Is that we dont have a dog in the fight. So we dont have a reason to say to them, youre not making the world a better place. And until we do, or until were willing to say it regardless of the fact we dont have a dog in the fight, were not going to be effective. In our own political in getting our political will understood by our own government, and i think this is across the board, from the tea party to occupy, everyone believes the same thing. We are not a safer country today as a result of the war of the last 14 years, and washington is in a bubble that doesnt hear it and doesnt see it. Okay. So the first person who goes out there and buys a book and brings it back for me to sign, would you bring me a cookie, please, and thank you for coming tonight, and please buy a book and ill sign it for you when you bring it to me at the podium. Thanks, cspan, for being here and our local [applause] [inaudible conversations] youre watching booktv on cspan2, television for serious readers. Tonight, we kick off at 7 15 p. M. Eastern with rye ryan owens, explaining the roll of the office of to the solicitor jenna supreme court. Then at 7 40, a look at the creation of the federal reserve. And at 8 45, discussion of women in leadership. And at 10 00, booktvs after Words Program to talk about chinas discontinued onechild policy. And directly following at 11 00, David Bernstein argues that the Obama Administration has undernined the constitution. At all happens tonight on cspan2s book tv. Welcome to hartford, connecticut, on book tv, founded in 1637, this capital city of 125,000, is located in the central part of be state and well known for its Insurance Industry ties. I with the help of off Comcast Cable partners well hear from local authors on a variety of topics, including a look at new englands role in the atlantic slave trade as documented through the log bocks of connecticut slave ships, voyaging to africa and black in 1757. These are significant because of the stories they contain but because of the period in which they occurred. In the middle of the 18th 18th century, the International Slave trade was at its very height. More people were being taken from africa, stolen, and kidnapped and sold into slavery and taken to the caribbean and brought know american colonies. More people were being taken at that period than any other per during the long arc of the International Slave trade. Later we look at the hutch which isson family whose songs promoted social causes such as abolition and workers rights. First, we visit the home of Harriet Beecher stowe to learn about the author of un toms cabin, how she spent her final years and how he work is interpreted today. Here we are in harriet beechier stowes home in hartford, connecticut, we invite you to visit, and we are standing today in stowes parlor. Her front parlor, the more formal space. Whenout visit here you sit down in the parlor and share conversations about issues and experiences. So, was born harriet beechier in western connecticut, and then through her life she lived in boston, cincinnati, brunswick, maine, and overmass, and then here in hartford. The had two houses, first in the middle of the civil war, stowe built her dream house, her glamorous mansion, and they built that house and moved in 1863 and lived there for eight years, and then discovered that it was too expensive to maintain so they downsized into this more modest, though still spacious, hartford home, where they lived out the rest of their lives. So stowe moved into this Fourth Street house in hartford in 1873, and the house had been built on spec and lived in for a couple of years. She didnt especially build it. She moved into it as she had with most of the homes she lift in for her life. She moved in with her husband, calvin stowe, whom she married in 1836 and he was ten year older and a professor of theology and retired. She moved in with her oldest children, twin girls, her adult daughters, and they were in their 30s. Stowe was in her 60s, and her cuss, calvin in his 70s. And stowe was still writing. She was world famous, she had reached that pinnacle of fame inmer 40s, and now chev is in her 60s, and still writing to support the family. So she did some books in this house, and many, many articles and opinion pieces. Harriet beechiers home she wrote about how to manage her household and she thought and wrote a lot about how women should she helped advance the idea that managing your house and thinking about the kind of domestic environment youve built made a Better Family and made a better america. So, this house reflects that. It is not just one design but certainly reflects the esthetic movement of the 19th century also a house that reflect that these people had long lives and deep family connections. So its familial, its friendly, its comfortable, its used, we work hard as a museum, not to have it be too tidy, so there might be some the writers table some crumpled papers on the floor and things like that. We want to evoke a home that is lived in. Its not pristine. Its a home that was lived in, and sitting down with Harriet Beecher stowe, from her writings and other peoples reports, i think she was a quiet person. I think she was an introvert, and so theres a lot going on in her head, and people said things like, you would think she wasnt paying attention to the conversation, but then she would start to fully participate and what had been happening a was she had been thinking about characters or stories that would come out later in her book. So she held things in her head for 20 or 30 years before they came out in her writings. So talking with her