Going Platinum with 1 Million Downloads

Ben Franklin's World hit a big milestone this past weekend. On Saturday, September 17, 2016, it reached and surpassed 1 million downloads. Or as I like to joke, Ben Franklin's World went platinum.

In the world of podcasting, reaching and surpassing 1 million downloads is a remarkable achievement. What make's Ben Franklin's World achievement of this goal even more remarkable is that the show reached this milestone as an independently produced podcast before its 2-year anniversary (Oct 7). Also, it achieved these downloads without inflationary tactics such as "tweet bombing" and without paid advertising.

There are two main reasons the podcast has been as successful as it has over the last (almost) two years: First, it offers high-quality content that listeners enjoy enough to recommend to others. Second, I've had a lot of help from friends, colleagues, and listeners.

The People Behind-the-Scenes

Darrell Darnell of Pro Podcast Solutions has served as the audio engineer and assistant editor for the show for the last year. He works hard to ensure that each episode sounds great and as good as it possibly can. Given my sensitive ears this not always an easy feat to achieve.

The Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture has played a sizable role in the evolution of the show. Last year, they helped me troubleshoot a lot of quick-growth "hiccups" that developed in the back end of the podcast. This year, they've helped shape the content side. They've done this with our "Doing History: How Historians Work" series and in providing silent, gentle encouragement to do better. (They asked me to keep doing what I was doing, but there's something about producing a podcast for the organization that publishes the leading journal in your field, and many of its leading books, to make you ask "what can I do to produce better episodes?")

Many friends and colleagues have listened to me talk ad nauseam about both history and podcasting. However, three friends and colleagues have gone above and beyond serving as sounding boards for this project: Sara Georgini, Joseph Adelman, and Karin Wulf. I can safely say all three now know more about podcasting and its technical workings than they ever thought they wanted to know.

My partner Tim Wilde also knows more about podcasting, digital media, and how they can complement history than he ever wanted to know. Tim has supported this project both literally and figuratively since I came up with idea to start a podcast. Not only did he make the project financially feasible for more than a year, he has also spent many nights and weekends being silent while I record, writing me code that integrates apps with the BFWorld website, and fixing technical issues that arise when WordPress, RSS feeds, and other code breaks. This is to say nothing of how he has yet to comment on the fact that Ben Franklin's World often turns him into a "podcast widower."

Listeners have been central in helping Ben Franklin's World grow from 288 downloads in October 2014 to a monthly average of over 68,000 downloads today. BFWorld listeners serve as the enthusiastic advertising department for the podcast. They recommend the show to their friends, family, and acquaintances because they love history, the guest historians and the topics they discuss in episodes, and that I work hard to provide them with high-quality content.

Plus, listeners have helped in other ways too. Some listeners go the extra mile to help support the show's production costs with financial donations. Many more offer support by sending e-mails, tweets, and Facebook posts of encouragement.

Podcasting is way more work than I ever thought it would be and the production schedule of a weekly show is downright grueling. There are weeks when I think about airing old content, skipping an episode, or reducing the production schedule to every other week because I'm exhausted and want to work on my book projects. There are also weeks where my perfectionist tendencies kick in and I fret over the quality of my work. Without fail, whenever I fall into a tired, mental rut, my inbox and social media streams start bulging with listener feedback telling me how much they love the show and feel enriched by it. And without fail, these words of encouragement spur me on.

I am sincerely grateful to all of these friends for their assistance.

Episode 100 & Beyond

When episode 100 airs tomorrow (Sept 20), I will enter a different level in the podcasting space; the level that says I'm statistically likely to continue podcasting for another 1-3 years for a total of 3-5 years. It will be interesting to see if this holds true or if Ben Franklin's World and I become a statistical outlier. Time will tell.

Uncharacteristically, I'm mostly focused on the moment rather than on the future and all the work that needs to be done. Tim and I marked 1 million downloads by splurging on an expensive bottle of whiskey that we will enjoy for months to come. Next month, we will celebrate the show's 2-year anniversary with a long weekend away from Ben Franklin's World.

#TravelinBen: The Historian's Flat Stanley

Do you know Flat Stanley? Flat Stanley is a paper boy that kids cut out, color, and send to friends, family, and pen pals. These friends and correspondents take pictures of Stanley in different places and send those pictures back to his owner. Once the pictures come back, the kids write stories about where Stanley has been and what he did during his trip(s).

The Flat Stanley exercise helps kids learn “authentic literacy.” Kids get to create and write about the stories and ideas they are passionate about.

Flat Stanley made me wonder, can historians and history teachers use a version of this idea to help kids learn and become passionate about history?

