What was everyday life like for average men and women in early America? Listeners ask this question more than any other question and today we continue to try to answer it. Michelle Marchetti Coughlin, author of One Colonial Woman's World: The Life...
What can a family history tell us about revolutionary and early republic America? What can the letters of a wife and mother tell us about life in the Caribbean during the Age of Revolutions? These are questions Susan Clair Imbarrato, a Professor of...
There’s an old saying that tells us we should walk a mile in someone else’s shoes. It’s a reminder that we should practice empathy and try to understand people before we cast judgement. As it happens, this expression is right on the mark because it...
In 1492, Christopher Columbus’ voyage across the Atlantic linked Europe, the Americas, and the Caribbean. As Columbus’ sponsor, Spain became the first European power to use the peoples, resources, and lands of the Americas and Caribbean as the basis...
If we want to understand everyday life in early America we need to understand the everyday life of early American farms and farmers. Roughly three-quarters of Americans in British North America and the early United States considered themselves to be...
History books like to tell us that Native Americans did not fully understand British methods and ideas of trade. Is this really true? Did Native Americans only understand trade as a form of simplistic, gift exchange? Jessica Stern, a Professor of...
The French established New Orleans and the greater colony of Louisiana in 1717. By 1840, New Orleans had become the 3rd largest city in the United States. How did that happen? How did New Orleans transform from a sleepy, minor French outpost into a...
At the end of the French and Indian, or Seven Years’ War in 1763, Great Britain claimed that smuggling was a BIG problem in its North American colonies and cracked down on the practice. But just how BIG of a problem was smuggling in North America...
How did early Americans go from hosting social tea parties to hosting protests like the Boston Tea Party? Tea played a central role in the economic, cultural, and political lives of early Americans. As such, tea came to serve as a powerful symbol of...
How much merit do the economic factors behind the cry “No Taxation Without Representation” have when we consider the origins of the American Revolution? In this episode of the Doing History: To the Revolution series we begin a 3-episode exploration...