Historians & Their Histories

In this episode of Historians & Their Histories , we speak with R. B. Tiven. She talks about her dissertation which is a political history of the 19th Amendment's final decade, examining how Congress managed to enfranchise women in the 1910s. Rather than focusing on suffragists themselves, she explores the congressmen and state legislators whose positions shifted from opposition to passive or acti...

In this episode of Historians & Their Histories , we speak with Tim Hastings. Tim discusses his dissertation, "New Hampshire's Atlantic World: Slavery, Freedom, and Community," a social and cultural history of slavery in New Hampshire during the long eighteenth century that foregrounds the lived experiences of the enslaved. He also speaks about the relationship between law and slavery, the social...

On this special episode of Historians & Their Histories , guest host Megan Kate Nelson sits down with Lauren Duval, Associate Professor of History at the University of Oklahoma. They discuss Prof. Duval's new book The Home Front: Revolutionary Households, Military Occupation, and the Making of American Independence , published in December 2025. They talk about what daily life was like inside Ameri...

In this episode of Historians & Their Histories , we speak with Morgan Hardy. He discusses his dissertation, "Changes in the Sea: Early American Innovations in Sustainability," which examines whether eighteenth-century cod fisheries were sustainable and what early conservation practices New Englanders developed to protect declining fish populations. At the MHS, he has been uncovering the everyday...

In this episode of Historians & Their Histories , we speak with Lydia Burleson. She discusses her research into the Massachusetts state seal, tracing how its Indigenous imagery has persisted and shifted since the colony's 1629 charter. Drawing upon variety of archival records, Lydia focuses on the seal's brief disappearance during the Revolutionary period, when it was replaced from 1775 to 1780 by...

In this episode of Historians & Their Histories , we speak with Megan Baker, a PhD candidate in Art History at the University of Delaware. Megan discusses her dissertation, "Crayon Rebellion: The Material Politics of North American Pastels, 1758-1814," which traces how the fragile and fashionable medium of pastel came to represent both people and ideas in the years surrounding the American Revolut...

In this episode of Historians & Their Histories , Chloe Kauffman discusses her dissertation research on how young, unmarried women in the Anglo-Atlantic world acquired and shared knowledge about sexuality between 1690 and 1820, with a particular focus on women-to-women relationships and mentorship. Chloe examines the everyday, often overlooked ways this knowledge circulated from family letters and...

In this episode of Historians & Their Histories , Prof. Andrew Schocket discusses his current research into what the founders actually meant when they wrote "We the People," examining how early Americans counted one another for taxation and political representation from the 1770s through the 1790s. At the MHS, he has been working with the papers of Jonathan Jackson, the federal marshal who adminis...

In this episode of Historians & Their Histories, we speak with Rachel Wiedman. She discusses her dissertation research on gender and political culture in the Civil War era North, tracing a shift in how Northerners evaluated political leadership from an ideal of restrained manhood that valued moderation and compromise to one of martial manhood that prized principle, moral courage, and confrontation...

In this episode of Historians & Their Histories , Prof. Christopher Willoughby discusses his research on racial science and medicine in antebellum America, tracing how northern medical schools, including Harvard Medical School, taught and institutionalized theories of biological racial difference. At the MHS, he has been working with the papers of John Collins Warren, examining how this notable Ha...

In this episode of Historians & Their Histories, Prof. Chelsi Arellano discusses her research on the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and its ripple effects across the British Empire, with a particular focus on the Bostonian Revolt of 1689. She explores how colonists in Massachusetts Bay, frustrated by the dissolution of their charter under James II and the creation of the Dominion of New England, were...

In this episode of Historians & Their Histories , Prof. Marcus Nevius discusses his current book project, titled "Fear of a Maroon Republic: Atlantic Slave War and the Problem of Archival Absence," which builds on his earlier work on marronage in the Great Dismal Swamp to explore how maroons appear and disappear in the historical record with a particular focus on Jamaica. He also reflects on the e...

