Mark Twain House
Encyclopedia
The Mark Twain House and Museum was the home of Mark Twain
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...

 (a.k.a. Samuel Langhorne Clemens) from 1874 to 1891 in Hartford, Connecticut
Hartford, Connecticut
Hartford is the capital of the U.S. state of Connecticut. The seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960, it is the second most populous city on New England's largest river, the Connecticut River. As of the 2010 Census, Hartford's population was 124,775, making...

, USA. Before 1874, Twain had lived in Hannibal, Missouri
Hannibal, Missouri
Hannibal is a city in Marion and Ralls counties in the U.S. state of Missouri. Hannibal is located at the intersection of Interstate 72 and U.S. Routes 24, 36 and 61, approximately northwest of St. Louis. According to the 2010 U.S. Census the population was 17,606...

. The architectural style of the 19-room house is Victorian Gothic. The house is also notable for the major works written during his residency, including The Gilded Age
The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today
The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today is an 1873 novel by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner that satirizes greed and political corruption in post-Civil War America. Although not one of Twain's better-known works, it has appeared in more than one hundred editions since its original publication. Twain...

, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain is an 1876 novel about a young boy growing up along the Mississippi River. The story is set in the Town of "St...

, The Prince and the Pauper
The Prince and the Pauper
The Prince and the Pauper is an English-language novel by American author Mark Twain. It was first published in 1881 in Canada before its 1882 publication in the United States. The book represents Twain's first attempt at historical fiction...

, Life on the Mississippi
Life on the Mississippi
Life on the Mississippi is a memoir by Mark Twain, of his days as a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River before the American Civil War, and also a travel book, recounting his trip along the Mississippi many years after the War....

, Huckleberry Finn
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel by Mark Twain, first published in England in December 1884 and in the United States in February 1885. Commonly named among the Great American Novels, the work is among the first in major American literature to be written in the vernacular, characterized by...

, A Tramp Abroad
A Tramp Abroad
A Tramp Abroad is a work of non-fiction travel literature by American author Mark Twain, published in 1880. The book details a journey by the author, with his friend Harris , through central and southern Europe...

, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is an 1889 novel by American humorist and writer Mark Twain. The book was originally titled A Yankee in King Arthur's Court...

.

Poor financial investments caused the Twain family to move to Europe in 1891. When they returned to Connecticut in 1900 he lived in a house built for him in Redding, Connecticut
Redding, Connecticut
Mark Twain, a resident of the town in his old age, contributed the first books for a public library which was eventually named after him.-Government:...

, named Stormfield, where he died on April 21, 1910. His home in Hartford functioned as a school, an apartment building, and a library. In 1962 the building was declared a National Historic Landmark
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...

. Since 1974 it has had a multi-million dollar renovation and an expansion dedicated to showcasing his life and work. The house is facing financial troubles stemming in part from an overestimation of the number of visitors it would receive yearly.

Life in the house

Mark Twain first came to Hartford in 1868 on business while writing The Innocents Abroad to work with publisher Elisha Bliss, Jr. of the American Publishing Company. At the time, Hartford was a publishing center with twelve publishers. After marrying Olivia Langdon, Twain moved into a substantial home in Buffalo, New York
Buffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...

. However, within two years, Twain considered moving to a more opulent house in Hartford. He soon purchased the property in north Hartford, partly to be closer to his publisher, American Publishing Company. Of Hartford, Twain said, "Of all the beautiful towns it has been my fortune to see, this is the chief... You do not know what beauty is if you have not been here." He was attracted to the town which, at the time, had the highest per-capita income of any city in the United States.

The family rented a house at what was called Nook Farm in 1871 before buying land there and building a new house. They moved into the home in 1874 after its completion. The top floor was the billiards
Billiards
Cue sports , also known as billiard sports, are a wide variety of games of skill generally played with a cue stick which is used to strike billiard balls, moving them around a cloth-covered billiards table bounded by rubber .Historically, the umbrella term was billiards...

 room and his private study, where Twain would write late at night; the room was strictly off limits to all but the cleaning staff. It was also used for entertaining male guests with cigars and liquor. Twain had said "There ought to be a room in this house to swear in. It's dangerous to have to repress an emotion like that."

