18TH Century Episodes

When Benjamin Franklin died in April 1790, his last will contained an unusual codicil, leaving 1000 pounds sterling each to Philadelphia and Boston, to be used in a very specific way that he hoped would both help tradesmen in the two cities and eventually leave the cities, and their respective states, with fortunes to spend on public works 200 years later. At a moment when it wasn’t clear whether the United States would survive at all, Franklin made a gamble on the American spirit. To learn m...

On July 4, Americans will eat 150 million hot dogs, spend $1 billion on beer, and watch 16,000 fireworks displays (and those are just the official ones). But why do we celebrate on July 4, when did it become a national holiday, and did John Adams eat hot dogs? Joining me for the story of the Declaration of Independence, why July 4th might not be the right date to be celebrating, and who the signers actually were, is historian, podcaster, and DC tour guide, Rebecca Fachner. Our theme song i...

Today, when Americans think of it at all, they take for granted the institution of The Cabinet, the heads of the executive departments and other advisors who meet with the President around a big mahogany table in the White House. But how did The Cabinet come into being? It’s not established in the Constitution, and the writers of The Constitution were explicitly opposed to creating a private executive advisory body. I’m joined in this episode by presidential historian Dr. Lindsay M. Chervinsk...

The Stockbridge-Munsee Community, the People of the Waters that Are Never Still, were forced to move many times after they first encountered Europeans. In 1609, Dutch trader Henry Hudson sailed up the Mahicannituck, the River that Flows Both Ways, into Mohican land. By 1614 there was a Dutch trading post established on a nearby island to take advantage of the beaver and otter availability. The arrival of the Europeans changed the economic pattern of the Mohicans, and brought both disease and ...

Slavery was legal in Maryland until November 1, 1864, when a new state constitution prohibited the practice of slavery. Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation the year before had declared slaves in the Confederate states to be free, but Maryland was in the union and not included in the proclamation. From the late 18th Century until the Civil War, enslaved families in Prince George’s County, Maryland, brought over a thousand legal suits against hundreds of slaveholding families, arguing for their fr...