senior associate digital editor, history @smithsonianmag
Washington, D.C.
Joined June 2013
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👋 @SmithsonianMag's online history editor here with a few tips on finding ideas and thoughts on what our editorial team looks for in a story. Generally, our features fall under one of the following categories... 🧵
possibly dumb question for people who write about history for publications like @SmithsonianMag but aren't specialists in the topic. How do you come up with ideas? Just do random searches for things?
Meilan Solly retweeted
These snapshots and thousands of other surviving photos of the Romanovs preserve every facet of the royals’ lives, from their vacations to their recurring bouts of poor health to their favorite pastimes, including tennis, boating and bicycling. bit.ly/4prWajy
Meilan Solly retweeted
My cousin Christopher posed for one of these paintings in 1968. When Hockney died, I decided to write about the series: smithsonianmag.com/arts-cult…
The 1926 Sesquicentennial Exposition was an example of “really benighted self-interest at the expense of an entire national celebration,” historian Thomas H. Keels tells @SmithsonianMag. smithsonianmag.com/history/a…
Meilan Solly retweeted
Half a century after "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," Steven Spielberg is returning to the subject of UFOs with "Disclosure Day." For @SmithsonianMag, I take a look at what's behind the filmmaker's lifelong obsession with flying saucers and aliens bit.ly/4ggwcNf
Meilan Solly retweeted
The tomb of Elisenda of Montcada has long fascinated experts. But the team was surprised to learn that burials supposedly belonging to a medieval knight and an abbess held entirely different individual. bit.ly/4xdWmXh
Meilan Solly retweeted
Few viewers realized that the musical’s depiction of historical events was highly misleading, in large part because of the real Anna Leonowens’ efforts to mask the truth about both her own origins and her time at King Mongkut’s court in the 1860s. bit.ly/41BB4UA
Meilan Solly retweeted
"No extra digits."
Today's #history article pick from Damn History, a free newsletter for readers/writers of #popularhistory. Congrats to writer @meilansolly & @SmithsonianMag!
Read/subscribe to Damn History: damn-history-16d93f.beehiiv.…
smithsonianmag.com/smart-new…
Meilan Solly retweeted
My colleague Marty Weil is one of The Post’s last living ties to Watergate. He’s covered stories that range from local crime to the Sept. 11 attacks to whimsical weather musings.
After 60 years, he was laid off yesterday by email. nytimes.com/2026/02/05/busin…
Meilan Solly retweeted
How the San José, the world’s richest shipwreck, was found and, some say, lost. What should be done with it now?
@SmithsonianMag @meilansolly
#culture
smithsonianmag.com/history/a…
Meilan Solly retweeted
Happy Public Domain Day! Copyrights are expiring on Betty Boop, “The Maltese Falcon,” Nancy Drew and other creative works from 1930 smithsonianmag.com/arts-cult…
This year's @SmithsonianMag best history book picks include riveting titles by @TracyBorman, @Johnubacon, @marthasjones_, @anthonymamore, @ustefanjil, @mapember, @LaurieStories and more. smithsonianmag.com/history/t…
Meilan Solly retweeted
.@WomenInTheArts is exhibiting 40 female #artists who made major contributions to 17th-century #art. These women were erased from #arthistory due to biases favoring painting and male artists.
– @SmithsonianMag's @meilansolly
#artist #womeninhistory
smithsonianmag.com/history/t…
Meilan Solly retweeted
From @smithsonianmag: These Jewish Prisoners Revolted Against the Nazis, Killing Their Guards and Escaping From a World War II Death Camp
by @meilansolly
100s fled into the Sobibor forests but were tracked down & shot. 58 survived.
#Longreads #Longfrom
smithsonianmag.com/history/t…
Meilan Solly retweeted
10 October 1943 | After the selection of a transport of 1,000 Jews deported to Auschwitz in the 60th transport from Drancy, 491 people were immediately murdered in the gas chamber.
One of those killed was Charlotte Salomon, a German-Jewish artist from Berlin. The author of the autobiographical series "Life? or Theater?: A Song-play" consisting of 769 paintings painted between 1941 and 1943 in the south of France, while Salomon was in hiding.
She was 26 years old. She was five months pregnant.
"..And with dream awakened eyes she saw all the beauty around her, saw the sea, felt the sun, and knew she had to vanish for a while from the human surface and make every sacrifice in order to create her world anew out of the depths.
And from that came Life or Theater???"
(Charlotte Salomon)
ALT A girl, Charlotte Salomon, painting outsite. She is sitting surrounded by grass.
ALT Self portrait of Charlotte Salomon.
Meilan Solly retweeted
This was a fun article to write. Thank you to Dr. Berkin for taking the time to speak with me. And as always, thank you to my great editor @SmithsonianMag , the amazing @meilansolly
How Women in New Jersey Gained—and Lost—the Right to Vote More Than a Century Before the 19th Amendment Granted Suffrage Nationwide - smithsonianmag.com/history/h… @smithsonianmag
Meilan Solly retweeted
Unearthing the Past—and Editing It for the Present: A Conversation with @meilansolly, an editor at the @SmithsonianMag !
LISTEN: directory.libsyn.com/episode…
#history #podcast #digitalhistory
Meilan Solly retweeted
400 years ago today King James VI and I died. He was the lawful successor to Elizabeth I…or was he? My new book - announced today - will reveal the shocking truth behind one of history’s best kept secrets @thesohoagencyuk @waterstones waterstones.com/book/the-sto…
Meilan Solly retweeted
Ahead of the US release of #themirrorandthelight @PBS I was delighted to contribute to this thought-provoking piece in @smithsonianmagazine about #thomascromwell in fact and fiction smithsonianmag.com/history/t… @HodderBooks
Many thanks to @TracyBorman and Diarmaid MacCulloch for chatting with me about all things Thomas Cromwell for @SmithsonianMag! smithsonianmag.com/history/t…
Meilan Solly retweeted
This was a great story to write about! As always, thank you to @meilansolly, without whom this would not have been possible. @SmithsonianMag
Armed With Just a Badge, Los Angeles' First Policewoman Protected the City's Most Vulnerable in the Early 20th Century - smithsonianmag.com/history/a… @smithsonianmag