The children had their own area, with a nursery and a playroom/classroom. Mrs. Clemens tutored her daughters in the large school room on the second floor. Twain played with his children in the conservatory, pretending to be an elephant in an imaginary safari
Safari
A safari is an overland journey, usually a trip by tourists to Africa. Traditionally, the term is used for a big-game hunt, but today the term often refers to a trip taken not for the purposes of hunting, but to observe and photograph animals and other wildlife.-Etymology:Entering the English...

. Twain noted the house "was of us, and we were in its confidence and lived in its grace and in the peace of its benediction."

Twain enjoyed living in the house, partly because he knew many different authors from his Hartford neighborhood, such as Harriet Beecher Stowe
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Harriet Beecher Stowe was an American abolitionist and author. Her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin was a depiction of life for African-Americans under slavery; it reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the United States and United Kingdom...

 who lived next door and Isabella Beecher Hooker
Isabella Beecher Hooker
Isabella Beecher Hooker was a leader in the women's suffrage movement and an author.-Biography:Born in Litchfield, Connecticut, she was a daughter of Reverend Lyman Beecher, a noted abolitionist. Among her half brothers and sisters were Henry Ward Beecher, Charles Beecher, Catharine Beecher, and...

. Also, he would stop in to visit his friend, actor William Gillette
William Gillette
William Hooker Gillette was an American actor, playwright and stage-manager in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who is best remembered today for portraying Sherlock Holmes....

 at Gillette Castle (today Gillette Castle State Park
Gillette Castle State Park
Gillette Castle State Park is straddling the towns of East Haddam and Lyme, Connecticut, in the United States. Sitting high above the Connecticut River, the castle was originally a private residence commissioned and designed by William Gillette, an American actor who is most famous for his...

).

In this home, Twain produced many of his most notable books, including The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain is an 1876 novel about a young boy growing up along the Mississippi River. The story is set in the Town of "St...

(1876), Life on the Mississippi
Life on the Mississippi
Life on the Mississippi is a memoir by Mark Twain, of his days as a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River before the American Civil War, and also a travel book, recounting his trip along the Mississippi many years after the War....

(1883). The success of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer inspired Twain to renovate the home. In 1881, he had Louis Comfort Tiffany
Louis Comfort Tiffany
Louis Comfort Tiffany was an American artist and designer who worked in the decorative arts and is best known for his work in stained glass. He is the American artist most associated with the Art Nouveau  and Aesthetic movements...

 supervise the interior decoration of the house. Twain was also fascinated with new technologies, leading to the installation of an early telephone
Telephone
The telephone , colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sounds, usually the human voice. Telephones are a point-to-point communication system whose most basic function is to allow two people separated by large distances to talk to each other...

 in the entrance hall.

Twain's supported the typesetting machine
Paige Compositor
Paige Compositor was an invention developed by James W. Paige between 1872–1888. Designed to replace the human typesetter of a printing press with a mechanical arm, the machine was not nearly as precise as it should have been and never turned a profit because of its complexity and continual need...

 invented by James W. Paige and invested heavily in it. He also formed the firm Charles L. Webster & Company, which published Twain's writings along with Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant was the 18th President of the United States as well as military commander during the Civil War and post-war Reconstruction periods. Under Grant's command, the Union Army defeated the Confederate military and ended the Confederate States of America...

's memoirs. Its first publication was Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel by Mark Twain, first published in England in December 1884 and in the United States in February 1885. Commonly named among the Great American Novels, the work is among the first in major American literature to be written in the vernacular, characterized by...

in 1884. The company went bankrupt in 1894, leaving Twain with a large amount of debt. Paige's typesetting machine was overpowered by competition from the linotype machine
Linotype machine
The Linotype typesetting machine is a "line casting" machine used in printing. The name of the machine comes from the fact that it produces an entire line of metal type at once, hence a line-o'-type, a significant improvement over manual typesetting....

 developed by Whitlaw Reid. After the losses from these investments as well as several bank panics, the Twains moved to Europe in 1891 where living was cheaper. Twain began lecturing across the continent to recoup some money for their family.

