You asked, and we answered!

The Civil War freed families from slavery and divided families on the battlefield. We look at how the war impacted America’s most intimate relationships.

War, compromise, violence on the floor of the senate, blood on the frontier, then war again. We discuss how slavery and westward expansion put the Nation on the road to civil war.

From the colonies to emancipation, generations of women, men, and children were traded as commodities. We discuss the 250 year evolution of African slavery in America.

Cholera, fire, violence, and manure. Life in antebellum New York was exciting, dirty and filled with class conflict. We discuss the environmental and social struggles in the early decades of the city’s urbanization.

Part two! We continue the story of the twin revolutions–specifically their impact on slavery, political parties, pop culture, and Native Americans in the antebellum era.

Revolutions in both transportation (railroads! canals!) and communication (printing press!) disrupted and reshaped early American society. In part one, we look at the transformation of the economy, gender roles, and religious belief in the antebellum era.

The Revolution was just the beginning. Next, the Founding Fathers had to create the Nation. We discuss the contentious and complex origins of the American government.

You asked, and we answered!

The American Revolution didn’t just create a new nation, it created a new way of thinking. We discuss how religion, philosophy, and politics fused to form a distinctly American worldview.

This bloody conflict reshaped colonial power across the globe and set the stage for the American Revolution. So why don’t we talk about it more? Because it’s really, really complicated. We discuss it anyway.

Sugar, gold, potatoes, and slaves. We discuss how trade created, destroyed, and transformed cultures on both sides of the Atlantic.

The Puritans! They’re not as boring as you think they are! In fact, they are really misunderstood. We discuss what they believed and the society they created in New England--and how it collapsed.

Native Americans and British colonists inhabited the same land but their beliefs, along with how they related to the environment, could not have been more different. We discuss the collision of these ideas and how the land was remade in the process.

Jamestown was the first English colony in America....sort of. Colonization was a global and bloody process of trial and error. We tell the story of colonization before the English found success in Jamestown.