In this post, you will discover my new experiment for 2016: #TravelinBen.

The Inspiration

I have two nephews and a niece.

I met my eldest nephew when he was 6 or 7 years old. He talked my ear off for hours about Pokémon during our first meeting. It was cute even if I had no idea what to do with the conversation. Today, he’s 18 and a freshman in college.

My other nephew and niece are young. My youngest nephew is 1 year and my niece is 3.5 years old.

Admittedly, I am not a baby person and I feel (and likely look) clueless around little kids. However, my niece has decided she won’t stand for a clueless auntie.*

Every time I walk into her house for a visit, she runs up, gives me a hug, and takes me to her playroom. We color, build Lincoln Logs, go shopping at her store, play doctor, and serve tea with her princess tea set. Mostly, she just bosses me around.

It’s cute and smart. My niece is bringing me into her little-kid world through play.

My niece's intuitive actions have caused me to wonder whether the process can be reversed. If a 3.5 year old can bring a 34 year old into her world through play, why can’t I bring my niece into my world using the same idea?

If my niece loves to play princess tea party, why wouldn’t she love to play Boston Tea Party?

2016: The Year of Travel

I am not sure how it happened, but January may have been the only month when I don’t travel in 2016.

Conferences, speaking engagements, family, and my ability to work remotely have combined so that I will visit Switzerland, Tampa, Baltimore, Providence, Honolulu, Kauai, Worcester, New Haven, Chicago, and central Florida by the end of September.

Trips to Ireland, England, and a second visit to Switzerland are also possibilities.

Remembering Flat Stanley

Over Christmas, I told my parents about how much travel Tim and I had planned in 2016. As we discussed both the craziness of our schedule, and how lucky and fortunate we are to travel, I saw Addison playing. The sight triggered the memory of Flat Stanley, who accompanied us on a family trip years before for a cousin.

Flat Stanley + Podcast Ben = Travelin’ Ben

I have friends and family who find my enthusiasm for early American history a bit eccentric. They send me bobbleheads and tell me about quirky items like the Unemployed Philosopher Guild’s Ben Franklin doll.

He kind of looks angry, but I liked him so I bought one for my desk. I call him "Podcast Ben." He sits by my mic and watches me produce Ben Franklin’s World.

After Christmas, I looked at Podcast Ben and thought: What if instead of Flat Stanley, I used Ben?

What if Podcast Ben could inspire “authentic literacy” and add a dash of history to the kids' experience?

Travelin’ Ben

I renamed Podcast Ben, "Travelin' Ben."

I will take him on my trips and use him as others use Flat Stanley. I will take pictures of Ben at unique places, historic sites, and when we are just having fun.

I plan to tweet my pictures with the hashtag #TravelinBen. At the end of the year, I will create a photo book for my niece and nephew so when they are older they can create stories and I can introduce them to history.

*In New England, we pronounce aunt and auntie with the “au” sound in “haunt."

Indulging in Counterfactuals: The Three-Fifths Clause of the Constitution

What would have happened if the Constitution of the United States had not had its Three-Fifths clause? Joe Adelman poses this thought-provoking question in “Alternative Fractions,” a post that responds to both Rebecca Onion’s “What if?” essay on Aeon and Kevin Gannon’s “The Constitution, Slavery, and the Problem of Agency."

I love counterfactuals because they make me think about contingency. However, the counterfactual posed by Joe requires serious thought because of its scope.

In this post, I take a stab at addressing what would have happened if the Three-Fifths clause had not been added to the United States Constitution.

A Brief Overview of the Three-Fifths Clause

The Three-Fifths clause appears in Article I, Section 2 of the United States Constitution.

Article 1, Section 2 outlines the House of Representatives. It addresses who can serve as a Representative and how population will determine House membership.

Here is the Three-Fifths clause:

“Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons."

The clause represents a compromise. The Articles of Confederation apportioned taxes according to land values. States undervalued their land to lower their tax burden. During the Constitutional Convention (1787) many delegates wanted population to be the basis for tax allocation.

As the Convention debated the merits of the “Connecticut Plan,” the version of the Constitution that supported a bicameral legislative branch, northern states and southern states disagreed over how slaves would count if the Constitution based representation in the House of Representatives on population. James Wilson of Pennsylvania and Roger Sherman of Connecticut proposed a compromise to entice southern support for the population-based House: Each slave would count as three-fifths of a white person.

