Must...Avoid...Research Rabbit Hole...Or, Were the Articles of Confederation a Failure?

Were the Articles of Confederation a success or failure? I finished reading Merrill Jensen's The Articles of Confederation (1940). It's the first book I've read for my new book project about the Articles of Confederation and it's the last book historians have written specifically about the Articles and how the Continental Congress drafted them.

Jensen spends most of his conclusion discussing whether or not we can view the first constitution of the United States as a success or failure. He states that "the fact that the Articles of Confederation were supplanted by another Constitution is no proof either of their success or their failure. Any valid opinion as to the merits of the Articles must be based on a detailed and unbiased study of the confederation period."[1] I agree.

The only way to assess the success or failure of the United States' first constitution is to study them in action. And this bring us to the point of Jensen's book: Jensen intended for The Articles of Confederation to establish the context and knowledge he needed readers to have so they could best understand the book he wanted to write, The New Nation: A History of the United States During the Confederation, 1781-1789 (1950).

Jensen's question and point are interesting, but are they the question and point I want to answer and make in my study of the Articles?

Recognizing a Rabbit Hole

I came to be interested in the Articles of Confederation because so many recent studies about the Constitution of 1787 treat the Articles of Confederation as a stepping stone to the Constitution. These studies discuss how it was a flawed constitution and reason that those who drafted the Articles never intended for it to stand as a permanent, lasting government.

These claims don't make sense to me given what I know about the Revolution.

Additionally, an article I wrote about trade during the Confederation era came back from peer reviewers with a recommendation that I flesh out and expand the historiography section on the Articles of Confederation. That's when I found that I couldn't expand the section because there wasn't more literature to add. Jensen had written the last book on the subject and subsequent works only address the Articles on their way to a discussion of the Constitution of 1787.

The realization that there was such a gap in the historiography combined with the question of what did the framers of the Articles intend the constitution to be inspired me to take up this project.

Were the Articles of Confederation a success or failure as a constitution? This isn't a question I want to answer. I want to answer three different questions:

1. In what context did the Continental Congress draft the Articles of Confederation?

2. What intent did the framers of the Articles have for the constitution? Was it to be a permanent constitution or did they intend for it to serve as a temporary measure until a future congress could draft a more full constitution?

3. How did the thirteen states come together to draft and ratify the Articles of Confederation? How did they overcome their regional, economic, and political differences to form a union?

Avoiding the Rabbit Hole

I'm grateful for the work Merrill Jensen did in The Articles of Confederation, yet I want to write a different book.

History is about people and Jensen didn't really discuss people in his book. His work was meant to serve as an extended introduction to the book he wanted to write. I want to write a book about how the Articles of Confederation came to be, the men who drafted them, and how those men came to their ideas.

I also want to provide more context than Merrill Jensen did in his book. Jensen mentioned how the men who drafted the Articles spent a lot of time referencing history in their arguments for and against certain articles. Yet Jensen didn't explore historical precedents for the Articles. Both the Netherlands and Switzerland had confederations at the time Richard Henry Lee resolved that Congress should establish a committee to draft a confederation.[2] What role did these foreign and contemporary confederations play as models for the Articles?

Jensen barely mentioned slavery and yet today we know that slavery and protecting it played a huge role in the governance of the early United States. Surely slavery played a role in the drafting of the United States' first constitution too. I need to investigate that role.

Also, what role did land and the west really play in the Articles and their ratification? For Jensen, limiting the boundaries of states like Virginia, which had charter rights to land from the Atlantic to the "South Sea," proved to be a central controversy. This may be the case. At this point I know little about the political and cultural rivalry that existed between Maryland and Virginia (I need to learn more about it), but I know all about the political and cultural rivalry that existed between New York and New England and land played a big role in it.

Jensen may be right that land played a central role in drafting and ratifying the Articles, however, I noticed something curious in his footnotes: Jensen did not cite a lot of secondary sources; he relied on a lot of documentary editions and some manuscripts. When he did cite a secondary source, several citations were for works by Frederick Jackson Turner.

