DON GONYEA, HOST:
What is the best way to tell the story of American history? Of course, there are countless books, documentaries and television series, but there are also historical markers – you know, those plaques placed at historical sites. You’ve almost certainly passed by one before. Perhaps there’s even one in your neighborhood or down the street. Individually, they are a snapshot of a moment in history. But taken together, they act like a mosaic – each piece coming together to build a more vivid picture. Andrew Iden is the executive producer and host of Marked!: The Podcast from Georgia Public Broadcasting. The series examines Georgia’s role in America’s Revolutionary period through the lens of its 2,000 roadside historical markers. Andrew Iden, welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
ANDREW IDEN, BYLINE: Thanks for having me, Don. Good to be here.
GONYEA: So I want to dive into some of the markers you examined. Your most recent episode is about a historical marker on St. Simon’s Island. It sits on Georgia’s southern coastline. Most people probably don’t associate Georgia with naval warfare during The Revolution. Tell us the story behind that particular marker.
IDEN: This is really a David and Goliath story. A gentleman by the name of Samuel Elbert, who was a Georgia military leader – very little experience working on the water – in the Navy off the coast of Georgia. He catches wind that there are British ships coming towards the coast, and what he does is he has what’s called the Georgia Navy, which is a small group of row galleys – you know, they’re not intimidating boats by any stretch. They take on these big, hulking British ships. And through a series of unfortunate events for the British, Elbert and his men wind up winning this skirmish. It’s not even really a huge battle, and it really becomes sort of this galvanizing event.
As part of the podcast, we had a conversation with Dr. Kylie Hulbert, who is a professor of The Revolution and history, and she talked a little bit about the disproportionate size of these two sides. And here’s a little bit of that.
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KYLIE HULBERT: A first-rate ship of the line in the British navy is going to have a hundred guns with over three gun decks, 800 men on board. For the Continental Navy, I mean, they are outfitting these merchant vessels for war, but they’re frigates or, like, they’re schooners, or they’re sloops. They’re smaller vessels. They’re armed with guns, but they’re not three decks with a hundred guns.
GONYEA: So you bring in people like that to bring the history to life. Another episode focuses on someone named Nancy Hart. She is an almost legendary figure in Georgia history. She was a frontier woman. I understand she was a spy. Tell us who she was.
IDEN: Yeah, Don. She was in for every – you know, all intents and purposes – she was sort of like this Daniel Boone figure that lived on the Georgia frontier. And Nancy lived alone with eight children in a small cabin that she was raising largely alone. Her husband’s away at war, and she had to essentially live by herself and defend this property in a time where everything was a threat. She was an incredible hunter. She was incredibly skilled with muskets. She was a herbalist who knew how to mix different spices and things and kind of deal with everything that was going on in the frontier. So she was an amazing story for a million different reasons.
GONYEA: And she was a supporter of the Patriot cause. Give us the background on that.
IDEN: She got involved in the Patriot cause on the military side. And so we had a conversation with Dr. Clay Ouzts, who is a renowned historian here in Georgia, about The Revolution, and he talked a little bit about that.
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CLAY OUZTS: When the Loyalist army, on the void (ph), invaded Georgia in February of 1779, that she dressed up like a man and kind of went in and hung around the Loyalist camp or was in circles with them to get information. So she pulled off her spy work pretty good and didn’t get caught.
IDEN: Her intelligence and funneling that intelligence back to the Patriots was a key part of all of it.
GONYEA: America just celebrated its 250th anniversary. How has making this podcast changed the way you think about how we remember that history and, really, what it means for American life today?
IDEN: When we started diving into these stories, what struck me was The Revolution was a war that was won largely because of a series of small things. There were people all along the way during The Revolution that when you add up everything they did in aggregate, that is why we managed to succeed in that conflict. And I think that that’s a lesson we can apply to a lot of things today.
GONYEA: That was Andrew Iden, the executive producer and host of Marked!: The Podcast from Georgia Public Broadcasting. Andrew, thanks for joining us.
IDEN: Thanks so much, Don. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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