Lorraine Boissoneault
Smithsonian Magazine
Chicago, IL, United States
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Past articles by Lorraine:
The Victorian Woman Writer Who Refused to Let Doctors Define Her
Harriet Martineau took control of her medical care, defying the male-dominated establishment’s attempts to dismiss her as hysterical and fragile → Read More
France’s Deadly Seaweed
Fueled by agricultural runoff, rotting seaweed on Brittany’s beaches is becoming an environmental and public health emergency. → Read More
The Complicated Decisions That Come With Digitizing Indigenous Languages
Putting the languages on the internet means that communities have to make complicated decisions about what to share and when. → Read More
Ancient Monkey Bone Tools Shake Up the Narrative of Early Human Migration to the Rain Forest
New evidence pushes back the date for human settlement in jungles, challenging the idea that our ancestors preferred the savannas and plains → Read More
How 18th-Century Writers Created the Genre of Popular Science
French writers such as Voltaire and Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle helped shape the Enlightenment with stories of science → Read More
The Deadly Donora Smog of 1948 Spurred Environmental Protection—But Have We Forgotten the Lesson?
Steel and zinc industries provided Donora residents with work, but also robbed them of their health, and for some, their lives → Read More
Ancient Proteins From Unwashed Dishes Reveal the Diets of a Lost Civilization
Material pulled from ceramic sherds reveals the favored foodstuffs in the 8,000-year-old city of Çatalhöyük in Turkey → Read More
The Deadliest Massacre in Reconstruction-Era Louisiana Happened 150 Years Ago
In September 1868, Southern white Democrats hunted down around 200 African-Americans in an effort to suppress voter turnout → Read More
The Senator Who Stood Up to Joseph McCarthy When No One Else Would
Margaret Chase Smith was the first woman to serve both the House and the Senate and always defended her values, even when it meant opposing her party → Read More
How Ancient Teeth Reveal the Roots of Humankind
From diet to evolution, prehistoric chompers tell archaeologists a surprising amount about our ancestors → Read More
The Unheralded Pioneers of 19th-Century America Were Free African-American Families
In her new book, 'The Bone and Sinew of the Land', historian Anna-Lisa Cox explores the mostly ignored story of the free black people who first moved West → Read More
How Do Scientists Identify New Species? For Neanderthals, It Was All About Timing and Luck
Even the most remarkable fossil find means nothing if scientists aren’t ready to see it for what it is → Read More
The Literary Salon That Made Ayn Rand Famous
Seventy-five years after the publishing of ‘The Fountainhead’, a look back at the public intellectuals who disseminated her Objectivist philosophy → Read More
The First Novel for Children Taught Girls the Power of Reading
Nearly three centuries before heroines like Katniss and Meg Murray, Sarah Fielding published a book on the values of female education → Read More
Rare 85,000-year-old Finger Bone Complicates Our Understanding of African Migration
85,000-Year-Old Finger Points the Way to New Understanding of African Migration → Read More
Martin Luther King Jr.’s Assassination Sparked Uprisings in Cities Across America
Known as the Holy Week Uprisings, the collective protests resulted in 43 deaths, thousands of arrests, and millions of dollars of property damage → Read More
The Hidden History of Anna Murray Douglass
Although she’s often overshadowed by her husband, Frederick Douglass, Anna made his work possible → Read More
What a Walking Fish Can Teach Us About Human Evolution
New research on the little skate reveals the genes it shares with land animals—and a common ancestor from 420 million years ago → Read More
From Helping Shut-Ins to Sisterly Advice, Mail-Order Magazines Did More Than Just Sell Things
The cheap monthly publications that flooded rural homes offered more than just advertising—they also provided companionship → Read More
How Proteins Helped Scientists Read Between the Lines of a 1630 Plague Death Registry
New tech reveals bacterial contamination, what scribes were eating and how many rats were around → Read More