When did people begin seeking anonymous advice for their most profound personal dilemmas? What can the answers to their early questions tell us about the emotional lives of people in the past? We’re traveling back in time to 1690s England to explore...
What in the first 40 years of his life made Benjamin Franklin the genius he became? Benjamin Franklin serves as a great window on to the early American past because as a man of “variety” he pursued many interests: literature, poetry, science...
On June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia moved that the Second Continental Congress resolve “that these United Colonies are, and of right out to be, free and independent States…” The Second Continental Congress adopted Lee’s motion and on June...
Colonial Bostonians practiced slavery. But slavery in Boston looked very different than slavery in the American south or in the Caribbean. Today, Jared Hardesty, an Assistant Professor of History at Western Washington University and author of...
Why did England want to establish colonies in North America and how did Englishmen go about establishing them? Today, we explore the early days of English settlement in North America with Malcolm Gaskill, Professor of History at the University of...