A Northwestern University journalism student, professor and 2011 graduate are driving 13,500 miles around the United States between Sept. 18 and Dec. 11 for a project titled “Traveling with Twain in Search of America’s Identity.” The three will follow the path that a young Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) took by stagecoach, steamship and train during trips east to New York, south to New Orleans and west to San Francisco during the 1850s and 1860s; they will interview a variety of Americans about race, immigration-status and other current identity issues and talk with members of a representative American family, the Ghigliones, that first immigrated to the United States from northern Italy in the 1870s. Read more >>
On a sunny day, the placement of the Elmira Correctional Facility seems inappropriate for a maximum security prison. If you make it to the top of several very steep flights of stairs, you’re rewarded with several … Read more
Scenes from Zuccotti Park in New York City’s Financial District: a look at Wall Street’s occupants with a surprise cameo from Mark Twain himself. Video by Dan
One thing about the Occupy Wall Street protest in Lower Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park: Don’t visit too early. Like, before 2 p.m. We made that mistake last week and arrived around 11 a.m. Everyone was still sleeping, … Read more
After Jervis Langdon died in 1870, his eldest daughter, Susan Langdon Crane, inherited the vacation home nestled in the hills of Elmira, Ny. Crane’s famous brother-in-law, Mark Twain, would spend his summers at Quarry Farm for … Read more
From its owner and art to its food, staff and clientele, the Red Rooster Harlem restaurant, our first stop in New York City, sends a multicultural message. Owner-celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson, born in Ethiopia, orphaned at … Read more
