Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston on January 17, 1706, to Abiah Folger and Josiah Franklin. Although Franklin began his life as the youngest son of a youngest son, he traveled through many parts of what is now the northeastern United States and...
One of the Caribbean islands that Christopher Columbus stopped at during his 1492-voyage was an alligator-shaped island that sits at the mouth of the Gulf of Mexico in between the Yucatán and Florida peninsulas. This is, of course, the island of...
About 620 miles north of New Orleans and 62 miles south of St. Louis, sits the town of Ste. Geneviéve, Missouri. Established in 1750 by the French, Ste. Geneviéve reveals much about what it was like to establish a colony in the heartland of North...
The first Jewish colonists in North America arrived in 1654. From that moment, Jews worked to build and contribute to early American society and the birth of the United States. Gemma Birnbaum and Melanie Meyers, the Executive Director and Director...
In 1803, the United States purchased the Louisiana Territory from France. This purchase included the important port city of New Orleans. But the United States did not just acquire the city’s land, peoples, and wealth– the American government also...
What has enabled the American experiment in democracy to endure for nearly 250 years? What is it about early American history that captivates peoples’ attention and makes them want to support the creation of historical scholarship and the sharing of...
Have you ever considered early American cities as places where Native Americans lived, worked, and visited? Native Americans often visited early American cities and port towns, especially the towns and cities that dotted the Atlantic seaboard of...
The transatlantic slave trade dominated in North America during the 17th and 18th centuries. But by 1808, a different slave trade came to dominate in the young United States, the domestic or internal slave trade. Joshua D. Rothman, an award-winning...
Investigations of the American Revolution often include explorations of politics, ideology, trade and taxation, imperial control, and social strife. What about religion? What role did religion play in the American Revolution? Katherine Carté, an...
To understand early American history, we need to investigate and understand North America as an Indigenous space. A place where Native American populations, politics, religion, and trade networks prevailed for centuries before and after the arrival...