I know about Turner and his work, but I've never read Turner. I think this may be the next step in my project. I think I need to take a quick step back and explore the historiography that clearly influenced Jensen so I can better understand where Jensen was coming from, where I agree and disagree with him, and how I want to move forward.

Conclusion: Stay Focused

When I wrote my dissertation, I felt like I had all the time in the world. I had a funded position, research fellowships, and my dissertation was my full-time job. I thought nothing of spending a month or more in distant archives. Heck, I moved to Albany, New York so I could "reside" in the two most important archives for my project: The New York State Library and Archives.

Now, I have a full-time job with Ben Franklin's World so I have to work on this project differently. I have to work smarter. I need to stay focused on my research questions and not chase as many interesting questions, ideas, and bits of information down rabbit holes. I suppose that is the point of this post: A reminder to myself of what my research questions and goals are so I can stay focused and eventually write and publish a book.

Avoid the rabbit holes, Liz.

Notes

[1] Merrill Jensen, The Articles of Confederation: An Interpretation of the Social-Constitutional History of the American Revolution, 1st edition, (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1940), pg 239.

[2] On June 7, 1776, Continental Congressman Richard Henry Lee of Virginia made the following resolution in the Second Continental Congress: "Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.

That it is expedient forthwith to take the most effectual measures for forming foreign Alliances.

That a plan of confederation be prepared and transmitted to the respective Colonies for their consideration and approbation."

Sounds of History: What Did Early America Sound Like?

What did early America sound like?

This recurring thought has recently moved from the back of my brain to its front.

I'm fortunate to live in Boston, a city that attempts to preserve vestiges of its early American past even as it builds around them. Living in a place with many visual reminders of the 18th and 19th centuries provides ample reminders to pause and listen for early America.

In recent weeks it has become typical to find me standing at the corner of State and Congress Streets, for example, staring down State Street at the Long Wharf, tuning out the cars in the foreground, and trying to imagine what it sounded like when ships pulled into and out of port and dockworkers loaded and unloaded cargo holds. Or standing on a lawn on the Common trying to imagine the sounds the British military encampments made in 1768 and during the 1770s.

I've even started pacing the sidewalks in my neighborhood in areas where the sidewalk transitions from granite cobblestones to brick pavers. I'm wearing modern shoes, but the sounds my shoes make as they make contact with these different materials sounds different. What would it sound like if I wore period shoes?

Sound shapes our world, mostly in unconscious ways. It drives our experiences in part by establishing context and setting expectations.

Film provides a great example of the power of sound and how it shapes our expectations and experiences.

For example, let's explore a few of the sounds in Star Wars. The movie opens and immediately the music used to introduce the film sets an expectation that we are in for a grand, epic tale about "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away." Background music and sounds frame scenes so we know if we're watching Tie Fighters chase the Millennium Falcon or a shoot out between rebels and drones. We also know when Darth Vader is coming. His heavy, ominous breathing gives him away even before we see him on screen.

If you want to have some fun, try watching Star Wars (or any other film) without sound. It changes the experience and makes it easy to lose the story because it lacks the context sound provides.

*****

The fourteenth and final episode in the "Doing History: How Historians Work" posted today. Each series episode presents a discussion with one or more of the seventeen historians, archivists, and genealogists I interviewed about how they work with and use the historical process. As I reflect back on all the sage advice they provided, two recurring themes stand out:

1. Process: The production of historical knowledge comes out of a collaborative process based on evidence, analysis, and interpretation. Even historians who claim to work alone rely on work produced by other historians and on sources produced by people who lived in the past.

2. People: History is about people. It's the study of how and why people lived, acted, and responded in different times, places, and circumstances. It tells us who we are as people, communities, and individuals and its knowledge provides us with the intellectual tools we need to navigate and better understand our present-day world.

In the final episode of the "Doing History: How Historians Work" series, Lonnie Bunch, the Founding Director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture stresses that historians need to humanize the past so that everyone can relate to history and realize that the past is alive and a part of who they are.

For most humans, sound is a fundamental part of who we are. It's an essential part of our humanity as it frames every moment of every day and shapes our preferences and moods.

