Revolution 250 Podcast

Join Professor Robert Allison (Suffolk University & Harvard Extension School) in conversation with Jonathan Lane (Revolution 250) about the events of the most recent Patriot's Day celebration and the history of Patriot's Day here in Massachusetts and in other states across the country. Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!

Nina Zannieri, Executive Director of the Paul Revere Memorial Association which manages the Paul Revere House,  talks with us about about the life and legacy of Paul Revere, the Midnight Ride, and Revere's entreprenuerial spirit. Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!

James D. Moran, vice president for programs and outreach at the  American Antiquarian Society joins us to talk about the amazing life and career of  tsaiah Thomas   (1749-1831), publisher of the  Massachusetts Spy,   and a leader in the Sons of Liberty, and founder of the  American Antiquarian Society.   Find out how Thomas stole his printing press out of Boston on April 16, 1775, and then publish...

Ruth Raphael, Landscape Architect,  & Julia Mize, Lead Ranger, from the Boston National Historical Park, join us to discuss Dorchester Heights in South Boston, past, present and future.   The Park Service has just completed a short documentary Dorchester heights and its importance, and is planning a multi-million dollar restoration of the Park and Monument.  The Park Service has also installed...

Karin Wulf, the Executive Director of the Omohundro Institute , joins us to talk about many things.  We learn about the Georgian Papers Programme ,a ten-year interdisciplinary project to digitise, conserve, catalogue, transcribe, interpret and disseminate 425,000 pages or 65,000 items in the Royal Archives and Royal Library relating to the Georgian period, 1714-1837.  We also talk about #vastearly...

A conversation with "Henry Knox" (portrayed by J. Archer O'Reilly, III) discussing the "Noble Train of Artillery," and Knox's subsequent career as General Washington's chief of Artillery and the 1st Secretary of War.  We also hear about the Society of the Cincinnati , which Knox helped to found, which is now the nation's oldest patriotic organization, and it...

Heather Breugl, Director of Cultural Affairs for the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of the Mohican Indians tells us about the Stockbridge and Mohican's role in the American Revolution.  The Stockbridge Militia, led by Abraham Nimham and Jehoiaikim Mtohksin fought on the Patriot side from the "Shot Heard Round the World," through the Siege of Boston, through White Plains, Valley Forge, Sara...

How does a man whose personal acts of bravery and leadership, wounded on multiple occasions, abandon his friends, comrades and cause for the enemy? Was Benedict Arnold seduced by gold, promotion or the adverse influence of his wife? Join Professor Bob Allison in Conversation with Stephen Brumwell, , author of the NY Times bestseller, Turncoat:  Benedict Arnold and the Crisis of American Liberty. ...

Join Bob Allison (Suffolk University), Jonathan Lane (Revolution 250) in conversation with J.L. Bell ( Boston1775 ) as we discuss the life and death of Christopher Seider, an 11 year old killed in an affray at the shop of Theophilus Lillie just days before the Boston Massacre.  We also get into the celebration of George Washington's birthday on February 22...or is it February 11?  Tell us wha...

Shawn Quiqley of the National Parks of Boston discusses the legacy of Crispus Attucks, killed at the Boston Massacre, and how abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass and Black Bostonians such as William Cooper Nell and Lewis Hayden  used the Revolution and revolutionary rhetoric as a tool to advance the antislavery cause, and made Boston a hub on the Underground Railroad.  Tell us what you think!...

Renowned scholar of the American Revolution, T.H. Breen joins us to discuss his . latest book, The Will of the People ,: The Revolutionary Birth of America,   the story of ordinary Americans who created the Revolution through their local communities.  Professor Breen also talks about prisoners of war, and how his essay "Making History:  The Force of Public Opinion and the Last Years of Slaver...

Rick Atkinson talks with us about his trilogy on the War for Independence, beginning wit the first volume, The British Are Coming:  Lexington to Princeton 1775-1777, a masterpiece of historical narrative.  He helps us see past the familiar history and to understand the war for Independence in a new and interesting ways.  The first volume of Rick Atkinson's World War 2 trilogy, An Army at Dawn...

