Issue

The fallout-shelter craze of 1961

The 1,200-Mile Race Between the Natchez and the Robert E. Lee

GOOD READING

The curious career of the Hays Office

A splendid gathering of American folk art—half a century before its time

A Connecticut photographer’s record of life in a shipbuilding town

A major new exhibition celebrates the bright, idiosyncratic paintings of America’s folk artists

In an age of ersatz heroes, a fresh look at the real thing

Unpublished letters from Dean Acheson to Ex-President Harry Truman

It saved the early Colonists from starvation, it has caused men to murder each other, it used to be our most democratic food—in short, an extraordinary bivalve