September 2018
Smithsonian magazine delivers trusted and incisive reporting on history, science, nature, culture and travel.
Features
Code Name: Venona
At the height of the Cold War, America’s most secretive counterespionage effort set out to crack unbreakable Soviet ciphers. Here’s the exclusive story of the women who solved the puzzle
How to Cipher Like a Soviet
See if you can figure out how the American code-breakers unraveled the complexities of the Russian codebook
Barnstorming America
How a fiery preacher and a maverick Army general took a wild cross-country ride that launched the populist conservative movement
The Rebels’ Revenge
A heroic former slave declared that whites had killed 53,000 African-Americans, but few took the explosive claim seriously—until now
Psycho-Analyzing the President
What drove Sigmund Freud and his American co-author to write a scandalous biography of Woodrow Wilson?
The Fearless Wit of Forrest County
Newspaperman P.D. East attacked white supremacists in Mississippi. His bravery rocked the racist Establishment—and heralded a new era of political satire
Departments
Discussion
Discussion of our July/August Issue
Call of the Wild Man
Why do so many people still want to believe in Bigfoot?
Freedom of Expression
Born into slavery, Bill Traylor would become a leading light of outsider art
A New Founding Mother
Just-discovered letters herald the significance of an unsung Revolutionary woman, Julia Rush
Search Happens
Years before the birth of the internet, a forgotten experiment laid the groundwork for Google
Where Rhinos Roamed
Road-tripping through prehistoric times on the West Coast
Toy Story
How a little yellow bus came to the rescue of a persecuted schoolboy
Partisan Attacks
Think today’s politics are nasty? Joanne Freeman’s The Field of Blood shows, for the first time, just how vicious Congressmen once were
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