might have been an interesting experience because she was thinking about two things at once, the conversations and her characters and what she was going to be writing. Another way people described her is that she wasnt a particularly attractive person until she became animated in the conversation, and then there was a sort of light about her and charisma and personality that you didnt see when she wasnt animated. And you can see that in the photographs and in the physical evidence we have, like sculptures and cameos and things that portray her. She might not have met the beauty standards of the day. But that her character and personality brought that to the fore, and made her great company, and of course she was smart and articulate and taught at her fathers dining table to make the case for her argument. Harriet beecher stowes home in hartford is a classic victorian environment with two parlors and dining room downstairs and a kitchen which wouldnt have been a public space, and bedrooms upstairs, and when you visit, you see those spaces. And in the parlors, you see the environment as much as it was when stowe lived here, as we can tell from our research and from few photographs we have. Were lucky enough to have a lot of possessions that stowe owned, and that were owned by her extended family. We ask people to journey through the house with us. We talk about the past as well as the present. Were trying to explain stowes long life and her impact, and when you reach the front parlor you sit down in chairs in the front parlor with the other people of your tour, and you have a conversation about artifacts on this table, that represent the issues of the 19th century. You pass these copies of artifacts around and discuss them. When you go into on to the second floor, one of the rooms you go into is stowes bedroom, which is her bedroom and also one of the places she wrote. So it is set up with writing space and evidence of what it took of the struggles she had to write her books, particularly Uncle Toms Cabin. That a little glimpse into the experiences you can have here. Were in harriets front parlor right now, which would have been the face of this house. So when harriet was formally receiving guests she would quickly usher them into this room and begin talking to them about a whole host of issues she was passionate about. Here we have a photograph of Harriet Beecher stowe in her front parlor where we are. She is sitting right about where im standing now. And you can really get a feel for what the room looked like at the time. Also get a feel for what harriet looked like. So, what were going to try to do is talk about some documents that she may have been seeing in the 1850s when she is coming one if the the idea for Uncle Toms Cabin and they represent the debates people were having over slavery. On this table here we have some Historical Documents we rebruised for our visitors etch went to get the visit years a feel for the debates over slavery that were occurring during her time. We have some reward posters for fugitive slaves that may have been found in the north at the time. We have songs written by abolitionists that would have been sung at different meetings and of abolitionists. Then we even have teaching tools for abolitionist children. So this kind of gives you a feel for the alphabet and gives you a poem attached to each letter that talks about negative aspect of slavery. So these things were very effective teaching tools at the time. Now, even more than that we have photos that would have been circulated in northern newspapers to try to gain support for abolitionism, this is the photo here of emancipated slaves that would have been found in northern newspapers quite a bit after the fighttive slave raws passed. So the back parlor here would have been more of a private family space where harriet would have spent time with her husband and her two twin daughters living here. They may be reading to each other, they may be writing letters, theyve may be playing the piano. But it was more of a relaxation space than a public, formal entertaining space. So when visitors come into the room we dont allow them to touch anything or sit on the chairs. Although we have reproduced the circular letter which well pass around and show to visitors. Now that we have seen here back parlor, well go into her bedroom. We have a lot of items in this room that give you feel for what harriets writing process sass like and what the aftermath of the publication of Uncle Toms Cabin was like for her as well. So in terms of her writing process, you can see over here thats amentioned, harriet didnt have a dedicated writing space in the house. We know that some weve have been writing quite a bit in this room, her bedroom, and she was not always the neatest writer. So we have some papers littered here to give you a fell for what the room would have looked like as harriets writing. So, over on this bed here we have an enlarged reproduction of a newspaper called the national era. So when Uncle Toms Cabin came out. It didnt come out in book form. It was originally southeasterlyized in an abolition nist newspaper called the national era from washington, dc. So every wednesday a new chapter of Uncle Toms Cabin would come out and people would gather in each others parlors andhart being read aloud. We have a portrait of harriets husband, calvin stowe, and calvin was an incredibly supportive force in harriets life throughout her writing process. He was willing to do many things that would not have been considered usual for men to do at the time. For example, he would take care of the kids in the house