Sound has the power to humanize the past in a way that the text in books, articles, and exhibits cannot. It has the power to evoke mental images, create empathy, and to tell us something about the ways people lived, worked, and responded to events in ways that we cannot fully understand through text alone. I believe that sound can work with the other media historians produce to create a more three-dimensional image of past peoples, places, and events and to make them seem more real, more human.

Therefore, I plan to spend 2017 thinking more consciously about what early America sounded like and experimenting with sound in my scholarship. I expect you will see and hear the results of my thinking in future podcast episodes--especially those in the forthcoming "Doing History: To the Revolution!" series and in how I think and talk about my new book project on the Articles of Confederation--a project that I've already begun to compose in both text and sound.

That's what I'm working on in 2017. What aspect of history will you be working on and exploring?

Finding and Making Time For My Research

I often wish I had some sort of time creation device. I'd take Hermione's time turner if it were available. However until such a device exists, I must create time the old fashioned way: by finding and making it within my schedule. I need time for my new research project on the Articles of Confederation. I started this new project during a two-day research trip I tied in with a speaking engagement in late October. Since then progress on the project has been slow, but I'm making progress.

Over the last year and half, I've found it difficult to find time to work on my historical research. It seems like I'm either working on the podcast or away speaking about podcasts. Still, my questions about history are important to me and they will go unanswered if I don't make time to research them. Plus, I love to research and I miss it. So I've resolved to make what time I can for it.

I know many historians who advocate for the 1-hour-per-day method of research and writing. They note that devoting an hour in the mornings before work or in the evenings after work is not that onerous and over the course of a week you can make 7 hours of progress, which multiplies over the course of a month and year.

I love this notion and after trying to develop this habit, I found it doesn't work for me. I find that by the end of an hour I've only just begun to think about my project in productive ways. I need bigger blocks of time to work and think; I need two 3.5-hour blocks in my schedule.

Right now, I've found that I can set aside time on Sunday mornings. I'm an early riser, my partner and dogs are not, so I can work before they get up and we need to run our errands and go about our day.

The tricky part comes in trying to create the second block of time. Early mornings work once a week, but I use early mornings during the rest of the week to practice yoga and run. Self-care is important and I want to make time that doesn't come at a cost to it.

Evenings and weekends are also tricky for me to make and find time. Ben Franklin's World is a time-intensive project that has yet to fit into a 40-hour work week. My work spills over into nights, weekends, and holidays, just as it does for every historian I know. But where there is a will, there is a way and I need this time so I think my extra block will come on Mondays.

My writing buddy Megan Kate Nelson and I used to get together to write for 4 or 5 hours just about every Monday afternoon. We met consistently for about nine months between 2015 and 2016. Unfortunately, our schedules worked against us for most of 2016 and we got out of the habit of meeting. We've decided to try and make our write-ups regular again starting on January 2, 2017.

I know our work schedules will continue to interrupt us and that other work deadlines will often seem more pressing. Yet, this is where having a writing buddy can be helpful: writing buddies can be accountability buddies too.

Although we haven't been able to meet in person for months, Megan and I have started to send text messages back and forth asking each other about our projects (Megan is writing about the Civil War in the West). We've found these text check-ins useful and motivating. One exchange helped Megan work through a small problem with her workflow and narrative and the idea that Megan would ask about my "morning with Merrill Jensen" (I'm working my way through his Articles of Confederation (1940)) motivated me to get out of bed and get to work this morning even though I stayed up entirely too late last night attending a holiday party (it was fun) and watching the Big Ten Championship football game (Penn State defeated Wisconsin).

These text exchanges are working and I think they are something we can, and will, continue to do throughout most of the week and as we continue to run into Mondays when we can't meet.

I'm not sure whether this latest attempt to make time for my research will work over the long term, but as it has worked for about a month, so I'm hopeful.

How do you make time for your scholarship?

How to Start a Podcast in Grad School: A Primer

September 30th marks International Podcast Day. In honor of this day designed to increase awareness about podcasts and podcasting, I offer this overview about how a historian might start a podcast while in graduate school.

