Ben Franklin's World

Liz Covart
  • 4.4 (1.6K)
  • History
  • Updated Semimonthly

This is a multiple award-winning podcast about early American history. It’s a show for people who love history and who want to know more about the historical people and events that have impacted and shaped our present-day world. Each episode features conversations with professional historians who help shed light on important people and events in early American history.

  1. 1d ago

    452 How Everyday Loyalists Experienced the Revolution

    We often ask why some Americans chose to remain loyal to the British and why they did not want to seek independence. But the question some Americans asked at the time of the Revolution focused more on navigating daily life: How could they protect their families, property, and honor when neighbors, committees, and crowds decided what side they were on? Today we’re joined by three guests who will help us investigate the American Revolution through Loyalist eyes and explore how Loyalists experienced the American Revolution. Timothy Compeau, an Associate Professor of History at Huron University College at Western University in London, Ontario; Bonnie Huskins who teaches history at St. Thomas University in Fredericton, New Brunswick; and Kacy Tillman, a professor of English and Writing at the University of Tampa. Timothy's Book | Bonnie's Work | Kacy's Book Show notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/452 EPISODE OUTLINE 00:00:00 Introduction 00:06:07 The Origins and Definitions of the Term “Loyalist” 00:11:11 Common Misconceptions about Loyalists 00:22:52 How Communities Identified their Loyalist Neighbors 00:31:34 How Everyday Loyalists Experienced the Revolution 00:40:19 Women Loyalists and the Fear of Violence 00:50:40 Black Loyalists and the Search for Freedom 01:00:05 Post-War Animosities Between Loyalists and Revolutionaries 01:09:12 What We Still Get Wrong About the Revolution RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES 🎧 Episode 085: American Loyalists in Canada 🎧 Episode 126: The Reintegration of American Loyalists 🎧 Episode 380: The Tory's Wife 🎧 Episode 421: Loyalism and Revolution in Georgia 🎧 Episode 441: The Escapes of David George SUPPORT OUR WORK 🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s World REQUEST A TOPIC 📨 Topic Request Form 📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community 🌍 Join the History Explorers Club TAKE THE QUIZ 🧭 Discover How You Explore History (under 2 minutes) 👉 https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/quiz LISTEN 🎧 🍎 Apple Podcasts 💚 Spotify 🎶 Amazon Music 🛜 Pandora CONNECT 🦋 Liz on Bluesky 👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn 🛜 Liz’s Website SAY THANKS 💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts 💚 Leave a rating on Spotify *Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.

  2. Sep 29

    BFW Revisited: The Reintegration of American Loyalists

    What would it take for you to forgive a neighbor who sided against you in a civil war? And what would you say to win back a community that you had fought against? In our last episode, we explored loyalism across the Atlantic World and met Loyalists who, as serious political actors, had their own ideas about how the British Empire should operate. But the story of Loyalism didn’t end with the founding of the United States, nor with the end of the war. In this revisited episode, Rebecca Brannon explores how South Carolina’s War for Independence was a true civil war, one that pitted neighbor against neighbor and, in some instances, fathers against sons. Rebecca’s Book | Website RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES 🎧 Episode 126: Reintegration of Loyalists in South Carolina 🎧 Episode 294: 1774: The Long Year of Revolution 🎧 Episode 330: Loyalism in the British Atlantic World 🎧 Episode 380: The Tory’s Wife 🎧 Episode 421: Loyalism and Revolution in Georgia SUPPORT OUR WORK 🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s World REQUEST A TOPIC 📨 Topic Request Form 📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community 🌍 Join the History Explorers Club TAKE THE QUIZ 🧭 Discover How You Explore History (under 2 minutes) 👉 https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/quiz LISTEN 🎧 🍎 Apple Podcasts 💚 Spotify 🎶 Amazon Music 🛜 Pandora CONNECT 🦋 Liz on Bluesky 👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn 🛜 Liz’s Website SAY THANKS 💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts 💚 Leave a rating on Spotify *Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.

  3. Sep 22

    BFW Revisited: Loyalism in the British Atlantic World

    In the late winter of 1775, colonists in a village outside of New York City hoisted the royal standard of King George III 75 feet into the air. The standard raisers signed their names to a proclamation pledging to defend the king and his government. For them, defending the British crown did not mean surrender; it served as a clear statement of what it still meant to be British. In Episode 451, we explored a court-martial trial that allowed us to see how early Americans thought about what it would mean to be an American after independence. In this revisited episode, historian Brad Jones helps us take up the other half of that question: what did it mean to be British during the age of the American Revolution? And why did answers to this question take different forms around the Atlantic World? Brad’s Book SUPPORT OUR WORK 🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s World REQUEST A TOPIC 📨 Topic Request Form 📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community 🌍 Join the History Explorers Club TAKE THE QUIZ 🧭 Discover How You Explore History (under 2 minutes) 👉 https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/quiz LISTEN 🎧 🍎 Apple Podcasts 💚 Spotify 🎶 Amazon Music 🛜 Pandora CONNECT 🦋 Liz on Bluesky 👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn 🛜 Liz’s Website SAY THANKS 💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts 💚 Leave a rating on Spotify *Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.

