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Ellen Wexler
About
Ellen Wexler is a journalist based in Washington, D.C., where she serves as a staff writer and special projects editor at Smithsonian Magazine. Previously, she was the managing editor at Moment Magazine.
Clips
Selected Work
Was There Ever an Original Version of ‘The Odyssey,’ and Do We Need to Worry About What Homer Would Think?
Smithsonian Magazine
Dolly Parton Was One of the Biggest Stars in the History of Country Music. She Wanted to Be Remembered as a Songwriter
Smithsonian Magazine
A Secret Sculpture Built for John F. Kennedy’s Grave Vanished in the 1970s. Half a Century Later, the Mystery Has Been Solved
Smithsonian Magazine
Tattered Pages Discovered in Storage Reveal an Enslaved Man’s Daring Bid for Freedom—and His Second Life at Sea
Smithsonian Magazine
Divers Discover the Shipwreck of a World War I-Era Coast Guard Cutter, Which Vanished With 131 Sailors on Board in 1918
Smithsonian Magazine
Kermit the Frog Was Just Trying to Put on a Variety Show. Fifty Years Later, the Muppets Are Some of the Biggest Stars in Television History
Smithsonian Magazine
Flannery O’Connor Wanted to Shake Her Readers Awake. Her Family Wanted Her to Write the Next ‘Gone With the Wind’
Smithsonian Magazine
DNA Reveals the Identity of a Teenager Who Died in the Revolutionary War, Cracking a Nearly 250-Year-Old Cold Case
Smithsonian Magazine
This Box of 300 Love Letters Showed Up Out of the Blue. Who Was the Whimsical World War II Soldier Who Wrote Them?
Smithsonian Magazine
Nobody Knows What Sank the ‘Edmund Fitzgerald.’ But Its Doomed Final Voyage Will Always Be America’s Defining Shipwreck
Smithsonian Magazine
Jane Austen’s Letters Are the Closest We Can Get to Her. What Do They Reveal About the ‘Pride and Prejudice’ Author?
Smithsonian Magazine
Before He Rose to Power, Adolf Hitler Staged a Coup and Went to Prison
Smithsonian Magazine
‘The Tattooist of Auschwitz’ Demonstrates the Limits of Holocaust Fiction
Smithsonian Magazine
Before Meditation Apps, Listeners Were Hooked on Whale Songs, Rain Sounds and the ‘Scream of the Southern Leopard Frog’
Smithsonian Magazine
Theodore Roosevelt Survived an Assassination Attempt Because a Speech Tucked Inside His Pocket Slowed the Bullet. He Insisted on Delivering His Remarks Anyway
Smithsonian Magazine
The Real Story Behind ‘The Bikeriders’ and the Danny Lyon Photography Book That Inspired It
Smithsonian Magazine
Who Were the Couples That Posed for David Hockney’s Famed Double Portraits?
Smithsonian Magazine
Abigail Adams Asked Her Husband to ‘Remember the Ladies’ as He Drafted America’s Laws. Here’s What She Really Meant
Smithsonian Magazine
Why Was Zora Neale Hurston So Obsessed With the Biblical Villain Herod the Great?
Smithsonian Magazine
The 150-Year-Old Comstock Act Could Transform the Abortion Debate
Smithsonian Magazine
Andrew Lloyd Webber Says He’s Writing a New Musical About the Time the ‘Mona Lisa’ Vanished Without a Trace in 1911
Smithsonian Magazine
The Real Story Behind ‘Nickel Boys’ and the Brutal Florida Reform School That Inspired the Film
Smithsonian Magazine
Without the First Folio, Half of Shakespeare’s Plays Would Have Been Lost to History
Smithsonian Magazine
The Real History Behind Leonard Bernstein and Felicia Montealegre’s Marriage in ‘Maestro’
Smithsonian Magazine
Meet Vivian Maier, the Reclusive Nanny Who Secretly Became One of the Best Street Photographers of the 20th Century
Smithsonian Magazine
Contact
Contact
@ellenwexler on Twitter
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