In this episode of  Historians & Their Histories , Prof. Peter Messer discusses his research on early American political culture, focusing specifically on the local complexities of revolutionary-era events in Massachusetts. He shares how his work re-evaluates the 1773 "salvaged tea" controversy in Wellfleet, Massachusetts and the 1768 Liberty Riot, exploring the frequent disconnect between immedia...

In this episode of Historians & Their Histories , we speak with Boone Ayala. He discusses his research on chartered corporations as instruments of imperial rule and his work at the MHS on the 1684 revocation of the Massachusetts Bay Company's charter, which he situates within a broader assault on corporate autonomy happening simultaneously across England. We also hear about his path from computer...

On this special episode of Historians & Their Histories , guest host Megan Kate Nelson sits down with Amy Watson, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. They discuss Prof. Watson's new book Patriots Before Revolution: The Rise of Party Politics in the British Atlantic, 1714-1763 , available now in hardcover and paperback. They discuss what it meant to be a patri...

In this episode of Historians & Their Histories , Dr. Elizabeth Hines discusses her research into the relations between New England and New Netherland in the 17th century, which grew out of a broader project on Anglo-Dutch relations across the globe. She explores why England and the Netherlands ultimately went to war in the First Anglo-Dutch War of 1652–1654. We also hear about her journey from ph...

In this episode of Historians & Their Histories , Dr. Blake Grindon examines the 1777 death of Jane McCrea during the British Saratoga campaign and how this event became a powerful propaganda tool in the American Revolution. Dr. Grindon discusses how McCrea's story in which she was allegedly killed by Native warriors allied with the British spread rapidly through newspapers across the thirteen sta...

In this episode of Historians & Their Histories , Dr. Ross Nedervelt explores why Bermuda and the Bahamas held strategic significance for the United States during the Age of the American Revolution. He discusses how these islands were exempted from the Continental Congress's 1775 embargo on the British Empire due to their sympathy for the American cause and their supply of arms to the patriots. Hi...

In this episode of Historians & Their Histories , independent scholar and author Monique Hayes discusses her historical fiction novel which follows two African American brothers who take opposing paths during the American Revolution. She shares the challenges of writing about a period with few first-person narratives from African Americans, the excitement of discovering primary sources like Thomas...

In this episode of Historians & Their Histories , we sit down with Ethan Gonzales, a PhD candidate at the University of Virginia. Ethan discusses his dissertation project, which examines the "information ecosystem" of the 1790s and how the early federal government utilized diplomatic agents to gather and control information abroad. He explains how the United States, as a young republic in a world...

This episode features the first-ever live audience taping of the MHS podcast Historians & Their Histories. Kanisorn Wongsrichanalai, from the MHS Research Department interviews special guests about their journeys to becoming historians. Betsy Klima, Professor of English at UMass Boston and recipient of the MHS NEH Long Term Fellowship, discusses her biographical research on Susanna Haswell Rowson,...

In this episode of Historians & Their Histories , Dr. Eric Paul Totten discusses his research on the Federal Department of the South, focusing specifically on New England regiments that carried conservative, anti-abolitionist, and nativist beliefs into the Civil War. He shares how his work examines the "dark turn" of military occupation, moving beyond traditional narratives to investigate instance...

In this episode of Historians & Their Histories , Alaina Scapicchio discusses her research into the public memory of the American witchcraft trials, focusing specifically on monuments, memorials, and other forms of commemoration. She shares how an unexpected archival discovery about a "ducking stool" connected to George Washington's grandfather expanded her research beyond Salem to the broader col...

In this episode of  Historians & Their Histories , Prof. Donald F. Johnson discusses his research on the experience of the American Revolution in local communities throughout North America. His work examines how the revolutionary movement transformed from a fringe, urban effort in late 1774 into a massive, grassroots mobilization by 1775. Prof. Johnson highlights the crucial, often-overlooked role...

In this episode of Historians & Their Histories , Professor Thomas Lecaque tells us about his current book project on holy war rhetoric in colonial America. He shows how the language and ideology of medieval crusades thrived across Christian denominations during the imperial wars between England and France from 1680 to 1765. Professor Lecaque explains his unique academic journey from medievalist t...