Center For Mark Twain Studies

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The Center For Mark Twain Studies is a cultural humanities site associated with Elmira College. The Center manages two historic sites, the Octagonal Study and Quarry Farm, where the American author, Mark Twain, composed many of his works, including his 1884 novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. [1] The center also includes exhibits and archives. It administers research fellowships and delivers extensive programming, including lectures series, symposia, teachers institutes, digital resources, podcasts, and the quadrennial International Conference on the State of Mark Twain Studies. [2]

Contents

History and founding

Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) first visited Elmira in 1868 at the invitation of Charles Langdon, a young man he had befriended during the Holy Land Excursion of the Quaker City (formerly USS Quaker City), a pleasure cruise which Twain would soon turn into his first bestselling book, The Innocents Abroad (1869). [3] During the trip, Langdon had shown Clemens as picture of his sister, Olivia Langdon. [4] On New Year's Eve 1867, Sam Clemens and Livy Langdon were formally introduced, beginning a courtship which would result in marriage on February 2, 1870. [5]

Shortly after their engagement, Langdon began worrying that her marriage to the itinerant Clemens would permanently sever her from her family, inspiring Clemens to make "an extraordinary promise." [6] Starting the year after they were married, the Clemens family made an annual Summer pilgrimage to Quarry Farm, where they stayed, usually for 3–4 months, with Livy Clemens's older sister and her husband, Theodore and Susan Crane. [7]

In addition to allowing his wife and daughters to maintain strong ties with their extended family and the Elmira community, Sam quickly found that it was an exceptional writing environment. "I can write ten chapters in Elmira where I can write one [in Hartford]," he told a friend in 1875. [8] The previous year, the Cranes had built for him an Octagonal Study, designed to resemble the pilot house on a steamboat, at the peak of East Hill, overlooking the Chemung River Valley, about 100 yards from the main house at Quarry Farm. [9] Here he would compose the majority of four novels, three memoirs, and hundreds of stories, essays, and speeches over the next two decades. In 1886, he told a visiting reporter, "This may be called the home of Huckleberry Finn and other books of mine, for they were written here." [10]

Sam and Livy Clemens made their last extended residency at Quarry Farm in 1903, the year before her death. [11] Both are buried nearby in the Langdon family plot at Elmira's Woodlawn Cemetery. [12] But the property remained in the Langdon family for generations, until it was entrusted to Elmira College in 1982, the official founding of the Center For Mark Twain Studies, by Jervis Langdon Jr. [13] Livy Clemens had been a student at Elmira Female College and her father, Jervis Langdon, was among the college's founders. [14] The family ties to the college were deepened when the Clemens's niece, Ida Langdon, became a professor there. She arranged for the Octagonal Study to be relocated from Quarry Farm to the Elmira College campus in 1952. [15] Her nephew, Langdon Jr., was the final member of the family to reside at Quarry Farm. He set the terms of the agreement with Elmira College that Quarry Farm would never be open to the general public, but would be reserved for promoting scholarship about Mark Twain and his circle. [16]

Quarry Farm Fellows

In observance of Langdon Jr.'s mandate, CMTS sponsors an annual fellowship competition for scholarly "scholarship and creative works related to Mark Twain, including, but not limited to, his literature, life, family, associations, influences, reception, and significance." [17] In 2022, they made awards to 11 Fellows, each of whom was granted a 1-4 week residency at Quarry Farm, as well as an honorarium and access to archival collections. One fellowship was reserved for a creative writer, one for a visual artist, and three for early career researchers. [18]

Programming

The Trouble Begins lectures

In 1985, the sesquicentennial of Sam Clemens's birth and the centennial of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, CMTS launched its first lecture series, The Trouble Begins at 8, the title draw from the advertising for Twain's first lecture. [19] The initial program features five lecturers, including Leo Marx and Henry Nash Smith. The series was expanded in 1988 and several times since. Since 2017, it has consisted of 10-12 lectures each year, split between "The Barn," an auditorium retrofitted for the purpose on the Quarry Farm grounds, and the Elmira College campus, as well as additional Summer lectures at the Park Church. Many lectures, going back to the initial program in 1985, are recorded and archived on the CMTS website. [20]

The International Conference on The State of Mark Twain Studies

Every four years, CMTS hosts a conference for hundreds of Twain researchers. The first gathering took place in 1989. [21] The 2021 conference was postponed until 2022.

