Revolution 250 Podcast

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 read less

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William Hunter - Finding Free Speech with Eugene Procknow

William Hunter - Finding Free Speech with Eugene Procknow

Eugene Procknow has written a biography of William Hunter--son of a British sergeant who spent his childhood and teen years accompanying the British army, was taken as a prisoner of war, became a printer and returned to America in the 1790s to edit a series of newspapers in Pennsylvania and Kentucky defending freedom of the press before becoming a Jacksonian political figure. At some point Hunter sat down to write a memoir, which contains one of the few observations by a child of the war, as well as other episodes of his memorable life, and Procknow has now published a biography, William Hunter: Finding Free Speech: A British Soldier's Son who Became an Early American. To help with his own research, Procknow has compiled a terrific bibliography of sources on the Revolution, available on his Researching the American Revolution website.

William Hunter - Finding Free Speech with Eugene Procknow

William Hunter - Finding Free Speech with Eugene Procknow

Eugene Procknow has written a biography of William Hunter--son of a British sergeant who spent his childhood and teen years accompanying the British army, was taken as a prisoner of war, became a printer and returned to America in the 1790s to edit a series of newspapers in Pennsylvania and Kentucky defending freedom of the press before becoming a Jacksonian political figure. At some point Hunter sat down to write a memoir, which contains one of the few observations by a child of the war, as well as other episodes of his memorable life, and Procknow has now published a biography, William Hunter: Finding Free Speech: A British Soldier's Son who Became an Early American. To help with his own research, Procknow has compiled a terrific bibliography of sources on the Revolution, available on his Researching the American Revolution website.

"Mad" Anthony Wayne with Mary Stockwell

"Mad" Anthony Wayne with Mary Stockwell

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.

Poor Richard's Women with Nancy Rubin Stuart

Poor Richard's Women with Nancy Rubin Stuart

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.

Major General Chastellux & Revolutionary America with Iris De Rode

Major General Chastellux & Revolutionary America with Iris De Rode

Though he didn't arrive in America until 1780, Major General Francois-Jean de Chastellux had a profound impact on the war's outcome and on the French-American relationship. He also enjoyed a close personal friendship with George Washington, and as a French philosophe was elected a member of both the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Iris De Rode has discovered the Chastellux family archives (dating back to the 1300s) near her childhood home in France, and using this trove of documents has written a biography of the Marquis de Chastellux, and is currently writing Military Enlightenment on the Ground (UVA Press, 2024) about France's intellectual generals in the age of enlightenment.

Bullet Strikes, Powder Horns & Archaeology Along Battle Road

Bullet Strikes, Powder Horns & Archaeology Along Battle Road

We talk with Joel Bohy, Director of Historic Arms & Miltaria at Bruneau & Co. Auctioneers, and a regular appraiser on Antiques Roadshow, about the weapons and equipment used on April 19, 1775. Muskets, powderhorns, and the stories of the people who carried them.

Contagion of Liberty - Smallpox in the American Revolution with Andrew Wehrman

Contagion of Liberty - Smallpox in the American Revolution with Andrew Wehrman

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.

A Conversation with President James Madison

A Conversation with President James Madison

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

"God Save the Commonwealth": Election Day sermons, 1763-1793, John Hancock, & Hockey Cards with Jeffrey Griffith

"God Save the Commonwealth": Election Day sermons, 1763-1793, John Hancock, & Hockey Cards with Jeffrey Griffith

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.

Archives and Empire with Asheesh Kapur Siddique

Archives and Empire with Asheesh Kapur Siddique

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. .

Karin Wulf, The Vast American Revolution and the John Carter Brown Library

Karin Wulf, The Vast American Revolution and the John Carter Brown Library

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.

Dark Voyage with Christian McBurney

Dark Voyage with Christian McBurney

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.

Our French Allies with Norman Desmarais

Our French Allies with Norman Desmarais

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.

William Molineux, Merchant, Smuggler, Patriot with J. L. Bell

William Molineux, Merchant, Smuggler, Patriot with J. L. Bell

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.

Daniel Shays's Honorable Rebellion with Daniel Bullen

Daniel Shays's Honorable Rebellion with Daniel Bullen

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.

The Hessian Experience with Friederike Baer

The Hessian Experience with Friederike Baer

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.

The Colonists' American Revolution with Guy Chet

The Colonists' American Revolution with Guy Chet

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.

Ten Crucial Days with Roger Williams

Ten Crucial Days with Roger Williams

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!

Rex vs. Wemms: The Boston Massacre Trial

Rex vs. Wemms: The Boston Massacre Trial

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.

Relics of the Boston Tea Party with J. L. Bell

Relics of the Boston Tea Party with J. L. Bell

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 Committees of Correspondence with Robert Allison.

The Committees of Correspondence with Robert Allison.

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.