Architecture and construction

The house was designed by Edward Tuckerman Potter, an architect
Architect
An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...

 from New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

. When the house was being built, the Hartford Daily Times noted, "The novelty displayed in the architecture of the building, the oddity of its internal arrangement and the fame of its owner will all conspire to make it a house of note for a long time to come." The cost of the house was paid out of Mrs. Clemens' inheritance.

The house was built on 3.5 acres (1.4 ha) of land and designed with seven bedrooms, seven bathrooms, a carriage house, and plant-filled conservatory
Conservatory (greenhouse)
A conservatory is a room having glass roof and walls, typically attached to a house on only one side, used as a greenhouse or a sunroom...

. Bay window
Bay window
A bay window is a window space projecting outward from the main walls of a building and forming a bay in a room, either square or polygonal in plan. The angles most commonly used on the inside corners of the bay are 90, 135 and 150 degrees. Bay windows are often associated with Victorian architecture...

s extend up to form turret
Turret
In architecture, a turret is a small tower that projects vertically from the wall of a building such as a medieval castle. Turrets were used to provide a projecting defensive position allowing covering fire to the adjacent wall in the days of military fortification...

s that were topped with porches, allowing Twain and guests a view of what was a very pastoral area of Hartford. The home is in the style of Victorian Gothic Revival architecture
Gothic Revival architecture
The Gothic Revival is an architectural movement that began in the 1740s in England...

, including the typical steeply-pitched roof and an asymmetrical bay window
Bay window
A bay window is a window space projecting outward from the main walls of a building and forming a bay in a room, either square or polygonal in plan. The angles most commonly used on the inside corners of the bay are 90, 135 and 150 degrees. Bay windows are often associated with Victorian architecture...

 layout. Legend says the home was designed to look like a riverboat
Riverboat
A riverboat is a ship built boat designed for inland navigation on lakes, rivers, and artificial waterways. They are generally equipped and outfitted as work boats in one of the carrying trades, for freight or people transport, including luxury units constructed for entertainment enterprises, such...

.

In 1881, an adjoining strip of land was purchased, the grounds re-landscaped, and the home was renovated . The driveway was redrawn, the kitchen rebuilt and its size doubled, and the front hall was enlarged. The family also installed new plumbing and heating and a burglar alarm. After its renovations, the total cost of the home amounted to $70,000, $22,000 were spent on furnishings, and the initial purchase of land cost $31,000.

Post-Twain

Grieving the death of their daughter Susy from meningitis
Meningitis
Meningitis is inflammation of the protective membranes covering the brain and spinal cord, known collectively as the meninges. The inflammation may be caused by infection with viruses, bacteria, or other microorganisms, and less commonly by certain drugs...

 in 1896, Mrs. Clemens could no longer bear living in the home when the family returned from Europe. It was sold in 1903 to Richard M. Bissell, president of a local fire insurance company. In 1905 the house was significantly repaired, but it was also significantly altered, deviating from its original design. The chimneys and brick work were also altered.

Bissell lived in the home with his family until he rented the house to the Kingswood School for Boys in 1917. In 1922, it was sold and used as a coal warehouse before being subdivided into apartments.

In 1929, a group of preservationists, the Friends of Hartford, formed the Mark Twain Memorial and Library Commission and purchased the building to prevent its demolition. They rented the ground floor to meet expenses. During this period, doors were added to the building, further deviating from the original design. Restoration began in 1955 and continued through 1974. The house was declared a National Historic Landmark
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...

 in 1963.