so that harriet would have enough time to be able to write her books. Now, again, this would have been considered very unusual for the time, but just one of the many ways that harriet lived with calvin. These are selection of works that harriet wrote while living in house and we like to show show visitors after work she is known for. Were really trying to let our visitors know that hair net made a lasting imexact we want to make sure her story is nose forgotten. Well, stowe died in 1896, at 85. She died in this house, as her husband had before her. And when she died, this parlor were standing in, the front parlor, her coffin was laid out here and this is where the wake was. So the New York Times wrote this up. It was widely reported and she was so famous that many came to visit and give their respects. She was buried next to one of her children two of her children who predeceased her and her husband in andover, massachusetts, where they had been living when their son henry died at 19. So they bought a family plot there. So you can visit the graves in andover, massachusetts, near where calvin stowe worked at and over theological seminary. Her legacy reflects her writing in he 19th century and her impact then with Uncle Toms Cabin and the other books she wrote and the stands she took as a woman in the 19th century women couldnt vote and that they had limited roles. Whatever their class or race, they were restricted, and she took the most advantage that she could of the opportunity she had as a woman in the 19th 19th century. She made her name, made her points and argued forcefully for them, and then she leveraged that to make things happen. In the 21st century, all of that is important because much of her writing, whether about domestic life or about slavery itself, gives us framework for today because the past informs the present. Here we are today in the 21st 21st century, still struggling deeply in the headlines and in our homes and in our friendships and in our work places, with the many things that stowe was writing about, that they were struggling with then. When you come to visit Harriet Beecher stowes house youll have an experience unlike many a historic houses. During booktvs visit to hartford, connecticut, we spoke with the executive director or the mark twain house and museum about twains life during his time in hartford. When mark twain moved to hartford, connecticut, it was a very wealthy town with at that time the richest city in the nation per kappa. Markmark twains legacy today attracts people from everywhere. They come inside this house and timetravel back to the time. Samuel clemens, we know today as mark twain. Samuel clemens was other boy born in florida, missouri, grew up in hannibal, missouri. When his dad died he was 12 and sam had to be an apprentice and i dont know that began his love affair with words but influenced a lot of things later in his life. Mark twain began looking into hartford as a place to settle with his young wife and their new family. Of course, the publisher is here with american publishing, and he fell in love the city and wrote letters to heir own family, mother, brother, beautiful. He bought the land, libby had a major inheritance he would use the now build the house and decorate it. So they built it in stages. When they moved in, in 1874, the carpenters werent done, the plumbers werent done but done enough that the family could come in and take residence. So they were mainly on the second floor for a while put ultimately they continued to work on the home, they traveled to europe frequently. Made purchases there they sent back to the home to furnish it and get it up to speed. Im excited to welcome you into the master bedroom. This is sam and Libby Clemens bedroom. This amazing bed is handcarved of black walnut. Made in italy. The family paid 200 for it, which was a lot of money in those days. A lot of unique features. Specifically the headboard, which if you notice sam clemens and his wife slept facing the headboard. Its something you would want to wake up looking at rather than leaning your pillow against it. The best feature is the little cher rubs on ecorner of the bed are removable. The three daughters were allowed to come in and remove these little little cherubs. Which are and they were allowed to play with them as dolls and bathe them and enjoy having these little angels. Then at the end of the dame sam clemens insisted they be put back on the bed. Play all day but at bedtime when he went to bed he felt that was the closest he would ever come to be surround by the angels. We know the girls got a lot of mileage out of them. Very interestingly, we have gas lighting is in the house, very modern. He did read in bed, wrote in bed, and smoked in bed, and he rigged up on extension cord the gas line so it would be right here by his bed as he worked in the evening or read, and a lot of people worry when they say, didnt he smoke in bed . Yes, he did. Luckily it was low density gas and he wasnt endangering the family. We wasnt going to cause on explosion. Here in the master bedroom we have sam clemens mother here, jane clemens, and there are no photographs of his father. His dad died in 1847 and photography was not affordable for a family like that at that time. But of course here on the wall we have the four children. Now baby lang don in lower right corner did not live in the hartford house but we do have his photograph here. He died at 19 months of diphtheria. Then the other three daughters, souza, claire remarks and jean, are here on the wall in mama and papas room. Its fun to imagine this as a family home with the