Twain’s Evolution – Traveling with Twain | Page 8

Twain’s Evolution

Born in pro-slavery Missouri, Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) absorbed the racist, nativist views of his community and slave-owning parents. Though he completed his formal education by age twelve he shed his backcountry biases and became more egalitarian as, at age seventeen, he began traveling the breadth of the United States, a world inhabited by Jews, Catholics, free blacks and newly arrived immigrants.

Posts in Twain’s Evolution

Attorney and amateur historian examines Hannibal's slaveholding past

Attorney and amateur historian examines Hannibal’s slaveholding past

Hannibal, Mo., cheerily announces its intentions before you reach the downtown area. “America’s Hometown.” It’s written on a stout, sky-blue water tower that looms over Highway 61, one of the tallest structures in Hannibal. Terrell Dempsey, … Read more >>

Hannibal, MO September 25, 2011 Featured Race and Ethnicity More...

The “Mark Twain” Steamboat

All aboard the Mark Twain! A video of our experience floating down the Mississippi.

Hannibal, MO September 23, 2011 Featured Twain's Evolution

An evening of Twain-inspired bluegrass

An evening of Twain-inspired bluegrass

On my first night on the trip, I met Mark Twain’s spirit at a midnight record release party. Loren and Alyssa, already two days into the project, picked me up at the St. Louis airport. After … Read more >>

Hannibal, MO September 22, 2011 Carl Jackson Cindy Lovell More...

Mark Twain birthplace museum acknowledges family's slave holding past

Mark Twain birthplace museum acknowledges family’s slave holding past

Smiles and laughter come easily to Connie Ritter, 61, the second of 10 children born and raised in Monroe City, Missouri. But her face turns stern when she recalls the playground beside the Mark Twain birthplace … Read more >>

General Florida, MO September 20, 2011 Featured Race and Ethnicity More...

An archaeological dig at the Quarles farmstead

An archaeological dig at the Quarles farmstead

Finding archaeologist Karen Hunt is kind of a hassle. She’s hidden, sort of like the artifacts she and volunteers dig for during September weekends at the Mark Twain Archaeology Dig. It’s home to the former farmstead … Read more >>

Florida, MO September 20, 2011 Twain's Evolution

Post navigation

Featured Content from Twain’s Evolution

Natalie Sheppard discusses being a black Mormon in the Salt Lake City area

Of all the cities and towns on Mark Twain’s route west that we visited, Salt Lake City honors him least. The city’s magnificent main library, a 240,000-sq.-ft., five-story-tall curved wedge-shaped beauty by Moshe Safdie and other … Read more >>

Remembrances of death as well as life in Unionville

To get to Unionville, Nevada, where Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) tried prospecting for silver and gold, we drive south for 17 miles from Interstate 80 along desert-like, brush land marked by yellow “Open Range” road signs, … Read more >>

Family history abounds in Kansas

After our visit to St. Joseph’s Pony Express Museum, we head west on the Pony Express Highway (Rte. 36) for northeastern Kansas to learn about my mother’s Methodist, farm-family parents, Loren Haskin (I was named for … Read more >>

We begin our westward trip at the Pony Express Museum in St. Joseph, Missouri

We begin our trip west by van across the Kansas plains from St. Joseph, Missouri, just as Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) and his brother Orion did 150 years ago. They had paid $200 each in 1861 … Read more >>

Small river towns of Keokuk, IA, and Cape Girardeau, MO, showcase Twain’s writings and letters

On the drive to Keokuk, Iowa, where a young Sam Clemens (Mark Twain) worked as a printer in the mid-1850s, we stop in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, for lunch. We have Twain as an appetizer. A building … Read more >>