Connecticut’s Museums Part 2
The Mark Twain House & Museum
The name Mark Twain often conjures thoughts of his many notable contributions to American literature, society, and academia throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. For example, one might recall his incredibly popular novels, including but not limited to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and its subsequent counterpart The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Perhaps thoughts on his lectures or his work as a humorist come immediately forth. Many know his name and his work, but less know about his lasting influence within the state of Connecticut or, more accurately, less know about the existence of the Mark Twain House & Museum right here in Hartford, the state’s capital.
Mark Twain, or Samuel Langhorne Clemens, as is his given name, was born on November 30, 1835 in the now-uninhabited village of Florida, Monroe County, Missouri to Jane and John Marshall Clemens. He was the sixth of seven children and, like three of his other siblings, lived a rather sickly childhood. Unfortunately, the Clemens family was no stranger to tragedy. Three of the Clemens children did eventually succumb to their ailments, and, later, at the young age of 20, Mark’s younger brother Henry was killed in a gruesome steamboat explosion after Twain, whose dream was to captain a steamboat, had convinced Henry to work alongside him aboard the vessel. Later in life, Twain would experience similar tragedy, with the loss of three of his children and the death of his wife before his own death in the year 1910. Before that, however, Twain, as we well know, went on to reach adulthood and, as history would have it, earned a name for himself as one of America’s most famous and wealthiest authors.
Samuel Clemens’s work was first published in the year 1863 when, after traveling with his brother, he settled down and began to write for a newspaper. In the following months, he published a handful of humorous articles detailing his life and travels all under the pseudonym “Mark Twain.” The following year, in 1864, he moved to San Francisco and continued his work as a journalist. Soon after, in the year 1865, he published his story The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, which garnered him a great deal of attention and success, so much so that publishing companies began to fund his worldly travels. Amidst this success, he met his future wife, Olivia Langdon, who he would go on to have four children with. Twain worked for the rest of his career and life as a journalist and novelist, receiving numerous awards and honors for his contributions to the field until the year 1910, when he passed on at the age of 74 in his Stormfield House residence in Redding, Connecticut. Throughout his life, Twain worked to earn himself a place as one the greatest American authors to date, and his work remains incredibly influential and prolific in our modern times.
Today, the Mark Twain House, Twain’s final place of residence, exists as a museum in Hartford, Connecticut, open to the public and full of incredible artifacts and the historic remnants of the famous writer’s life and career. According to the museum’s website, the house was purchased in the year 1929 by a group known as the Mark Twain Memorial and Library Commission, which was led by Katharine Seymour Day. Throughout the 1960s, the house was rented out as private apartments. In 1963, it was declared a National Historic Landmark and formal restoration began. In 1999, those organizations responsible for the official restoration of the house began to prepare for its grand opening as a museum center, which happened four years later in 2003. By then, the house had been renamed to its current title, The Mark Twain House & Museum. Today, the museum is open to the general public and features a variety of fascinating objects from Twain’s life, all of which can be seen through scheduled tours and during museum events. The Museum’s collection is fascinating and offers a rare glimpse into what Twain’s life and career might have been like.
As one of Connecticut’s well-established museums and an institution with deep ties to a major figure in American history, the Mark Twain House & Museum is a common theme within the CTDA repository. In fact, searching up the name “Mark Twain” produces a total of 186,409 objects, including an illustration of Twain himself, a view of the house itself, a photograph of the house’s internal library, and a handful of pictures of Twain. Likewise, searching up Twain’s real name, Samuel Clemens, rather than his pen name, produces a total of 60,616 objects, ranging from more images of Twain, to an inside view of his cigar case, to more photographs of his Hartford residence. The Connecticut Digital Archive boasts an abundance of information regarding Twain, his career, the lasting effects of his work, and his life here in Connecticut, such that this article barely brushes the tip of the iceberg. The repository offers incredible insight into his life and his work and seeks to preserve the facets of his life that existed both within the state of Connecticut and beyond.
All in all, the Mark Twain House & Museum remains today as a testament to one of the United State’s best known and influential novelists. It seeks to tell of the life and work of Mark Twain, from his childhood days to the rises and falls of his incredible career. Connecticut is lucky to have been home to such a venerated historical figure, and even more lucky to have such incredible artifacts and records of his life right here in the state. Together, the CTDA and the Mark Twain House & Museum work to gather and preserve Twain’s life work and pay homage to his many accomplishments and contributions to American journalism.
For more information regarding Mark Twain, his life, and the Mark Twain House and Museum, visit the links below!
Connecticut Digital Archive Connect is the publication of the Connecticut Digital Archive, a program of the UConn Library. Visit https://ctdigitalarchive.org to learn more.
