Blog - Page 11 of 29

By Emily Sneff February 28, 2019

The Curious World of Benjamin Franklin: Hans Sloane, the British Museum, and an Asbestos Purse

Emily Sneff is a graduate student in early American history at William & Mary and a Digital Apprentice at the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture. This post appeared originally on georgianpapersprogramme.com. There is an object in the British Museum that was bought from Benjamin Franklin. A small asbestos “purse.” With only these… Read More

Ben Franklin's World 10 min read

By Nora Slonimsky February 26, 2019

The Public Figure Exception(s): Finding Fair Use in the Vastness of Early American IP

This post accompanies “Copyright and Fair Use in Early America,” episode 227 of Ben Franklin’s World. You can find supplementary materials for the episode on the OI Reader app, available through iTunes or Google Play. Whether you are Gigi Hadid or Jedidiah Morse, your copyright is often more than… Read More

Ben Franklin's World 16 min read

By Andrew Newman February 20, 2019

Digital Sources, Analog Citations

Today’s post is by Andrew Newman, author of Allegories of Encounter: Colonial Literacy and Indian Captivities, published in January 2019 by the Omohundro Institute with our partners at the University of North Carolina Press. It is available in paperback. The image on the right is a copper engraving from a 1725 Amsterdam edition of François de Salignac de la… Read More

books 12 min read

By oieahc February 13, 2019

Digital Collection Fellowship updates

2019 marks the third year of the Lapidus Initiative for Digital Collections Fellowships. The recent awards to Benjamin Bankhurst and Kyle Roberts for “The Maryland Loyalist Project,” Julia Gaffield, Jennifer Palmer, and Patrick Tardieu for “Endangered Colonial Imprints in the Bibliothèque Hatïenne des Pères du Saint-Esprit: The Archives Décoloniales of the Age of Revolutions,” and to Daniel Webb for… Read More

digital projects 7 min read

By Karin Wulf February 06, 2019

Vast Early America: Three Simple Words for a Complex Reality

This article was originally published in the Winter 2019 issue of Humanities magazine, a publication of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Some of the images used in the article are under copyright and appear only on the NEH’s site. American history courses usually begin with the peopling of the Americas, then move on to European colonization and the crisis of the… Read More

#VastEarlyAmerica 37 min read

By Peter Olsen-Harbich January 30, 2019

The Sandy Ground of Prince Edward: Profligacy and Royal Credit in the Empire of George III

Peter Olsen-Harbich spent the September of 2018 in the Royal Archives at Windsor as an Omohundro Institute–Georgian Papers Programme fellow and as the recipient of a William & Mary Dean’s Research Fund fellowship. The latter was jointly funded by the Omohundro Institute and the William & Mary Dean of the Faculty of Arts & Sciences via the William &… Read More

Georgian Papers Programme 15 min read

By Brooke Newman January 24, 2019

Uncovering Royal Perspectives on Slavery, Empire, and the Rights of Colonial Subjects

Dr. Newman is Associate Professor of History and Associate Director of the Humanities Research Center at Virginia Commonwealth University. She was awarded an Omohundro Institute Georgian Papers Programme Fellowship in 2017. This post appears on the georgianpapersprogramme.com site as well. In 2017 I spent a month in the Royal Archives tracing how the Georgian monarchs responded to contemporary… Read More

Georgian Papers Programme 11 min read

By Allison Bigelow January 09, 2019

Teaching Colonial Translations Through Archives

Today’s post is courtesy of Allison Bigelow (University of Virginia), 2012-2014 OI-NEH Postdoctoral Fellow. It appears in issue 14 of the Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy. The post is based in part on work Professor Bigelow did while completing her fellowship at the Omohundro Institute and teaching at William & Mary. From “Teaching Colonial Translations Through… Read More

digital projects 3 min read

By Tom Cutterham December 12, 2018

Capital, Deception, and the Heirs of Daniel Parker

WMQ author Tom Cutterham (October 2018) offers further thoughts on his piece, “‘A Very Promising Appearance’: Credit, Honor, and Deception in the Emerging Market for American Debt, 1784—92” (William and Mary Quarterly, volume 75, no. 4). Where is the line between entrepreneur and con-artist? That’s the question that animates Jane Kamensky’s account of early nineteenth-century Boston financier Andrew Dexter Jr. Read More

WMQ 6 min read

By Holly White December 05, 2018

A Hamilton-Inspired Playlist from Ben Franklin's World

Since its Broadway premiere in 2015, Hamilton: An American Musical has taken the world by storm. For many who have seen Hamilton, the undeniable star of the show is not the young, scrappy, and hungry title character or his tempered frenemy Burr, but the resplendent George III. The sardonic king interjects at three different points in… Read More

Ben Franklin's Worlddigital projectsGeorgian Papers Programme 8 min read

By Lauren Duval November 29, 2018

Daily Life and Wartime Disruption

Today’s post is by October 2018 WMQ author Lauren Duval. The American Revolution, Mary Beth Norton asserted in her classic study, Liberty’s Daughters, had “profound consequences for the entire population” and unsettled “normal patterns of life.”[1] I found this notion particularly intriguing and I was eager to explore it further as I delved into my dissertation research. Occupation seemed… Read More

WMQ 7 min read

By Liz Covart November 26, 2018

Doing History: The Power of Biography

Today’s post accompanies the Doing History 3 series on Ben Franklin's World. You can find supplementary materials for the series on the OI Reader app, available through iTunes or Google Play. Biographies serve as a gateway to history. They serve this role because, as all of our guest scholars in the Doing History: Biography series related, biographies humanize the past. At their core biographies are about people, and as people, we are naturally curious about how others lived, worked, and experienced life. Read More

Ben Franklin's WorldDoing History 11 min read

Uncommon Sense

The Curious World of Benjamin Franklin: Hans Sloane, the British Museum, and an Asbestos Purse

The Public Figure Exception(s): Finding Fair Use in the Vastness of Early American IP

Digital Sources, Analog Citations

Digital Collection Fellowship updates

Vast Early America: Three Simple Words for a Complex Reality

The Sandy Ground of Prince Edward: Profligacy and Royal Credit in the Empire of George III

Uncovering Royal Perspectives on Slavery, Empire, and the Rights of Colonial Subjects

Teaching Colonial Translations Through Archives

Capital, Deception, and the Heirs of Daniel Parker

A Hamilton-Inspired Playlist from Ben Franklin's World

Daily Life and Wartime Disruption

Doing History: The Power of Biography

Recent Posts

Peer Review for the Born-Digital?

BJ Lillis

Patrick Barker

Subscribe to the Blog

Uncommon Sense

The Curious World of Benjamin Franklin: Hans Sloane, the British Museum, and an Asbestos Purse

The Public Figure Exception(s): Finding Fair Use in the Vastness of Early American IP

Digital Sources, Analog Citations

Digital Collection Fellowship updates

Vast Early America: Three Simple Words for a Complex Reality

The Sandy Ground of Prince Edward: Profligacy and Royal Credit in the Empire of George III

Uncovering Royal Perspectives on Slavery, Empire, and the Rights of Colonial Subjects

Teaching Colonial Translations Through Archives

Capital, Deception, and the Heirs of Daniel Parker

A Hamilton-Inspired Playlist from Ben Franklin's World

Daily Life and Wartime Disruption

Doing History: The Power of Biography

Recent Posts

Peer Review for the Born-Digital?

BJ Lillis

Patrick Barker

Subscribe to the Blog

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