Conferences [22]

The Quarry Farm Weekend Symposium [23]

CMTS also hosts a much smaller annual symposium each Fall on specialized topics.

Symposia Themes [22]

  • 2008 "A Centennial Symposium on Mark Twain's The Mysterious Stranger ," Keynote Address by Alan Gribben
  • 2010 "en route: Mark Twain's Travel Books A Tramp Abroad and Following The Equator," Keynote by Louis J. Budd
  • 2012 "Complicating Twain: Biography, Autobiography, & the Personal Scholar," Keynote by Laura Skandera Trombley
  • 2016 "Mark Twain & Youth," Keynote by Jon Clinch
  • 2018 "American Literary History & Economics in the New Gilded Age," Keynote by David Sloan Wilson
  • 2019 "Mark Twain & Nature," Keynote by Michael P. Branch
  • 2020 "American Humor & Matters of Empire," Keynote by John Wharton Lowe
  • 2021 "Mark Twain & The West: Celebrating the 150th Anniversary of Roughing It ," Keynote by Bruce Michelson
  • 2022 "Abolition Studies," Keynote by Sarah Haley

The Summer Teachers Institute [24]

Each July, CMTS hosts primary and secondary teachers for a two-day workshop. Since 2019, the STI has been coordinated by Jocelyn Chadwick and CMTS's resident scholar, Matt Seybold.

The American Vandal Podcast [25]

Seybold is also the producer and host of the CMTS podcast, The American Vandal Podcast:

Staff

Full-time staff at CMTS include a director, a resident scholar, an archivist, and a caretaker, who lives in a guest house constructed on the Quarry Farm property. Since 2016, the Director has been Joseph Lemak. [26]

Related Research Articles

<i>Adventures of Huckleberry Finn</i> 1885 novel by Mark Twain

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel by American author Mark Twain, which was first published in the United Kingdom in December 1884 and in the United States in February 1885.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Twain</span> American author and humorist (1835–1910)

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced", and William Faulkner called him "the father of American literature". His novels include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), the latter of which has often been called the "Great American Novel". Twain also wrote A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889) and Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894), and co-wrote The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873) with Charles Dudley Warner.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elmira, New York</span> City in New York, United States

Elmira is a city and the county seat of Chemung County, New York, United States. It is the principal city of the Elmira, New York, metropolitan statistical area, which encompasses Chemung County. The population was 26,523 at the 2020 census, down from 29,200 at the 2010 census, a decline of more than 7 percent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elmira College</span> Private college in Elmira, New York

Elmira College is a private college in Elmira, New York. Founded as a college for women in 1855, it is the oldest existing college granting degrees to women that were the equivalent of those given to men. Elmira College became coeducational in all of its programs in 1969. The college has an enrollment of under 850 students.

<i>The Adventures of Mark Twain</i> (1944 film) 1944 film by Irving Rapper

The Adventures of Mark Twain is a 1944 American biographical film directed by Irving Rapper and starring Fredric March as Samuel Clemens and Alexis Smith as Twain's wife Olivia. Produced by Warner Bros., the film was nominated for three Academy Awards, including that for Best Music for Max Steiner's score. Irving Rapper was hesitant to direct the film but was persuaded by Hal B. Wallis.

