Meeting at Annapolis
Historian Peter Onuf talks about the meeting at Annapolis, convened to amend the Articles of Confederation. While those efforts failed, because not enough states attended and the agenda was too limited, the eventual result was better than anyone cou...
Immigration: The Irish Become A Force
Professor of American studies and history Matthew Frye Jacobson talks about the reasons behind the increasingly influential role played by Irish immigrants beginning in the middle of the nineteenth century in cities like New York, Boston, Milwaukee ...
Immigration: Challenges and Dangers
Historian and author Bernard Bailyn talks about the challenges that immigrants faced in coming to North America during the colonial period. Professor Bailyn explains that the transatlantic voyage was always unpredictable. Diseases were a problem in ...
Impact of Slavery, The
Historian and author Ira Berlin argues that slavery was vile, hideous and obscene, but also an institution which became, "...the seed bed of so much creativity, and so much we...appreciate and love about American life."
Eighteenth Century Migration to America
Historian and author Bernard Bailyn talks about eighteenth century migration to North America, which he describes as being very different from the migration of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in which immigrants from small villages or ...
Division of Labor in Colonial America
American history professor Alice Kessler-Harris talks about patterns of work during colonial times. Professor Harris notes that both men and women worked in the colonial household. "There was no such thing as a non-working person," she points out.
Election of 1796, The
Historian Peter Onuf provides fascinating insights into Thomas Jefferson, whose uncanny political instincts enabled him to not only weather the election of John Adams in 1796, but plan his own campaign for the presidency that would lead to his elect...
Role of the Plantation, The
Historian and author Ira Berlin explains that it was cotton and sugar, in the nineteenth century, which, "...transformed the United States from a minor player in the plantation game to the largest slave society in the world."
Successors to George Washington
Historian and author Bernard Bailyn analyzes the abilities of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, who served as the third and fourth U.S. presidents respectively. Professor Bailyn explains that Jefferson was a good administrator and an excellent pol...
Struggle in the Border States
Historian and author Ira Berlin talks about the challenge of convincing the border states to emancipate. Professor Berlin explains that the enlistment of African-American men helped speed the process and began to erode slavery in Maryland, Kentucky,...