope's Day, and Crime & Punishment in 1770 Boston.
We talk with J.L. Bell, who has created the extraordinary Boston 1775 blog, with history, analysis, and unabashed gossip about the American Revolution in Boston--a daily update since 2006! He tells us about how elections were run in colonial Boston, about his work at the Longfellow House Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site, and about the Boston Massacre Trials and the death of Christopher Seider. John Bell is also the author of The Road to Concord: How Four Stolen Cannon Ignited the Revolutionary War, a story we will have to have him come back to tell.
Join Bob and Bradley as they discuss privateers, the Continental Navy, state navies, John Paul Jones, John Hancock and Samuel Adams in a wide ranging discussion with Professor William Fowler, author of An American Crisis: George Washington and the Dangerous Two Years after Yorktown 1781-1783 (2011) and other books.
Ray Raphael, author ofPeople's History of the American Revolution, The First American Revolution: Before Lexington and Concord, and The Spirit of '74: How the American Revolution Began, to name just a few of his important works, joins Bob Allison and Bradley Jay for a conversation on the beginnings of the American Revolution.
Serena Zabin joins us to talk abut her great book, The Boston Massacre: A Family History,. Who were the soldiers from the 29th Regiment, and what kinds of relationships did they have with the citizens of Boston before March 5, 1770? Hint: At least 40 married Boston women, and a hundred brought infants to be baptized at King's Chapel. Think you know the story of the Massacre? Think again. And we hear about the computer game, Witness to a Revolution, that Serena Zabin and her Carleton College students are creating.
Professor Robert A. Gross joins us to talk about his book, The Minutemen and Their World, and about the Minutemen, Revolutionary Concord, The Robbins House and Concord's African-American history, and about writing history from the bottom up and inside out.
Abby Battis, the curator at Historic Beverly, tells us about their great exhibit on The Story of the Revolution--a 2-volume history of the Revolution by Massachusetts Senator, and historian Henry Cabot Lodge, illustrated with original paintings now on display for the first time since 1898!
We discuss F.C. Yohn's paintings, "The Fight at Concord Bridge" and "The Battle of Brandywine," and Carlton T. Chapman's "Bonhomme Richard defeats the Serapis."
We talk with Emma Stratton, the Executive Director of the American Independence Museum in Exeter, New Hampshire. We hear about Paul Revere's first important ride--to Fort William and Mary in Newcastle, and about the Museum's treasures--a Dunlap broadside of the Declaration, notes on the Constitution by Nicholas Gilman and Rufus King, and a tavern where George Washington was entertained--and where the Museum hosts beer and history events. And also the Society of the Cincinnati, and John Stark--who coined New Hampshire's motto, "Live Free, or Die."
We have a chance to talk with Judith Kalaora, the founder and artistic director of History at Play. She tells us how she brings the stories of remarkable women to life, including the story of Deborah Sampson, the official heroine of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. In the early 1780s Deborah Sampson disguised herself as a young man and enlisted in the Continental Army--and when she was discovered after two years of service, she was given an honorable discharge. Find out about Deborah Sampson as well as some of the other characters whose stories Judith Kalaora tells--Rachel Revere, Dolley Madison, Lucy Stone, Hedy Lamarr, and Christa McAuliffe, and about Revolutionary-era costumes and how Judith avoids sensationalizing history.
We talk with Don N. Hagist, the managing editor of the Journal of the American Revolution and the author of many books on the experiences of British soldiers during the war, including British Soldiers, American War and the forthcoming Noble Volunteers: The British Soldiers who Fought the American Revolution.
What was it like to serve in the British army during the Revolution? Who were these men?
We talk about the Revolutionary history of Salem--did you know that 150 Salem privateers captured more than 500 British merchant ships, many in the English Channel--and Concord, where on April 19, 1775 the Revolutionary War began. Emily Murphy is the curator at Salem Maritime National HIstorical Parks, and Jim Hollister is a ranger and interpreter, as well as the living history, education, digital media program, and historic weapons co-ordinator at Minuteman National Historical Park. Between them, they live the Revolution and share their stories with us. Leslie's Retreat in February 1775 in Salem, when the War did not begin, and other great stories shared here.
We have a chance to talk with Gordon S. Wood, one of the leading historians of the American Revolution and the founding of the Republic. He has a new book he is working on, "Constitutionalism in the American Revolution," and we also discuss his Pulitzer-Prize winning book The Radicalism of the American Revolution, and his work on Franklin, Adams, and Jefferson. He discusses slavery, the Bill of Rights, the role of the judiciary, and other issues and events surrounding the "most extraordinary development of the last 400 years," the American Revolution.