Tabla de contenidos para September 2021 en Smithsonian Magazine

“It’s gratifying to hear of others who appreciate that particular genre of music.” Tales From the Swamp Thank you for “On the Edge of the Everglades” (July/August 2021). Mentioned on Page 59 is Sara Lee Creech, my great-aunt and namesake. She was a force of nature in our family, and perhaps ahead of her time. Upon seeing some black children playing with white baby dolls, she took the initiative to push the idea of brown dolls for brown kids. We have photos and documentation concerning the development of the dolls, as well as Sara’s visit with Eleanor Roosevelt to gain her support. —Sara Whiteside | Golden, Colorado Westward Expansion While reading John Sedgwick’s article (“Whistle Down the Line,” July/August 2021), I was waiting for a mention that the construction of…

BY SALES AND ACCLAMATION, history and mythology, the pickup truck is the most popular vehicle in America and has been for decades. We’re told electric pickups will be the next big thing: The Tesla Cybertruck, the Ford F-150 Lightning and the GMC Hummer EV are online and on their way. But recall that GMC offered a full line of electric trucks—“operated by Edison current”—in 1913. These were designed by John M. Lansden, who had run an electric car company in Newark, New Jersey, as early as 1904. Bought out by Edison himself in 1908, Lansden made electric ambulances and taxicabs, buses and brewery wagons. The company stumbled financially and Lansden left to run electric truck development for GMC. By 1911, there were eight models of heavy-duty commercial electric trucks available…

PAYING COURT Hans Holbein the Younger, the German artist who served in Henry VIII’s court, created this plan for a small shield, likely when the king was romancing Anne Boleyn; the pair’s initials are joined in a lover’s knot. The image appears in Holbein’s Jewellery Book, now in the British Museum. GREEK TO US This cipher—not designed by Holbein—combines the Greek initials of Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc, the 17th-century French intellectual and astronomer. It is inscribed on a book by Sir Francis Bacon that de Peiresc gave to his friend and biographer Pierre Gassendi in 1636. INITIAL IMPRESSION Top, a Holbein design for a pendant jewel joins the initials of Henry and Anne. Above, the artist combines letters “HNAXGRSD” — meaning unknown. PRIVATE LIVES Right, a Holbein design, likely for…

Anita LaFond Korsonsky Sister of Jeanette LaFond Menichino, assistant VP at Marsh McLennan JEANETTE WAS FOUR YEARS YOUNGER than me, my little sister in every way. Even as an adult, she was just 5-foot-1. She was an artist, went to art school, never finished college, but she got a job at an insurance company and ended up becoming an assistant vice president at Marsh McLennan. As I often did before starting my workday, I called Jeanette on September 11, but she didn’t pick up. I went to get coffee. Then a co-worker came in and said he’d heard that a plane had just hit the North Tower. I remember thinking, “Wow, somebody really doesn’t know how to fly a plane!” I tried to call my sister again but there was still…

SOON AFTER THE National Museum of African American History and Culture opened, I witnessed a powerful exchange. At the casket of Emmett Till, two families of different races met and struck up a conversation. Working together, both sets of parents helped to explain to their children the meaning of his death: how the 14-year-old had been murdered, how it became a rallying cry for the civil rights movement, and why we remember his story today. To me, this moment revealed the great strength of museums. Museums bring people of different backgrounds, experiences and beliefs together. Museums ask audiences to enter a common space and explore a common interest. Museums create informal communities of learning, helping people recognize how much we share, despite our differences, and how much those differences can…

ACCLAIMED FOR her life-size pastel and charcoal portraits, Toyin Ojih Odutola now offers up a world so rich the writer Zadie Smith has compared it to a “novel of high society written by an African Edith Wharton.” The pictures appear in The UmuEze Amara Clan and the House of Obafemi, a new book tracing the imagined history of two fictional noble families in a Nigeria very different from the country where the 35-year-old artist was born. In her alternative history, cess the economic and social devastation wrought by the trans-Atlantic slave trade and European colonialism never occurred, and neither did Nigeria’s persecution of homosexuality. Instead, Ojih Odutola’s aristocratic families, joined by the marriage of two sons, take their wealth and status for granted. She hopes to inspire people who view…

IN THE AREA AROUND Tampa Bay, the remains of centuries-old mounds hide under roads, in parks and neighborhoods, even by big-box stores. Shell mounds served as temple sites and as places to relax, sleep and eat. The Tocobaga people, who lived in the area in the 1500s when the Spanish arrived—and many inhabitants before them—gathered food from the rich estuaries and hunting grounds. They piled bones and shellfish remains into mounds called middens that reached as high as 20 feet. They also buried their dead in sandy mounds nearby. Starting in the 1500s, Spain claimed the region through a series of expeditions. The United States absorbed Florida in the 1820s, but it was only after railroads reached the beaches that outsiders began to settle. In 1880, Tampa’s population was about…

Angilic Casalduc Soto Daughter of Vivian Casalduc, microfiche clerk for Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield “WHY TAKE A CAB when you can walk and see the world?” That was one of my mother’s favorite sayings. She used to take the train through Brooklyn and then walk over the Manhattan Bridge so she could look at the boats on the pier. At lunchtime, or after work, she’d go down to the park and listen to musicians playing salsa. She’d get up and dance—sometimes with co-workers, sometimes with strangers. She could make an ordinary workday feel like a festival. She was the cool mom in my neighborhood. When my friends were fighting with their parents, they’d come over to my place and my mom would talk them through it. She could always…

M. Travis Boyd Son of Elizabeth Holmes, communications department at Euro Brokers FOR A LONG TIME, I had faith that God was going to bring my mom back to us. My godmother worked with my mom in the South Tower and she’d made it out. After the plane hit the North Tower, my mom came to get her and said, “Hey, we got to get out of here!” As they were walking down the staircase, my mom told her, “I’ll meet you downstairs. I have to go get my purse.” My godmother was down at the 12th or 13th floor when she felt the second plane hit. By the time she got outside, the building was starting to crumble behind her. She ran for her life, but all she could…

Q: Which came first: beer or wine? —Katherine Williams | Aptos, California THE EARLIEST evidence leans toward beer, says Theresa McCulla, a curator at the National Museum of American History. Archaeologists found traces of cereal grains on mortars near Haifa, Israel, dated at around 13,000 years old. The previous record belonged to a drink discovered in China dating back 9,000 years; it resembled a mix between beer and grape-based wine. Beer and wine were both relatively straightforward to make, since the sugars in mashed grains or grapes naturally start to ferment when exposed to wild yeasts at the proper temperature. Distilled spirits such as vodka and whiskey involved a more complicated understanding of chemistry and likely did not appear until the Middle Ages. Q: At the shore, I see two…

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