girls running and playing and call are for stories. And growing up to become young ladies here in the home. The girls had a lot of adventures in the home. The family kind in this beautiful dining room and would come in to the library here after dinner, and this is a very special spot. For instance, the paintings across the top of the on the walls here and the knicknacks on the mantle, they would ask for a story, and the rule was he had to begin with the cat in the rough painting on the very end. Had to start there and they had certain rules. From there he had to continue across the mantle and incorporate each and every knicknack and could not go out of order and coot not repeat himself and then have to end with the penting of emine. The stories here in the house, the girls would recount as young adult women that is one of their favorite things to come in this room and have this wonderful story time with their therapy. Conservatory, a little bit of a jung jungle. Thats what the girls called it. And papa, sam clemens work get down on all fours, george griffen, the butler, would get on all fours and theyd jump on their backs and have adventures in here. This was a favorite spot nor family. But it was a busy place, very famous gift e guest famous guests would visit. They would be around the table and sam clemens was northern to get up between courses and pace and almost try out his material. He was a lecturer so he would tell the stories again and again. The girls said they could sneak down some nights and sit on the steps in the hallway and tell from where papa was in his story what course was being served. This is the feel of the family. We are on the third floor of mark twains beautiful hartford mansion. This is the billiard room. A great room. We like to call it the original man cave. We have the beautiful Billiard Table here. This is a great room because his friends would come here, they could play into the evening, into the late hours, sam clemens was a big fan of cats and kittens, and before you could play billiards you had to check the pockets and make sure there were no furry critters sleeping in them. This was another fun space put george griffin, the but her, would come upstairs from time to time to announce a guest. The guests would bring a little calling card, and sam would take one look at the calling card and might say, oh, send them on up. Or might say, ill be right down. But he might Say Something different, and that as when he didnt want to see the person. He wouldnt lie he would go over to the little porch on the side, open the door and go out and say to george, tell them im stepping out. That became known as the stepping out porch. This is the room where he did his writing. He loved to welcome visitors in the house. Some of my favorite this is their favorite room because of the writing that happened here, and we have his writing desk in the corner, sam knew he had to face the wall to Pay Attention to his work and not be distracted so he sat in the corner to do hit writing. Most of his great books were written while the family lived in this house so we can imagine him having his four cigars a day. But maybe shooting a game here with his friends or with george griffin, the butler, who was a the friend but we imagine him in the corn piling up man awe scripts manuscripts and he wrote the adventures of tom sawyer, wrote connecticut yankee in king arthurs court, life on the mississippi, adventures of Huckleberry Finn and this ills sacred ground for a lot of people. This where is he would put the finishing touches on and wrap it up and get it ready for the publisher. They traveled from his house frequently while they lived here but would ultimately leave in 1891. That means means they left here7 years. They owned the home for quite some time but the economy was starting to go south. Sam had poured a lot of money into one particular investment that took a toll on the familys finances, and the panic of 1893 put everybody against the wall. It was not dissimilar from what we experienced in 2008. But in 1895, they set out on a around the world lecture tour. By now the girls were young adults. Sam and libby and clara, the middle daughter, went off. While suzy and jean stayed in elmira with their aunt susan and come to hartford from time to time and but the warrant livingg in they werent living in the house. So the lecture tour took a year. When it ended they sailed from south africa. At that point, they did send word to the girls, come on over, were off the road finally. We can be reunited. They received a cable gram back that said libby was ill. They expected a quick recovery but didnt think it would be sam clemens every day waiting for news, wait fargo cable gram. The cablegram did come. It was while his wife was halfway across the Atlantic Ocean and described suzy as being peacefully received. The died at the age of 24 from spinal meningitis and it was a very sad occasion, as you can imagine. The family had a hard time recovering from that. They did recover from their financial struggles, but at what price . So, to be away from those two daughters for an entire year and then lose suzey, took quite a toll on them. After suzies death they family aspired to live in hartford but they were so crushed, mark twain says the calamity that comes is never the one we prepare ourselves for and he referred to not to the city of hartford but the city of heartbreak. They could no longer live here. They wanted to but couldnt set foot here. When people come here they hear the story of family, a rising star in our literary world, and i think the understanding he was just like