A Frail League of Friendship: The Articles of Confederation w/ Greg Jackson (Expanded Rebroadcast)
The Road to Now
Benjamin Sawyer
4.8 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 4 October 2021
⏱️ 68 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In 1776, the US declared independence. Eleven years later, in 1787, delegates from 12 states (we're looking at YOU Rhode Island) got together in Philadelphia and wrote the Constitution. In between those triumphant moments, there was the Articles of Confederation, that "firm league of friendship" that most Americans probably know as something they had to memorize for a history test.
HOWEVER
The Articles of Confederation, while certainly not a highlight of the American experiment, explain a lot about the American Revolution, the ideas that defined the founding generation, and the ways those ideas changed in the first years of independence. In fact, you can't really understand the US Constitution unless you understand the Articles and why they failed.
THEREFORE
In this episode, Bob and Ben speak with Greg Jackson about this very topic. Greg is Assistant Professor of Integrated Studies at Utah Valley University and host of the podcast History That Doesn't Suck. We hope you enjoy our conversation on the Articles of Confederation!
AMENDED
This episode also includes all-new material from Ben's appearance on Greg's podcast History That Doesn't Suck, in which Ben and Greg discuss the Gilded Age! You can find the full conversation in HTDS Episode #99, airing in full on October 11, 2021. (BTW there was no process for amending the Articles, which is just one of the many reasons they didn't last!)
This is an expanded rebroadcast of RTN #128, which originally aired May 6, 2019).
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This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Ben Sawyer and this is the road to now. |
| 0:10.0 | Today's episode is really two episodes. |
| 0:15.0 | It is the conversation that Bob and I recorded a few years back with Greg Jackson, |
| 0:20.5 | young scholar who at the time |
| 0:21.8 | had started a podcast that he was calling History That Doesn't Suck. We thought the podcast was |
| 0:26.4 | incredible. Now, most of America thinks that podcast is incredible, and I think most of America |
| 0:31.1 | is right about that. He's grown to have one of the biggest history podcasts in the country. |
| 0:36.7 | It's so good. Really deeply scripted |
| 0:39.2 | stories about American history beginning before the revolution with colonization. And he recently |
| 0:44.3 | is getting up to the Gilded Age. And that is where the second part comes in. Because this |
| 0:50.8 | weekend, Greg hit me up. He normally does scripted. I mean, he writes these incredible |
| 0:55.4 | scripts like I said, but he said he wanted to try out a conversation style for one episode to cover |
| 1:01.8 | some things. And friends, I'm happy that he called me up because it's really nice to talk to him |
| 1:08.3 | anytime. He's a great guy. But it's so cool to do crossovers like this. |
| 1:12.2 | So the full conversation that we recorded is going to air on history that doesn't suck a week from this episode. |
| 1:19.4 | But at the end of this, you're going to get 10 minutes of that conversation where actually I talk with Greg about Singer-Sawing Machine Company and its role in really as a forerunner in the corporation. |
| 1:29.5 | If you've ever been to any retail chain and they try to get you to get credit from them, |
| 1:36.7 | that is something that was started by our friends at Singer Manufacturing Company. |
| 1:42.0 | And that's why all your grandmas have singer's sewing machines. |
| 1:45.1 | Dang. |
| 1:45.7 | So we hope you enjoy both this episode and that extra at the end, and we hope that you'll go check |
| 1:51.4 | out History That Doesn't Suck after this, especially again next week, next Monday. |
... |
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