The result of this compromise: The delegates agreed on the Constitution and southern representation in the new government increased from about 38 percent under the Articles of Confederation government to about 45 percent under the new Constitution. This increase in representation gave southerners the power they needed to control presidential elections with electoral votes. However, the representative advantage proved short lived as the population in northern and western states grew more rapidly than in southern states.

Major Components of the Three-Fifths Clause Counterfactual

Joe's counterfactual question has two major components that if we altered their history would have far-reaching implications.

Presidential elections, 1789-1828: Five of the first seven presidents hailed from southern states; four from Virginia.

Congressional Representation: Without the Three-Fifths clause congressional leaders may not have come from the south and legislation that failed to pass without southern support would have passed.

One Brief Scenario for the Three-Fifths Clause Counterfactual

If the states had ratified the Constitution without the Three-Fifths clause the history of the nation would be very different.

Northern states would have had more control in both the House of Representatives and the Electoral College. This means George Washington may have been the only member of the “Virginia Dynasty” to serve as president between 1789 and 1825.

Alexander Hamilton would not have met Thomas Jefferson and James Madison “in the room where it happen[ed]” to exchange congressional votes for removing the nation's capital to the banks of the Potomac River because Hamilton would not have needed their support to get his debt assumption bill passed.

Without Hamilton, Jefferson, and Madison's backroom deal, the nation’s capital would not have moved south. It would have moved west from New York City.

Actual History

After the Revolution, 700,000 to 800,000 New Englanders migrated into New York State. The Yankees flooded into post-war New York City and established new, New English towns in northern and western parts of the state. Once the migrants filled New York they pushed west to Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and Illinois. Americans further south also migrated. They moved into what would become Kentucky and Tennessee.

As the population expanded in the west, it also burgeoned in eastern cities like New York City and Philadelphia. The cost of living in these cities rose as demand for living space and life necessities increased. On November 1796, the New York State Assembly and Senate voted to relocate the state capital to Albany. They made this decision partly because the population of the state had grown in its northern and western regions, but mostly because New York City had become too expensive for many representatives to live in and travel to.

The economic and population factors that caused the New York State government to relocate its capital to a more central and cheaper location would have also forced the federal government to relocate from New York City. As Philadelphia experienced a similar rise in cost of living, I believe a different negotiation would have occurred and the capital of the United States would have moved to a place like Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Cincinnati, Ohio, Lexington or Louisville, Kentucky, or Indianapolis, Indiana.

A Return to Counterfactual History

Without southern control of the Electoral College, John Adams would have won the Election of 1800 handily, even amidst Jeffersonian criticism for the Alien and Sedition Acts.

Would President Adams have made the Louisiana Purchase?

Yes, presuming Napoleon’s situation in France remains on its actual historical trajectory.

The loss of the French forces in Saint Domingue in 1802/1803 and France’s wars in Europe would have have forced Napoleon to raise capital by selling Louisiana to the United States. A shrewd Yankee, Adams would have found a way to make this purchase happen. Even if Adams hadn’t been perceptive enough to see the bargain Napoleon offered, his wife Abigail would have and she would have talked her “Dearest Friend" into the purchase.

After President Adams, the United States would have had more northern presidents. Men like George Clinton, DeWitt Clinton, Rufus King and Daniel Tompkins of New York, and Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts offer real possibilities. John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts also would have served and possibly before 1825.

Aspects that Require More Thought

Joe poses an intriguing counterfactual question. Without the Three-Fifths clause a lot would have been different. Even after investing some time into thinking about this counterfactual, several big questions remain unanswered in my mind:

Would the United States have declared war against Great Britain in 1812?

Would the charter of the First Bank of the United States have been extended? If so, what would that have meant for the economy of the United States? Would the Panics of 1819 and 1837 have happened?

How would a northern or western president's approval of the Bonus Bill of 1817 have changed western expansion and internal commerce?

If the north and west had secured electoral and legislative power sooner than it did, would the Compromise of 1820 have been necessary?

Would the expansion of slavery have been an issue?

Would the nation have overpowered the south and voted to gradually abolish slavery before the Civil War?

What Do You Think?

What do you think would have happened in any of the above scenarios?  

King George III Would Be Proud: Historian Humor

Funny moment: Yesterday, my cell phone rang while I sat in a waiting room. Normally, I keep my phone on vibrate, but for whatever reason its ringer was turned on.

Like many early American historians, I love the soundtrack to [simpleazon-link asin="B013JLBPGE" locale="us"]Hamilton the Musical[/simpleazon-link]. My ringer plays the "Silence! A message from the King!" lyric at the end of Samuel Seabury's "Farmer Refuted."

When my phone rang, everyone in the waiting room jumped a bit because I had a "message from the king."