The Behind-the-Scenes Work

Podcasting is a lot of work.

Each episode of Ben Franklin's World represents somewhere between 40 and 60 hours of work. That work includes researching a guest, scheduling an interview, preparing for the interview, conducting the interview, editing the episode, drafting and recording intros and outros, drafting and posting show notes, creating custom graphics, and promoting the episode on its release day.

This does not count the time my audio engineer spends working on each episode nor the time I spend working on the website, troubleshooting tech hiccups, interacting with listeners, creating supplements for some episodes, or developing presentations about the podcast and podcasting for different conferences and talks.

None of the above is meant as a complaint. I love what I do.

Instead, the above overview is meant to underscore the fact that podcasting is a TON of work. Truthfully, I can't imagine trying to podcast and do it well while in graduate school.

With that said, some of you want to attempt to podcast while in grad school. So I've stretched my imagination to craft this primer to give you ideas about how you might produce a quality podcast and write a dissertation.

First, a note of caution.

Many graduate students wish to podcast because they believe it will set them apart on the job market. I do believe it could set you apart. I also believe producing a podcast could hurt your chances on the job market.

If you take too long to finish your dissertation, you will run into funding problems and some hiring committees might look unfavorably upon the extra time you took to finish your degree. Hiring committee members might also take the time to listen to your podcast. A low-quality podcast could reflect poorly upon you even if you have high-quality written work.

Time to degree and the quality of your digital scholarship matters.

6 Steps to Creating a Podcast While in Graduate School

Step 1: Careful Consideration

Before you produce a podcast you need to consider 4 components:

1. Topic

What period or aspect of history will your podcast explore and investigate?

It's important to pick a period and aspect of history that you could talk about all day. The more narrow you can go in your topical focus, the better because topic specificity will enable you to find members of your target audience faster.

The most successful podcasts tend to have very narrow focuses or "niches" (the industry term for topic).

Ben Franklin's World is odd in that it has a broad "niche" and it's successful. Two years ago, I could get away with framing my podcast around what is known as "vast early America" because there was only one other podcast about early American history and it had a different format and a more haphazard release schedule than BFWorld.

If I started a podcast today, I would have to think more narrowly. I might podcast on the American Revolution or perhaps on the American Revolution in the northeast. The latter may sound like a very narrow topic, but local history is so hot right now and that topic would work.

2. Audience

Who is your ideal listener or podcast avatar?

My podcast avatar is the fictional Janet Watkins. She's a 22-year-old pre-med student at SUNY-Buffalo and she's a woman of color. Janet hates history because her teachers have always linked history to dead, white men and have never related how history informs her present day.

My goal with each episode is to make Janet care about the early American past.

3. Format

What kind of podcast will you produce?

Will you conduct interviews? Will you produce short, solo episodes? Will you present scripted, narrative stories?

You need to consider how you will discuss and present the topic you have chosen for your podcast before you start podcasting. Research indicates that listeners like regularity. They want to be able to depend on a consistent release schedule and a mostly consistent format. This doesn't mean you can't offer both interviews and solo episodes, but you should pick one format to predominate.

4. Release Schedule

Consistency and frequency matter.

The best performing podcasts release on a consistent basis.

Time is our most precious resource and listeners invest time into listening to our podcasts. Podcast listeners tend to be loyal to their favorite shows and they want their favorite shows to be loyal to them. Being loyal to your listeners means not just producing high-quality content, it means producing it on a regular schedule listeners can depend on.

If I were in graduate school, I would create a series-based podcast. I would casually research and plot episodes during the school year, produce episodes during the less hectic summer period, and release episodes over a set number of weeks during the school year. As my episodes aired, I would start the casual research and plotting process over so I could release new episodes again the following fall.

I strongly recommend you refrain from attempting to produce a weekly or bi-weekly show while you are in graduate school. The production pace of a weekly or bi-weekly show is grueling and unrelenting.

Step 2: Create a Budget

Podcasts are free to consume, they are not free to produce.

At minimum you will need to invest in a good hosting service for your audio files. I recommend Libsyn.