  4. Sep 18

    BFW Bonus: We Want More History

    American history is in the news a lot these days. We see and hear about fights over monuments, textbooks, and the stories we should include or exclude from our museums and historic markers. What these stories overshadow is the great demand for more history in the United States. A coalition of historians and history organizations noticed this demand and decided to feed it by organizing a new initiative: A We Want More History weekend, which takes place September 25-27. In this bonus episode, we’re joined by Beth English, the Executive Director of the Organization of American Historians, and Kate Masur, the John D. MacArthur Professor of History at Northwestern University. The guest historians share more about the origins of the national, coordinated weekend of history programs, how we can get involved, and where to find more information. SUPPORT OUR WORK 🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s World REQUEST A TOPIC 📨 Topic Request Form 📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community 🌍 Join the History Explorers Club TAKE THE QUIZ 🧭 Discover How You Explore History (under 2 minutes) 👉 https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/quiz LISTEN 🎧 🍎 Apple Podcasts 💚 Spotify 🎶 Amazon Music 🛜 Pandora CONNECT 🦋 Liz on Bluesky 👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn 🛜 Liz’s Website SAY THANKS 💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts 💚 Leave a rating on Spotify *Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.

  5. Sep 15

    451 The Court-Martial That Put The American Revolution on Trial

    In December 1777, Continental Army Colonel David Henley climbed off his horse to discipline a drunk British prisoner of war who was screaming epithets about Americans and vowing to fight for his king. Henley struck the prisoner, one of 6,000 in his care, with his sword. The wound was minor, but Major General John Burgoyne cited this incident when he accused Henley of plotting to murder British prisoners of war. Burgoyne demanded a formal court-martial. Professor Timothy Breen joins us to examine Henley’s trial with details from his new book, The American Revolution on Trial. Timothy asks a question most grand narratives of the American Revolution skip past: What did it actually feel like, in real towns among real people, to stop being British? What did it mean to be American? Timothy’s Book Show notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/451 EPISODE OUTLINE 00:00:00 Introduction 00:04:43 The 250th Anniversary and the Limits of Grand Narratives 00:09:31 How Timothy Found the Henley Court-Martial Transcript 00:13:26 Major General John Burgoyne and Aristocratic Privilege 00:23:00 Competing Ideas of Honor During the Revolution 00:29:53 Inside the Cambridge Prisoner of War Camps 00:36:23 The Two Incidents that Led to the Court-Martial 00:45:25 The Verdict and What Happened Next for Henley and Burgoyne 00:48:37 How Early Americans Judged the Revolution and the New Nation 00:53:41 What Happened to the British and German POWs in Cambridge RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES 🎧 Episode 048: Dangerous Guests: Enemy Captives During the War for Independence 🎧 Episode 122: The Men Who Lost America 🎧 Episode 374: The American Revolutionary War in the West 🎧 Episode 414: Robert Newburgh’s Trials: Queerness & Reputation in Revolutionary America 🎧 Episode 434: The Frank Brothers: Freeborn Black Soldiers in the American Revolution SUPPORT OUR WORK 🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s World REQUEST A TOPIC 📨 Topic Request Form 📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community 🌍 Join the History Explorers Club TAKE THE QUIZ 🧭 Discover How You Explore History (under 2 minutes) 👉 https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/quiz LISTEN 🎧 🍎 Apple Podcasts 💚 Spotify 🎶 Amazon Music 🛜 Pandora CONNECT 🦋 Liz on Bluesky 👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn 🛜 Liz’s Website SAY THANKS 💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts 💚 Leave a rating on Spotify *Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.

  6. Sep 8

    BFW Revisited: The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution

    What caused the American Revolution? Taxation without representation? Colonies that had outgrown their dependence on the British Empire? Or something harder to see: a quarrel about power itself and about what a government may rightly do to the people it governs? In 1967, Bernard Bailyn published The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, a book he built out of more than 400 pamphlets, and one historians have been arguing with ever since. In this revisited conversation from Episode 152, Professor Bailyn explains why he never accepted a purely economic explanation for the Revolution, where the revolutionaries' ideas actually came from, and why colonists rationally concluded that the British government was concealing a conspiracy against their liberties. Bernard Bailyn’s Wikipedia Page | Book | Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/152 RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES 🎧 Episode 294: 1774: The Long Year of American Revolution 🎧 Episode 311: Religion and the American Revolution 🎧 Episode 307: History and the American Revolution 🎧 Episode 325: Everyday People of the American Revolution 🎧 Episode 407: Patrick Henry 🎧 Episode 434: The Frank Borthers: Freeborn Black Soldiers in the American Revolution SUPPORT OUR WORK 🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s World REQUEST A TOPIC 📨 Topic Request Form 📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community 🌍 Join the History Explorers Club TAKE THE QUIZ 🧭 Discover How You Explore History (under 2 minutes) 👉 https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/quiz LISTEN 🎧 🍎 Apple Podcasts 💚 Spotify 🎶 Amazon Music 🛜 Pandora CONNECT 🦋 Liz on Bluesky 👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn 🛜 Liz’s Website SAY THANKS 💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts 💚 Leave a rating on Spotify *Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.