The house was opened as a museum in the 1960s. The process of paying off the mortgage, raising money to restore the deteriorating property, and retrieving artifacts, furnishings, and personal possessions took many decades and ended in 1974, just in time for the 100th anniversary of the house. The house earned the David E. Finley Award in 1977 for "exemplary restoration" from the National Trust for Historic Preservation
National Trust for Historic Preservation
The National Trust for Historic Preservation is an American member-supported organization that was founded in 1949 by congressional charter to support preservation of historic buildings and neighborhoods through a range of programs and activities, including the publication of Preservation...

.

Recent renovations

Restoration and preservation at the Mark Twain House helped bring the house and grounds back to the years between 1881 and 1891, when the Twains most loved the house. The marble floor in the front hallway underwent a historic restoration, and specialists re-stenciled and painted the walls and ceilings and refinishing the woodwork to recover the Tiffany-decorated interiors. Restoration was funded in part by two federal Save America’s Treasures grants totaling $3 million. Scanning computers were also used in the restoration. The home today contains 50,000 artifacts: manuscripts, historic photographs, family furnishings, and Tiffany glass
Louis Comfort Tiffany
Louis Comfort Tiffany was an American artist and designer who worked in the decorative arts and is best known for his work in stained glass. He is the American artist most associated with the Art Nouveau  and Aesthetic movements...

. Many of the original furnishings, including Twain's ornate Venetian
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

 bed, an intricately carved mantel from a Scottish castle, and a billiard table, remain at the house.

With the number of admissions leveling off around 53,000, the house's trustees decided that they must expand or be forced to shrink their operations. They commissioned Robert A. M. Stern
Robert A. M. Stern
Robert Arthur Morton Stern, usually credited as Robert A. M. Stern, is an American architect and Dean of the Yale University School of Architecture....

, the founder of the Manhattan architectural firm that bears his name and the dean of the Yale School of Architecture
Yale School of Architecture
The Yale School of Architecture is one of the constituent professional schools of Yale University. It is generally considered to be one of the most prestigious architecture schools in the world.- History :...

, to design a visitor's center that would not draw attention away from the house.

The Education and Visitors Center was built adjacent to Twain's Carriage House. The green museum
Green museum
A green museum is a museum that incorporates concepts of sustainability into its operations, programming, and facility. Many green museums, but not all, use their collections to produce exhibitions, events, classes, and other programming to educate the public about the natural environment...

 was the first in America to receive a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design consists of a suite of rating systems for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings, homes and neighborhoods....

 (LEED) certification. The center is a $16.3 million, 35000 square feet (3,251.6 m²) facility that houses artifacts from the museum's collection that are not shown in the house itself. It contains a lecture hall and classroom facilities. The house received $1 million from the state government to meet expenses related to the construction of the museum and restoration of the house. Since the museum opened in November 2003, attendance has increased by 15%.

The house generates $5 million in tourism from 50,000 visitors. The Aetna
Aetna
Aetna, Inc. is an American health insurance company, providing a range of traditional and consumer directed health care insurance products and related services, including medical, pharmaceutical, dental, behavioral health, group life, long-term care, and disability plans, and medical management...

 foundation gave $500,000 to the campaign. The National Endowment for the Humanities gave $800,000 in challenge grants for teacher development programs, a student writing contest, and an educational website.

Since the building of the Visitors Center in 2003, the house has become financially unsustainable and has launched a campaign to raise awareness and funds. In response, the state government, the governor, United Technologies, and many others have all contributed.

In 2009 the house was featured on and episode of the SyFy
Syfy
Syfy , formerly known as the Sci-Fi Channel and SCI FI, is an American cable television channel featuring science fiction, supernatural, fantasy, reality, paranormal, wrestling, and horror programming. Launched on September 24, 1992, it is part of the entertainment conglomerate NBCUniversal, a...

 program Ghost Hunters
Ghost Hunters
Ghost Hunters is an American paranormal reality television series that premiered on October 6, 2004, on Syfy . The program features paranormal investigators Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson who investigate places that are reported to be haunted. The two originally worked as plumbers for Roto-Rooter as...

 to investigate claims of paranormal activity.

See also


External links

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