Ceramics (category). Teapot. Teapot and cover: Creamware; A: footed globular body with crabstock spout and handle, each side painted in brownish red with “No Stamp Act” within cartouche of leaf scrolls and flowers. B: conforming cover with knob finial and painted with pattern conforming to cartouche.
When we think about the American Revolution, the French Revolution, or the Haitian Revolution, we think about the ideals of freedom and equality. These ideals were embedded and discussed in all of these revolutions.
What we don’t always think about when we think about these revolutions are the objects that inspired, came out of, and were circulated as they took place.
Ashli White, an Associate Professor of History at the University of Miami in Florida, joins us to investigate the “revolutionary things” that were created and circulated during the American, French, and Haitian Revolutions with details from her book Revolutionary Things: Material Culture and Politics in the Late Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World.
Image Courtesy of Colonial Williamsburg.
About the Show
Ben Franklin’s World is a podcast about early American history.
It is a show for people who love history and for those who want to know more about the historical people and events that have impacted and shaped our present-day world.
Each episode features a conversation with a historian who helps us shed light on important people and events in early American history.
Ben Franklin’s World is a production of Colonial Williamsburg Innovation Studios.
Episode Summary
Ashli White is an associate professor of history at the University of Miami in Florida. Her research expertise is in the different ways early North America connected to the Atlantic World. Her most recent book is Revolutionary Things: Material Culture and Politics in the Late Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World.
During our discussion, Ashli reveals information about the Age of Revolutions in the Atlantic World; Connections between the American, French, and Haitian Revolutions; And what objects from these revolutions can teach us about the people and ideas who supported and protested them.
What You’ll Discover
• Age of Revolutions in the Atlantic World
• Connections between the American, French, and Haitian Revolutions
• What scholars mean by the term “Atlantic World”
• What scholars mean by the term “material culture”
• How objects serve as portals to the past
• Manufacturing objects in the Colonial Era
• Ceramics in Colonial America
• No Stamp Act Teapot
• Cockades
• Why access to goods mattered in the Age of Revolutions
• The political meanings of goods during the Age of Revolutions
• Maps and map-making
• The meaning of maps
• José Antonio Aponte and his book of paintings
Links to People, Places, and Publications
• Ashli White
• Ashli White, Revolutionary Things: Material Culture and Politics in the Late Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World
• Digital Aponte
• Transcript
Sponsor Links
• Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
• The Power of Place: The Centennial Campaign for Colonial Williamsburg
• Friends of Lafayette Grand Tour Re-enactment
Complementary Episodes
• Episode 124: Making the Haitian Revolution in Early America
• Episode 136: Material Culture and the Making of America
• Episode 164: The American Revolution in the Age of Revolutions
• Episode 165: The Age of Revolutions
• Episode 177: The Social Life of Maps in America
• Episode 306: The Horse’s Tail: Revolution & Memory in Early New York City
• Episode 319: Cuba: An Early American History
What would have happened if more material culture related to the Haitian Revolution had been widely circulated in the United States? How might that have shaped understandings of freedom and equity in the new nation?
Questions, Comments, Suggestions
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Get in Touch! Send me an e-mail or leave a comment.
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