History: Beyond the Textbook

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Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello was his home, his castle, and in a way, his personal fiefdom: he had legal control over the happenings at this place, over the lives of its inhabitants.  This included the hundreds of individuals who were held in bondage during Jefferson’s lifetime, although one particular family name stands out as being more prominent than others.  Historically, the Hemings family and the Jefferson famil...

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“Culture.”  It’s a word that means something different depending on who you ask; to some, it means an element that is “popular” and can serve as a common frame of reference for a large group of people.  To others, “culture” refers to how an individual lives their life based on a specific belief system that is similar to a larger group.  Both are correct, and both get to the heart of today’s episode as we explore the e...

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It’s tough to say what most history classrooms emphasize when they cover Constitutional ratification, but our focus will be on its opponents...those individuals who heard about, and often read the results, of what happened in Philadelphia in summer 1787 and were displeased with what they saw.  Keep in mind that the document that emerged from Philadelphia still needed the blessing of the states, hence the process of ra...

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The first formal meeting to reassess the Articles of Confederation was held in Annapolis, Maryland in September 1786, at about the same time as Shays’ Rebellion.  Only five states bothered to send any delegates, and there was really only one thing that was accomplished: they decided to try again the following May in Philadelphia.  That one would enjoy better attendance, and produce a much different result: the U.S. Co...

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What became known as “Shays' Rebellion” was put down by force, but it opened the eyes of many to the reality that the current government was not working, and it has been used as an anecdote for why the Articles of Confederation were such an inadequate government.  Our task will be to unmask the man behind the protest, as well as the general tasked with putting it down, and ascertain what the true legacy of the mo...

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We’ll focus on the American Midwest with this episode: specifically, the areas affected by the Northwest Ordinance of 1787.  These fertile lands north of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi River were considered ripe for American settlement…unless you and your kin were already living there and had done so for generations.  In this episode of History: Beyond the Textbook, our last in our arc of looking at “The W...

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The Peace of Paris would certainly anger and frustrate the many nations who held the lands that were supposedly now in American possession, and one of the most prominent was the Creek.  The Creek stand out due to the efforts of their de facto leader, Alexander McGillivray, to negotiate a treaty with the young U.S. government, and his successes, and failures, set the tone moving forward for official U.S. government pol...

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Its 1769, and Spain is renewing their efforts to colonize what they called “Alta California” on the Pacific Coast.  Leading the push was Fray Junipero Serra, a Franciscan whose efforts to spread the Catholic faith would earn him the title “Apostle of California.”  His actions would also lead to a re-examination of the role of Europeans in colonizing and Christianizing the Indigenous peoples of the lands in which they ...

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John Jay was a member of both Continental Congresses, served as ambassador to Spain during the later years of the American Revolution, helped negotiate the Peace of Paris that ended that war, authored a series of essays that became collectively known as The Federalist Papers, was appointed the first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, and resigned upon his election as Governor of New York…but not before negotiati...

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He was one of the wealthiest men in the colonies, so by extension, the United States of America.  Foreign-born to unwed parents, he had the reputation of being a financial wizard who understood commerce, markets, and how to maximize profit.  Victory at Yorktown would not have occurred were it not for the efforts of this man, who was Superintendent of Finance as the American Revolution drew to a close. Robert Morris  s...

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 It's 1783, and military mutinies are intermittently breaking out across the United States.  This, and other, issues stem from problems with the first official “national” government of the United States: the Articles of Confederation, of which today's key figure wrote the first draft.  He served as foil for John Adams during the fight to declare independence…but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t a believer in the ...

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He’s the man responsible for the loss of Britain’s North American colonies, and a cruel, despotic monarch at that…these are both perceptions of King George III, and it’s realistically how many Americans learn about Britain’s king at the time of American independence.  But he reigned for 60 years…and the Revolution lasted for 8, so clearly there must be more to this man than just “losing a war,” right?  In our final ep...

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It was the last significant battle of the American Revolution, although this couldn’t have been predicted at the time.  The Americans, British, and the French felt that 1781 was a "now or never" year for the Revolution, and that something big had to happen.  Many forces coalesced to turn the Battle of Yorktown into the decisive battle of the Revolutionary War, and  we’ll examine two individuals serving on op...

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Much of the history of the American Revolution focuses on actions in what was called the “Northern” theater, and to a degree, this makes sense: given the outsized role Massachusetts played in the pre-war years and the early years of combat.  Yet while the Southern colonies were not exactly “inactive” during the early years of the war, many narratives don’t necessarily focus on this region in great detail until the piv...

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 Those present at the winter at Valley Forge in 1777-1778 included a veritable “who’s who” of future American political leadership, such as George Washington, Henry Knox, and Alexander Hamilton.  Prominent names are usually associated with this critical transition period, and rightfully so…but there were women who accompanied the army to this camp, and Indigenous allies also arrived as winter turned into spring to hel...

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One man was all-in for independence dating back to the years before the first shots at Lexington and Concord, while the other held out hope for a moderate solution and was even accused of holding sympathies to the British cause.  One is Benjamin Franklin, and the other is Benedict Arnold, and both will play a role in the Battle of Saratoga in upstate New York, one as a soldier, the other as a politician attempting to ...

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He sided with the British in the American Revolution, and successfully convinced many of his countrymen to do so.  The education he received at the hands of Eleazar Wheelock allowed him to understand colonial culture, while his upbringing as a Mohawk immersed him in a way of life little understood by colonial Americans.  His unique background brought him into contact with prominent movers and shakers on the frontier, ...

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He arrived in North American in December 1774 with a fever so devastating that he needed to be carried ashore.   This man also carried with him letters of introduction from none other than Dr. Benjamin Franklin, so there must have been something special about this individual.  The succeeding years would bear this out, for once Englishman Thomas Paine picked up his pen, flourishing oratory and dramatic inspiration were...

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He was a lawyer who would devote his life to public service; she was an independent woman who would devote her life to her family and supporting her husband's political efforts, both in spirit and in practice.  Both of them would come to support the principles that were espoused in the Declaration of Independence, and the story of one is never told without understanding the story of the other.  This episode of Hi...