2023 marked the 250th anniversary of the arrival of Phillis Wheatley's published book of poetry in the British American colonies.
Phillis Wheatley was an enslaved African woman who, as a teenager, became the first published African author of a book of poetry written in English.
Ade Solanke, an award-winning playwright and screenwriter, has written two plays about Phillis Wheatley’s life to commemorate the semiquincentennial of Wheatley’s literary accomplishments. She joins us to not only explore the life of Phillis Wheatley, but also how playwrights use and research history to help them create dramatic works of art. Works of art that can help us forge an emotional connection with the past.
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/377
Sponsor Links
Complementary Episodes
Listen!
Helpful Links
OI Reads: Carolyn Eastman, The Strange Genius of Mr. O
313 The Marquis de Lafayette
312 The Domestic Slave Trade
311 Religion and the American Revolution
310 The Blackfeet: A History
309 Merchant Ships of the Eighteenth Century
308 Slavery and Freedom in French Louisiana
Bonus: A History of American Revolution Histories
307 History & the American Revolution
306 The Horse's Tail
305 Speaking with the Dead in Early America
304 On Juneteenth
303 An Early History of the Mississippi Gulf Coast
302 From Inoculation to Vaccination, Part 2
301 From Inoculation to Vaccination, Part 1
300 Vast Early America
299 Colonial Virginia Portraits
298 Origins of American Manufacturing
297 Indian Removal Act of 1830
296 The Boston Massacre: A Family History
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
American Revolution Podcast
Revolutions
Key Battles of the Revolutionary War
Dispatches: The Podcast of the Journal of the American Revolution
Patriot Lessons: American History and Civics (Constitution, Declaration of Independence, etc.)