<i>Mark Twain Tonight!</i>

Mark Twain Tonight! is a one-man play devised by Hal Holbrook, in which he depicted Mark Twain giving a dramatic recitation selected from several of Twain's writings, with an emphasis on the comic ones.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Woodlawn Cemetery (Elmira, New York)</span> Historic cemetery in Chemung County, New York, US

Woodlawn Cemetery is the name of a cemetery in Elmira, New York, United States. Its most famous burials are Mark Twain and his wife Olivia Langdon Clemens. Many members of the United States Congress, including Jacob Sloat Fassett are also interred there.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ossip Gabrilowitsch</span> Russian-american pianist and conductor (1878–1936)

Ossip Salomonovich Gabrilowitsch was a Russian-born American pianist, conductor and composer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jean Clemens</span> Youngest daughter of Mark Twain

Jane Lampton "Jean" Clemens was the daughter of Samuel Langhorne Clemens and Olivia Langdon Clemens. She drowned in a bathtub at Samuel's home on Christmas Eve 1909, likely due to a seizure.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum</span> Historic house in Missouri, United States

The Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum is located on 206-208 Hill Street, Hannibal, Missouri, on the west bank of the Mississippi River in the United States. It was the home of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known as author Mark Twain, from 1844 to 1853. Clemens found the inspiration for many of his stories, including the white picket fence, while living here. It has been open to the public as a museum since 1912, and was designated a National Historic Landmark on December 29, 1962. It is located in the Mark Twain Historic District.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Olivia Langdon Clemens</span> Wife of Mark Twain

Olivia Langdon Clemens was the wife of the American author Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known as Mark Twain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Twain in popular culture</span>

Mark Twain's legacy includes awards, events, a variety of memorials and namesakes, and numerous works of art, entertainment, and media.

Mark Twain: The Musical is a stage musical biography of Mark Twain that had a ten-year summertime run in Elmira, NY and Hartford, CT (1987–1995) and was telecast on a number of public television stations. An original cast CD was released by Premier Recordings in 1988, and LML Music in 2009 issued a newly mastered and complete version of the score. Video and DVD versions of the show are currently in release.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Susy Clemens</span> Eldest daughter of Samuel Clemens

Olivia Susan Clemens was the second child and eldest daughter of Samuel Clemens, who wrote under the pen name Mark Twain, and his wife Olivia Langdon Clemens. She inspired some of her father's works, at 13 wrote her own biography of him, which he later published in his autobiography, and acted as a literary critic. Her father was heartbroken when she died of spinal meningitis at age 24.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Quarry Farm</span> Historic house in New York, United States

Quarry Farm is located on East Hill overlooking Elmira, New York and the Chemung River Valley. In 1869, Jervis Langdon purchased the property as a vacation home for his family. When he died the following year, it was inherited by his eldest daughter, Susan Langdon Crane. It remained in the Langdon family until 1982, when it was donated to Elmira College as part of the founding of the Center For Mark Twain Studies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas K. Beecher</span>

Thomas Kinnicut Beecher was a Congregationalist preacher and the principal of several schools. As a Congregational minister, his father took the family from Beecher's birthplace of Litchfield, Connecticut, to Boston, Massachusetts, and Cincinnati, Ohio, by 1832.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Twain House</span> Historic house in Connecticut, United States

The Mark Twain House and Museum in Hartford, Connecticut, was the home of Samuel Langhorne Clemens and his family from 1874 to 1891. It was designed by Edward Tuckerman Potter and built in the American High Gothic style. Clemens biographer Justin Kaplan has called it "part steamboat, part medieval fortress and part cuckoo clock."

Jervis Langdon Jr. was an American railroad executive noted as president of B&O, the Rock Island, and Penn Central.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cindy Lovell</span> American educator and writer

Cindy Lovell is an American educator and writer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jane Lampton Clemens</span> Mother of author Mark Twain

Jane Lampton Clemens was the mother of author Mark Twain. She was the inspiration of the character "Aunt Polly" in Twain's 1876 novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. She was regarded as a "cheerful, affectionate, and strong woman" with a "gift for storytelling" and as the person from whom Mark Twain inherited his sense of humor.

