Historian Elizabeth Riely explores Benjamin Franklin's fascination with the wild turkey, including his desire to see the turkey made the national symbol. She touches on the history of European discovery of the turkey.
Professor Pauline Maier discusses her experiences teaching U.S. history at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), from the American Revolution to the current events in Iraq.
Professor Eric Foner traces the development of the concept of "freedom" in the U.S., beginning with the nation's founding and continuing up to 2005 (the present day at the time of the lecture). He focuses on race relations and fights by minorities for civil liberties as focus points for the definition of freedom.
Jim McDonald, once lead interpreter of the Wythe House in Colonial Williamsburg, outlines the the murder of George Wythe and the trial that followed.
To listen to this podcast, select "All 2007 podcasts," and scroll to the June fourth program.
Hopkins was 10 times Governor of Rhode Island and signed the Declaration of Independence. His 1707 home is one of Providence's oldest surviving buildings.
The house offers tours.
The Thomas Stone National Historic Site consists of 322 acres which contain the restored home of Thomas Stone (1743-1787), one of the men who signed the Declaration of Independence and a participant in the 1785 Mount Vernon Conference. Besides Haberdeventure, the residence Stone purchased in 1770, the site boasts a visitor's center, circa 1840 outbuildings, and the Stone family cemetery.
The site offers guided tours of Haberdeventure, period rooms, an introductory film, exhibits, a mock trial program in accordance with state educational standards, educational outreach programs, Junior Ranger activities, and a picnic site. There are no concessions available on site. Reservations are required for educational programs. The website offers lesson plans, a post-visit Jeopardy game, and a virtual tour of Haberdeventure.
Thomas Jefferson, as played by Colonial Williamsburg interpreter Bill Barker, defends his bill, submitted to the Virginia General Assembly, supporting religious freedom.
According to the Gilder Lehrman Institute, "As inscrutable as he was influential, Thomas Jefferson casts a mighty shadow on American history. In this lecture, Pulitzer-Prize-winning historian Joseph J. Ellis explores Jefferson’s political ideology—his preference for an agrarian nation and a weak national government, his feelings about democracy, his insistence on the separation of church and state, and belief in individual rights—and suggests that as the United States emerges from the 20th century, it may be moving toward a more Jeffersonian ideal of limited government and the primacy of the individual."
These 274 sources focus on the work of the Continental Congress and the drafting and ratification of the Constitution, including manuscript annotations. The collection includes extracts of the journals of Congress, resolutions, proclamations, committee reports, and treaties. In addition, there are documents relating to the Constitutional Convention of 1787, extracts of proceedings of state assemblies and conventions relating to the ratification of the Constitution, several essays on the ratification of the Constitution, and early printed versions of the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
There are 253 titles dating from 1774 to 1788 relating to the Constitutional Congress and 21 dating from 1786 to 1789 relating to the Constitutional Convention. Two timelines cover the period 1764 to 1789 and an essay entitled "To Form a More Perfect Union" provides historical context for the documents through an overview of the main events of the era of the Revolution.
In this lecture from the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, Professor Cornell examines the three distinct phases of the Constitution. "The first is the Constitution in the 18th century as imagined by the Founding Fathers. The Constitution went through another incarnation after the Civil War. Professor Cornell will then look at the Constitution in the decades after the New Deal to the present."