Nancy Rubin Stuart joins us to talk about her books, The Muse of the Revolution , a biography of Mercy Otis Warren; and Defiant Brides , a dual biography of the parallel lives of Lucy (Flucker) Knox & Peggy (Shippen) Arnold. Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!

Jane Kamensky, the Director of the Schlesinger Library , and Jonathan Trumbull Professor of American History at Harvard, joins us to talk about John Singleton Copley (see her book Revolution in Color (2016) and what she has learned in teaching the American Revolution.    Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!

A conversation with Professor Marla Miller (University of Massachusetts), Lisa Acker-Moulder ( Betsy Ross House ), and Betsy Ross (portrayed by Carol Spacht ) as we sort fact from fiction in the Betsy Ross story and learn about middle-class women in 18th century America.  Marla Miller is the author of Betsy Ross and the Making of America  (2010) and directs the U-Mass Public History program.  Tell...

Jonathan Lane, Coordinator of Revolution 250 in conversation with Catherine Allgor, President of the Massachusetts Historical Society ( https://www.masshist.org/ ).  She tells us why the Massachusetts Historical Society was founded after the Revolution, and its continuing role in preserving the history of the American Revolution; the effect of Covid on the historical and cultural communities, its...

Mary Beth Norton, the Mary Donlon Alger Professor of History emerita  at Cornell, joins us to talk about her new book, 1 774:  Long Year of Revolution .   We learn about the response to the destruction of the tea, about the cargo of tea that wound up on Cape Cod, and how Charleston, South Carolina had its own response to the tea--and the unfortunate end of the Peggy Stewar t in Annapolis.  This wa...

Author, poet, actress, and enterpreneuer Valerie Foxx joins us to talk about interpreting Phillis Wheatley,  who arrived in Boston as a seven-year old captive from Senegal, and became the first published African-American poet in 1773.  The multi-talented Valerie Foxx presents as Phillis Wheatley and through  Butterfly Foxx Productions  brings stories like Phillis Wheatley's to life.  Tell us...

Bob Allison and Bradley Jay speak with Prof. Chernoh Sesay of DePaul University about the role of political activism among the community of African-Americans in Revolutionary Boston; the role of the Prince Hall in establishing a Masonic tradition among African-Americans, the 1773 petitions for freedom, and the ongoing research into under-represented voices on the road to American Independence. Tel...

Was Thomas Hutchinson the most hated man in America during his lifetime?  Does he deserve the heaps of invective and abuse laid upon him by the Sons of Liberty, or was he merely a victim of the times?  Join Bob Allison & Bradley Jay as they discuss the life of Thomas Hutchinson with John Tyler, the editor of The Correspondence of Thomas Hutchinson  and Editor of Publications of the Colonial So...

Join Bradley Jay, Bob Allison & Jonathan Lane as they discuss the events surrounding the Boston Massacre Trials, Pope's Day, and Crime & Punishment in 1770 Boston. Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!

We talk with J.L. Bell, who has created the extraordinary Boston 1775 blog, with history, analysis, and unabashed gossip about the American Revolution in Boston--a daily update since 2006!  He tells us about how elections were run in colonial Boston, about his work at the Longfellow House Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site, and about the Boston Massacre Trials and the death of C...

Join Bob and Bradley as they discuss privateers, the Continental Navy, state navies, John Paul Jones, John Hancock and Samuel Adams in a wide ranging discussion with Professor William Fowler, author of An American Crisis:  George Washington and the Dangerous Two Years after Yorktown 1781-1783   (2011) and other books.  Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!

Ray Raphael , author of People's History of the American Revolution,   The First American Revolution:  Before Lexington and Concord , and  The Spirit of '74:  How the American Revolution Began , to name just a few of his important works, joins Bob Allison and Bradley Jay for a conversation on the beginnings of the American Revolution. Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!

Serena Zabin joins us to talk abut her great book,  The Boston Massacre: A Family History, .  Who were the soldiers from the 29th Regiment, and what kinds of relationships did they have with the citizens of Boston before March 5, 1770?  Hint:  At least 40 married Boston women, and a hundred brought infants to be baptized at King's Chapel.  Think you know the story of the Massacre?  Think agai...