References

  1. ↑ CALL, By Diane Stoneback, ALLENTOWN MORNING. "Mark Twain's 'foretaste of heaven' in N.Y." inquirer.com. Retrieved 2022-07-06.
  2. ↑ "About CMTS". Center for Mark Twain Studies. Retrieved 2022-07-06.
  3. ↑ "Mark Twain and the Holy Land | New-York Historical Society". www.nyhistory.org. Retrieved 2022-07-06.
  4. ↑ Morris, Roy (2015). American Vandal: Mark Twain Abroad. Harvard University Press. ISBN   978-0-674-41669-7.
  5. ↑ "Twain's Summer Home: Visiting Elmira, N.Y." NPR.org. Retrieved 2022-06-16.
  6. ↑ Seybold, Matt (2018-09-19). "150 Years of Mark Twain in Elmira: Dickens Holidays, The Gospel of Revolt, & The Quarry Farm Style". Center for Mark Twain Studies. Retrieved 2022-06-16.
  7. ↑ Jerome, Robert D. (1977). Mark Twain in Elmira. Elmira College Center for Mark Twain Studies. ISBN   978-0-578-12626-5.
  8. ↑ Twain, Mark (2002-11-29). Mark Twain's Letters, Volume 6: 1874-1875. University of California Press. ISBN   978-0-520-92993-7.
  9. ↑ "Mark Twain's Study at Elmira College". www.amusingplanet.com. Retrieved 2022-06-16.
  10. ↑ "Winter 2011, Volume 10, Number 3 :: New York State Archives Partnership Trust". www.nysarchivestrust.org. Retrieved 2022-06-16.
  11. ↑ Janowski, Diane. "Elmira History: Imagining Elmira in the time of Mark Twain". Star-Gazette. Retrieved 2022-07-06.
  12. ↑ "Mark Twain's Grave". Atlas Obscura. Retrieved 2022-06-16.
  13. ↑ "FreightWaves Classics/Leaders: Jervis Langdon led railroads during very turbulent times". FreightWaves. 2022-02-14. Retrieved 2022-07-06.
  14. ↑ Harris, Susan K.; Harris, Joyce and Elizabeth Hall Distinguished Professor of American Literature and Culture Susan K. (1996). The Courtship of Olivia Langdon and Mark Twain. Cambridge University Press. ISBN   978-0-521-55650-7.
  15. ↑ "Elmira College and Mark Twain". Center for Mark Twain Studies. Retrieved 2022-06-16.
  16. ↑ "Manuscript Library | Chemung County Historical Society". www.chemungvalleymuseum.org. Retrieved 2022-06-16.
  17. ↑ "2023 Quarry Farm Fellowships Guidelines". Center for Mark Twain Studies. Retrieved 2022-06-16.
  18. ↑ "2022 Quarry Farm Fellows". Center for Mark Twain Studies. Retrieved 2022-06-16.
  19. ↑ "The Trouble Begins at 8". Wall Street Journal. 2008-07-12. ISSN   0099-9660 . Retrieved 2022-06-16.
  20. ↑ "The Trouble Begins Archives". Center for Mark Twain Studies. Retrieved 2022-06-16.
  21. ↑ "Mark Twain Quadrennial Conference | Elmira College". www.elmira.edu. Retrieved 2022-06-16.
  22. 1 2 "Past Quadrennial Conferences and Symposia". Center for Mark Twain Studies. Retrieved 2022-06-16.
  23. ↑ Howe, Lawrence (2020). "The Editor's Drawers". Studies in American Humor. 6 (1): 1–4. doi:10.5325/studamerhumor.6.1.0001. ISSN   2333-9934. S2CID   243344453.
  24. ↑ "Summer Teachers Institute". Center for Mark Twain Studies. Retrieved 2022-06-16.
  25. ↑ "The American Vandal Podcast". Center for Mark Twain Studies. Retrieved 2022-06-16.
  26. ↑ "CMTS Staff". Center for Mark Twain Studies. Retrieved 2022-06-16.
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