Ben Franklin's World Podcast By Liz Covart cover art

Ben Franklin's World

Ben Franklin's World

By: Liz Covart
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This is a multiple award-winning podcast about early American history. It’s a show for people who love history and who want to know more about the historical people and events that have impacted and shaped our present-day world. Each episode features conversations with professional historians who help shed light on important people and events in early American history.© Liz Covart 2025 Social Sciences World
Episodes
  • BFW Revisited: British-Occupied Philadelphia, 1777–1778

    BFW Revisited: British-Occupied Philadelphia, 1777–1778
    Mar 31 2026
    In September 1777, just fourteen months after declaring independence, Philadelphia fell to the British Army. For nearly nine months, the new nation's capital was occupied territory. But what did that actually mean for the people who lived there? Not the generals, not the Congress: ordinary Philadelphians who had to decide whether to flee or stay, share their homes with British officers, watch their fences get chopped up for firewood, and figure out which neighbors to trust when it was all over. In this episode, Aaron Sullivan, a professor of History at Rider University, George Boudreau, a public historian and Executive Director of the Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion Museum in Germantown, PA, and historical interpreter Kalela Williams, now the Director of the Virginia Center for the Book, take us inside occupied Philadelphia. Together, they reveal how a city that was never fully committed to independence experienced nine months of British rule, and what the occupation cost everyone who lived through it: Quaker women negotiating with soldiers at their back gates, merchants whose fortunes rose on British hard currency while their neighbors went hungry, and Black Philadelphians who looked at the upheaval and asked whether it might open a door to freedom. Plus: the most extravagant party thrown in eighteenth-century America, staged while the city's almshouses overflowed. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/332RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES🎧 Episode 050: Betsy Ross & the Making of America🎧 Episode 306: The Horse's Tail🎧 Episode 325: Everyday People of the American Revolution🎧 Episode 333: Life in Occupied Yorktown🎧 Episode 380: The Tory's Wife🎧 Episode 437: Civilian Life in America's Occupied CitiesSUPPORT OUR WORK🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s WorldREQUEST A TOPIC📨 Topic Request Form📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.comWHEN YOU'RE READY🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community🌍 Join the History Explorers ClubTAKE THE QUIZ🧭 Discover How You Explore History (under 2 minutes)👉 https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/quizLISTEN 🎧🍎 Apple Podcasts 💚 Spotify 🎶 Amazon Music🛜 PandoraCONNECT🦋 Liz on Bluesky👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn🛜 Liz’s WebsiteSAY THANKS💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts💚 Leave a rating on Spotify*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 10 mins
  • 437 Civilian Life in America's Occupied Cities

    437 Civilian Life in America's Occupied Cities
    Mar 24 2026
    The British Army is at your door. They need a room. What do you do? For thousands of civilians living in cities occupied during the American War for Independence — Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Newport, Charleston, Savannah — this wasn't a hypothetical. It was a reality that upended daily life and revealed a side of the revolution we rarely talk about. Lauren Duval, author of The Home Front: Revolutionary Households, Military Occupations, and the Making of American Independence, joins us to explore what the War for Independence actually looked like from inside the household. Women who negotiated quartering terms and held their ground. Men who came to blows over who controlled the parlor. Enslaved people who used the chaos of occupation to reunite families and reach British lines. The revolution didn't just happen on battlefields. It happened at kitchen tables, in back gardens, and on doorsteps.Lauren's Website | Book |Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/403 EPISODE OUTLINE00:00:00 Introduction00:01:38 The Home Front of the American Revolution00:05:24 The Gensis of the Revolutionary Household00:10:49 Why Focus on Urban Port Cities00:19:46 The British Occupation's Impact on City Life00:25:55 Quartering a British Officer: The Drinker Household00:33:38. Quartering Experiences in Male-Headed Households00:39:22 Lower-Class Experiences During British Occupation00:40:55 The Impact of British Hard Currency on Urban Labor Markets00:44:21 Black Experiences During British Occupation00:51:21 The Overall American Experience of the War for Independence00:54:01. The Time Warp00:59:47 ConculsionRECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES🎧 Episode 050: Betsy Ross & the Making of America🎧 Episode 175: The War in Ben Franklin's House🎧 Episode 306: The Horse's Tail🎧 Episode 332: Experiences of Revolution: Occupied Philadelphia🎧 Episode 333: Experiences of Revolution: Occupied Yorktown🎧 Episode 380: The Tory's WifeSUPPORT OUR WORK🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s WorldREQUEST A TOPIC📨 Topic Request Form📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.comWHEN YOU'RE READY🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community🌍 Join the History Explorers ClubTAKE THE QUIZ🧭 Discover How You Explore History (under 2 minutes)👉 https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/quizLISTEN 🎧🍎 Apple Podcasts 💚 Spotify 🎶 Amazon Music🛜 PandoraCONNECT🦋 Liz on Bluesky👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn🛜 Liz’s WebsiteSAY THANKS💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts💚 Leave a rating on Spotify*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 5 mins
  • BFW Revisited: Longfellow House-Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site

    BFW Revisited: Longfellow House-Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site
    Mar 17 2026
    250 years ago, the British evacuated Boston: driven out by cannon that had traveled 300 miles from Fort Ticonderoga. But where did the plan for those cannons take shape?In this Revisited episode, we return to our conversation with Garrett Cloer, now Program Manager for Interpretation and Visitor Experience at Saratoga National Historical Park, to explore the Longfellow House–Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site in Cambridge, Massachusetts.This Georgian mansion served as George Washington's home and headquarters for nearly nine months during the Siege of Boston. In this house, Washington forged the Continental Army and plotted the moves that liberated the city. Garrett reveals the house's Loyalist origins, life inside during the siege, and how poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow later transformed it into a literary landmark.A companion to Episode 436 on Henry Knox's Noble Train of Artillery. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/194RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES🎧 Episode 112: The Tea Crisis of 1773🎧 Episode 228: The Boston Massacre🎧 Episode 296: The Boston Massacre: A Family History🎧 Episode 409: The Battles of Lexington & Concord🎧 Episode 413: Dr. Joseph Warren & the Battle of Bunker Hill🎧 Episode 436: Fort Ticonderoga & Henry Knox's Noble Train of ArtillerySUPPORT OUR WORK🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s WorldREQUEST A TOPIC📨 Topic Request Form📫 liz@benfranklinsworld.comWHEN YOU'RE READY🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community🌍 Join the History Explorers ClubTAKE THE QUIZ🧭 Discover How You Explore History (under 2 minutes)👉 https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/quizLISTEN 🎧🍎 Apple Podcasts 💚 Spotify 🎶 Amazon Music🛜 PandoraCONNECT🦋 Liz on Bluesky👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn🛜 Liz’s WebsiteSAY THANKS💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts💚 Leave a rating on Spotify*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 1 min
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Tale note kids, this is how a podcast should be done. From the content to the production values, Liz Covart sets the standard.

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