Smithsonian Magazine

One year subscription of Smithsonian Magazine takes you on a journey through history, science, world culture and technology with breathtaking images from around the world.

A Burst of Creativity • This special commemorative issue showcases the breadth of American innovation

A Common Thread • The nation’s innovative spirit was woven into America’s cultural, social and constitutional ideas, says Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III

Smithsonian Magazine

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A REPUBLIC IN THE STARS • How Thomas Paine used Enlightenment science to make the case for revolution

The Day the Fear Lifted • Jonas Salk’s son, a physician and researcher, recalls how the first polio vaccine changed America

A Map of Medical Marvels • American doctors and engineers have extended life spans and enhanced human health, from head to toe

A Woman’s Guide to Self-Reliance • As male writers pondered the destiny of man, Margaret Fuller explored the full potential of her own gender

A Citizen of the Natural World • Aldo Leopold envisioned humans as members of a larger society that included all living things

AN AMERICAN CONSERVATION CORPS • These forward-thinking scientists and policymakers changed our approach to earth, water and air

The Exoplanet Revolution • Measuring tiny dips in light helped astronomers find thousands of far-off worlds

To Boldly Go Where No Human Has Gone • Robotic probes have explored every planet in the solar system—swooping through atmospheres, collecting soil samples and expanding our understanding of neighboring worlds

GLADYS WEST GIVES DIRECTIONS • A math genius from Virginia helped put the whole planet within reach

The Thinking Machine • A young scientist in the 1950s built the first computer that could learn

THEATER OF RELIEF • Inside the historic Boston operating room that gave the world anesthesia—and brought pain to the men who claimed the credit

A Nation Built to Innovate • Objects in the Smithsonian’s collections reveal a long history of unconventional thinking

REDISCOVERING AMERICA’S ORIGINAL GRAND TOUR • Journey back 200 years to the nation’s first great tourist trail, revisiting the sites and wonders that put a young nation on the map

How to Build a Character • Benjamin Franklin was the patron saint of American inventors. Among his greatest creations were his authorial personas

FINDING A WAY THROUGH THE MAIZE • Sybilla Righton Masters was a consummate innovator who went against the grain

The First President Gives Notice

UNPRECEDENTED PRESIDENTS • Inventors in chief who dreamed up initiatives, gadgets—and a moonshot

Awakening a Nation’s Conscience • Through remarkably careful reporting, one author evoked slavery’s brutality so vividly that America couldn’t look away

A NEW WORLD CALLS FOR A NEW LITERATURE • How America achieved a controlling interest in bookish innovation I

America’s Prophet at a Crossroads • At a crucial moment, abolitionist Frederick Douglass stepped up to redefine the stakes of the Civil War

FEATS THAT FOSTERED FREEDOM FOR ALL • Bold, inventive abolitionists changed minds and saved families by organizing

A King Among the Muckrakers • Lincoln Steffens invented a new kind of journalism: reputable, unsparing and above all objective

The Mothers Who Nurtured Suffrage • In a poignant pattern, many of the most important contributions to suffrage were enacted—or inspired—by mothers

Through the Lens of Justice • The “father of documentary photography” created stark and eloquent images, mounting a sharp critique of child labor in the U.S.

Woodrow Wilson’s Daring Home Front • The...