The 52 Weeks of Firsts Podcast

How did thirteen separate colonies become the United States? Why did the name emerge when it did? And why might the most important word in the name be “United”? Host Marisa Magnatta is joined by Dr. Emma Hart, professor of American history at the University of Pennsylvania and director of Penn’s McNeil Center for Early American Studies, to explore how America got its name, why Philadelphia played such a central role, and what that name meant to the people creating a new country 250 years ago.

Twelve colonies. Seven weeks. One room. In 1774, delegates locked themselves in Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia trying to stop a revolution. They were trying to negotiate with Britain, to preserve the old system. But what they built instead became the machinery for American independence. Host Marisa Magnatta talks with Michael Norris, Executive Director of The Carpenters' Company, about the decisions, the debates, and the irony of history made inside that room.

After four months of debate, compromise, and behind-the-scenes negotiations, 39 delegates gathered in Philadelphia on September 17, 1787, to sign a document that would reshape the United States: the Constitution. But the moment was far from unanimous, and some of the biggest questions facing the new nation remained unresolved. Host Marisa Magnatta is joined by Tom Donnelly of the National Constitution Center to explore what really happened on that historic day.

A spring falls off a shelf in a Philadelphia shipyard, and instead of clattering to the floor, it walks. We’re talking about the Slinky – one of the most enduring toys in American history, still delighting kids more than eighty years later. Host Marisa Magnatta is joined by Rebekah James Morris, daughter of Slinky inventors Richard and Betty James, and Paul Luther, General Manager of the Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania plant where the Slinky is still made – on machines that date back to the original run. 

Every day, thousands of people stand in front of Philadelphia's historic markers, taking a photo of themselves without a second thought. The first person to do it sat perfectly still for fifteen minutes in a backyard on 8th Street – and he wasn't making art, he was running an experiment. This episode traces how Robert Cornelius, a lamp manufacturer with a chemistry habit, took the first photographic self-portrait in America and accidentally started something we're all still doing. Host Marisa Magnatta is joined by Dr. Erin Pauwels, art historian at Temple's Tyler School of Art and Architecture.

A brand-new country had a Constitution, a president, and a capital city, but no money of its own. This episode tells the story of the first United States Mint, built in Philadelphia in 1792. Host Marisa Magnatta is joined by John Kraljevich, Director of Numismatic Americana at Stack's Bowers Galleries and one of the country's leading specialists in early American coins and medals.

This episode tells the story of how a Philadelphia physician, inspired by a single visit to the London Zoo, spent fifteen years – and outlasted a Civil War – to give America its very first zoo. Marisa Magnatta is joined by Dani Hogan, conservation educator and Director of Mission Integration at the Philadelphia Zoo, who helps bring the Zoo's animals and science to the public and has represented it in a national coalition of zoos, aquariums, and museums.

This episode tells the origin story of the Academy of Natural Sciences – the oldest natural science research institution in America, and the place that helped turn “scientist” from an eccentric pastime into a real calling. Host Marisa Magnatta is joined by Amber Redfield, naturalist, paleontologist, and educator for the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University.

This episode tells the story of the first art school and museum in America - now known as Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Marisa Magnatta is joined by Leah Triplett, Curator of Contemporary Art at PAFA and co-curator of A Nation of Artists, the landmark new exhibition celebrating American art as the country turns 250.

Not every great invention comes from a moment of confidence. This one came from a rattled soda vendor trying not to get upstaged. This episode traces how Robert Green, showing up at the Franklin Institute's 1874 anniversary exhibition with second-hand equipment and the threat of a much flashier rival looming over him, stumbled into an idea that became one of America's best-loved treats: the ice cream soda. Marisa Magnatta is joined by Eric Berley, co-founder of The Franklin Fountain, Philadelphia's old-fashioned ice cream parlor and soda fountain built to keep this exact history alive.