After I shut the ringer off, I imagined King George III smiling about the fact that he could make a room full of Bostonians jump more than 200 years after the British Army left Boston and the United States declared its independence.

"Farmer Refuted," Hamilton the Musical

King George III's Message: "You'll Be Back," Hamilton the Musical

Ben Franklin's World: 1 Year Anniversary

Happy Birthday Ben Franklin's World! Today marks the 1-year anniversary of Ben Franklin's World: A Podcast About Early American History.

I thought it would be fun to discuss the current status of the show, how it has evolved over the last year, and how I intend to experiment with, and add to, this digital history project over the course of the next year.

By the Numbers

Statistics as of October 7, 2015, 7:59am

Number of Episodes: 55 published; 61 recorded

Total Downloads: 333,374 (this includes the Spreaker & iHeartRadio stats, which I always forget to consult)

E-mail Subscribers: 824

Listener Community Members: 227

Monthly Download Total October 2014: 288

Monthly Download Total September 2015: 43,829

Evolution of the Podcast

I started Ben Franklin's World to see if a podcast could create wide public awareness about the work of professional historians. Over the last year, the show has positively answered this question. It has also proven that people are interested in professional historians' scholarship and that our work enriches their lives.

However, Ben Franklin's World has also become more than a platform to generate interest in historical scholarship.

Educational tool: High school teachers and college professors incorporate episodes into their classroom teaching.

High school and college students listen to the show to study for their exams and papers. One high school student told me that she passed her history exam in part because she listens to the podcast.

Graduate students use episodes to study for their comprehensive exams.

Professional development and service tool: Potential guests note Ben Franklin's World as part of their marketing strategy in book proposals. Guests use show and episode download numbers in their tenure and promotion packets. Many professional historians listen to the show to keep up to date with early American historiography.

Networking tool: Not only have I had 30-60 minute conversations with many great historians, but historians have connected with each other as a result of hearing about each other's work.

Community building tool: Over 200 listeners have joined "Poor Richard's Club," a community for Ben Franklin's World listeners on Facebook. Members of the community share articles, discuss history, and interact with each other based on their shared interest in early American history.

Ben Franklin's World serves all of these functions and yet I did not create the podcast to serve these purposes. Like many digital history projects it has taken on a life of its own. It will be fun and exciting to see how the show continues to evolve beyond its original purpose.

Experiments & Goals for 2015-2016

Three big projects will dominate my attention over the next year: Monetization, community development, and time management.

Monetization

Can Ben Franklin's World become a self-supporting project? Over the next year, I intend to investigate ways to make Ben Franklin's World pay for itself. Experimentation begins later this month when I will launch my first crowdfunding campaign.

Community Development

I have been surprised by how many listeners want to interact with me via Twitter, Facebook, or e-mail and by how many listeners want to spend time hanging out with other listeners in Poor Richard's Club. The community-building aspect of Ben Franklin's World requires more attention. This unintended aspect of the show could further historians' efforts to engage with the public and, in turn, the public could help us with how we write about, talk about, and interpret history.

Presently, I am halfway through an online course on how to build and develop online communities on Facebook.*

Time Management

I love working on Ben Franklin's World, but this work has come at the expense of my scholarship. As much fun as the podcast has been, and continues to be, I miss researching and writing about history.

I started Ben Franklin's World as an historian with a podcast. A year later I am a podcaster who happens to be an historian. I do not regret the quick success of the show or the challenges it has created for me, but I am also not intellectually satisfied by working on the podcast alone. Over the next few months, I need to find a way that I can continue to produce a high-quality show and work on my book projects.

Share Your Story

Do you listen to the show? What has your favorite episode been?

Do you have tried and true strategies I could use to better manage my time?

Listener Testimonials

"I am not an historian, but subscribe to many history-related podcasts. Liz's is one of my favorites. It is fun and provides historical views and perspectives that I trust."--krrat

“If my teachers had been half this engaging I would not have slept through most of history class.”—Sheryse Lang

“If you remember a really great university history class— not the one where you fell asleep in the back row, but the one where you got their early to get the good seats in the front row—that’s Ben Franklin’s world.”—Friscodog

"I LOVE Ben Franklin's World podcasts.  Liz Covart's enthusiasm for history is contagious!  I have always enjoyed learning about American History, but I can't emphasize enough how much I look forward to each new episode."--Pat Kerper

*I am taking the "Facebook Groups Rock!" course by Katie Krimitsos. Her course is closed at the moment, but this special link works in case you want to take the course too. This is not an affiliate link.