  7. Sep 1

    450 Whose Revolution? The Delaware and the War for Independence

    In December 1776, a Delaware Chief named White Eyes stood before the Second Continental Congress. He had not come to declare himself a revolutionary, nor had he come to pledge his loyalty to King George III. White Eyes came to test a promise. What does the American Revolution look like to people for whom independence was never a question? For the Delaware, also known as the Lenape, the War for Independence raised older and harder questions: Whose word could be trusted? What choices can we make about whether to fight, stay neutral, or flee that might let our community remain itself on the land we know? Jeremy Johnson, Cultural Education Director for the Delaware Tribe of Indians, traces Lenape and Delaware history from long before European contact through the American Revolution. He also introduces us to the September 1778 Treaty of Fort Pitt, the first treaty the United States made with a Native Nation and which promised a 14th Native state. Delaware Tribe of Indians’ Website Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/450 EPISODE OUTLINE 00:00:00 Introduction 00:02:35 The Lenape Experience of the American Revolution 00:07:56 Lenape History and Indigenous Origin Stories 00:10:52 Diplomacy in Lenape Traditions 00:15:32 Evolution of Lenape Diplomacy Through European Contact 00:20:00 The Walking Purchase of 1737 00:24:55 Lenape Experiences of the Seven Years' War 00:32:13 Lenape Participation in Pontiac's Rebellion 00:37:17 The Delaware and the American Revolution 00:46:32 Negotiating the Treaty of Fort Pitt 00:50:16 The Hope for Delaware Sovereignty 00:52:53 The Delaware People & America's 250th 01:00:02 Time Warp 01:02:41 Resources RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES 🎧 Episode 163: The American Revolution in North America 🎧 Episode 264: The Treaty of Canandaigua 🎧 Episode 286: Elections in Early America: Native Sovereignty 🎧 Episode 323: American Expansion and the Political Economy of Plunder 🎧 Episode 397: Native Nations: A Millennium in North America 🎧 Episode 449: Stealing America: Indigenous Enslavement & the American Revolution SUPPORT OUR WORK 🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s World REQUEST A TOPIC 📨 Topic Request Form 📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community 🌍 Join the History Explorers Club TAKE THE QUIZ 🧭 Discover How You Explore History (under 2 minutes) 👉 https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/quiz LISTEN 🎧 🍎 Apple Podcasts 💚 Spotify 🎶 Amazon Music 🛜 Pandora CONNECT 🦋 Liz on Bluesky 👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn 🛜 Liz’s Website SAY THANKS 💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts 💚 Leave a rating on Spotify *Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.

  8. Aug 25

    BFW Revisited: The Brafferton Indian School, Part 1

    In 1723, the College of William & Mary opened the Brafferton building, a permanent home for an Indian School the college had been chartered to run and struggled to fill for its first 30 years. The premise of the Brafferton: take Native boys and strategically teach them in ways that would make them more useful to the British Empire. So what actually happened inside the Brafferton Indian School? In this revisited episode, the first of a two-part series, our three guests investigate why the Brafferton School existed, how the English filled Brafferton with students even as Native families refused to send their children, and what the Indigenous students did with the knowledge the English taught them. We’ll also explore how a school built on a colonial college campus during the reign of King George I connected to schools like the Carlisle School, which were still separating Indigenous children from their families in the 1950s. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/367 RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES: 🎧 Episode 158: The Revolutionaries' Army 🎧 Episode 290: The World of the Wampanoag, Pt. 1 🎧 Episode 291: The World of the Wampanoag, Pt. 2 🎧 Episode 353: Women and the Making of Catawba Identity 🎧 Episode 368: The Brafferton Indian School, Part 2: Legacies 🎧 Episode 449: Stealing America SUPPORT OUR WORK 🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s World REQUEST A TOPIC 📨 Topic Request Form 📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.com WHEN YOU'RE READY 🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 BFW Listener Community 🌍 The History Explorers Club LISTEN 🎧 🍎 Apple Podcasts 💚 Spotify 🎶 Amazon Music 🛜 Pandora CONNECT 🦋 Liz on Bluesky 👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn 🛜 Liz’s Website SAY THANKS 💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts 💚 Leave a rating on Spotify *Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.

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4.4
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About

This is a multiple award-winning podcast about early American history. It’s a show for people who love history and who want to know more about the historical people and events that have impacted and shaped our present-day world. Each episode features conversations with professional historians who help shed light on important people and events in early American history.

Information

  • Creator
    Liz Covart
  • Years Active
    2014 - 2026
  • Episodes
    521
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Liz Covart 2026
  • Show Website
    Ben Franklin's World

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