Before you start podcasting decide how much money you are willing to spend to both get your podcast up and running and on monthly expenses such as audio hosting, website hosting, and editing services.

The more you get into podcasting the more money you will want to spend to upgrade your equipment and invest in new apps and software. Know how much you can and are willing to spend at the start.

Step 3: Invest in a Good Mic

Audio quality matters.

If you want people to listen to your ideas and what you are saying, you need to invest in a good mic that will allow you to present your ideas clearly.

Many podcasters use the Audio-Technica ATR2100, USB microphone. It's about $80 from Amazon and it occasionally goes on sale for around $50. This is a high-quality, versatile mic.

I record on a Heil-PR40. I purchased a kit wholesale from Broadcast Supply Warehouse for about $400. To that kit I added a Scarlet 2i2 USB mixer ($149) so I could connect my mic to my computer.

The Heil-PR40 is a fire-end microphone, which means if you set your gain right, it will catch only the noise directed into the end of the mic.

Not everyone will sound good on the same microphone. My friend Natalie Eckdahl (BizChix Podcast) records using a Heil-PR30 because she found the PR-40 deepened her voice.

The best course of action when buying a microphone is to go to a Guitar Center or a local music shop that sells mics and try them out. Then you can hear which mics make you sound great.

Step 4: Learn How to Use Editing Software

The quality of your content matters.

If you want listeners to take time to listen to you, you need to invest time in producing something worth listening to. You need to invest time into editing your show.

Ben Franklin's World is on the highly-produced end of the podcast spectrum. I remove "ahs," "ums," breath sounds, and extraneous speech from recordings. I also repair (when possible) drops and blips in waveforms and I make content edits.

When I listen to raw recordings, I listen not just for everything I mentioned above, I also listen to the flow and pace of the conversation. I take out extraneous rambling, tangential information that adds nothing to the points my guests are trying to make, and I sometimes re-order questions and answers to improve the flow of the conversation.

After I'm done, I send the edited files to Darrell Darnell, my assistant editor and audio engineer, so he can edit the file again and use his software to make each episode sound as good as possible.

Editing is a lot like writing. It's hard work, but fairly easy to do if you have the right tools. I started editing with a single-track editor called Fission. Today, I use a multi-track editor called Adobe Audition.

Many podcasters use Audacity, which is free. Some use Garageband. NPR uses ProTools.

Regardless of what audio software you use, take the time to learn to use it.

Step 5: Launch Your Podcast

Your job as a podcaster does not end after your edit. You must upload and promote your content.

Once you finish working on your audio file, you should tag your file with metadata. I use the ID3 Editor app. Libsyn recently added a feature to their hosting service where it will add metadata to your file after you write the description for your file.

You should list your feed with at least iTunes (the number one podcast directory), Google Play Music, and Stitcher Radio. These podcast providers are also podcast directories and they make it possible for listeners to find your show.

Once the directories list your show, promote. Promote your content on social media networks, on other podcasts, and wherever, whenever you can.

Step 6: Manage Your Expectations

Growing an audience takes time and few podcasters are ever satisfied with the size of their audience.

I've been public about the success of Ben Franklin's World, yet BFWorld and its monthly average of 68,000 downloads is an exception, not the rule.

Libsyn is the largest podcast hosting service. Each month they publish statistics for the average number of downloads a new episode receives over the course of a month (the lifespan of a new episode) and the average number of total downloads entire shows receive over the course of a month (this number includes new episodes and back catalogs).

In July 2016, an average new podcast episode received 164 downloads; the average podcast received 2,039.9 downloads.

In Summary

Podcasting is a lot of work. To do it well requires a lot of time, some money, and attention to detail. If you have the time, money, and drive it can be a very powerful way to create awareness about history.

If you are interested in learning how to podcast, tell your department head and graduate advisor. Podcasts make great tools for teaching and they could require less individual time if a department started one as a group effort. If your professors have questions about how they might start a departmental podcast, have them send me an e-mail. I have lots of ideas and a working podcast I would love to use as a teaching tool.

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.