the rest of us, just a guy wants to raise his family, give them the best he could, while making a difference in the world. He knew his writing was widely read, and of course the more famous he became and the more he commented on problems around the world, the more his opinion was sought, and its still valid. When we hear of tragedies in the world today we can pull up a mark twain not just a quote or throwaway clip but an entire passage and volumes he wrote about the challenges we continue to face today. I want people to leave here feeling that know him a little better, his more family than they might think. This weekend youre wooer in hartford, connecticut. Next we visit the center and speak about slavery and africanAmerican History. Were in the center for art and culture. That is located between the museum solve art in hartford, connecticut. Its a partnership with the the center interprets a collection of art, artifacts and Historical Documents explain and narrate the africanamerican experience and the experience of black people pretty much throughout parts of the world. We have a specialty in 19th 19th century civil were related material but our collections cover the span of africanamerican hoyt and culture from the 18th century to the president. The exhibition well visit explores the narrative from the 19th century and the world created through the slave narrative and activism that other writers and artists, public intellectuals, black public intellectuals were able to expand mon into the so Frederick Douglass who again writing before there was a black reading public, and tell a story who made it possible for folks like Martin Luther king, jr. , booker t. Washington and others to write as public intellectuals and activist. The exhibition begins with this intro wall, and this quote by the unitarian minister, the 19th century ewan tear yap minimum unitarian minister Theodore Parker is important for visitors to take with them as they begin the journeyy. It reads so we have one series of literary productions that could be written by none but americans. And only here. I mean the lives of fugitive slaves. All the original romance of american is in them. Not in the white mans novel. And we begin with that quote because it really does set the stage for the kind of revolutionary work being done by these slave narrate ors, public intellectuals working at a time when most blacks couldnt read these books and yet theyre imagining theres an audience and imagining these tools will allow them to bring freedom to others. So this first case begins the exhibition with some of the most important public intellectuals. Because our founding checker was to committed to Frederick Douglass we have a lot of douglass in this collection. One thing we have always imagined to be true, that Frederick Douglass took a lot of pictures, maybe more than anybody necessary america at the time, has now been proven. A great new book has come owl called picturing Frederick Douglass and the author proved that he was the most photographed american of the 19th century and they collected an incredible range of images of douglass, 150 or so that he took as he traveled the country working to gain freedom and documenting and creating an image of what free blacks should or could look like. So, the first two pieces are Frederick Douglas pieces from his narrative series. Douglass was significant because he was probably the most famous of the slave narrating black public intellectuals of the 19th century, escaping from slavery in the mid1800s, 1840 or so, and then getting him to new bedford and connect with the liberator and the abolitionist activists and creating his own as a public speaker, taking himself to europe, wife, john brown, writing books, publishing numbers, assuming a voice for africanamericans. Next to him is the narrative of William Wells brown. Brown escaped from st. Louis and gets himself to ohio, not long after Frederick Douglass escapes in the mid to 1800s and meets douglass in the mid1840s, and as douglass book comes out brown realize he can write a narrative and be kind of on the lecture circuit and publishes his back in 1847, and immediately fairly immediately heads to england where he stays for quite a while. Maybe three or five years. He performed sketches and skits from American History with own particular take on American History. Her lectures on slavery and makes a good living performing as a figure known as William Wells brown. Also of note in this case, this 12 years a slave narrative of Solomon Northup and is a popular read and wellknown figure. Many of these figures wrote these books and went on to prominent lives once they were pressured and writing a book they were published and writing a book as a slave nate at the formerly enslaved africanamerican gave you a certain cachet and many hoff the folks used that to create a space for other writers and artists and activists to emerge. In this case we move to sheet music from the collection. Simpson actually trained as a classical singer and really committed to collecting sheet music from american Popular Culture. He left us with this great cache of music from who was born in middletown, connecticut, and born into an abolitionist family, and a number of these songs he created around the time of the civil war are abolitionist songs, abolitionist standards. This piece by Paul Lawrence dunbar is part of a series that dunbar sort of emanant, 20th 20th Century Black poet, did as a collaboration with a camera club at hampton university. Members of the camera club photographed their neighbors there, and paired those images with poems by dunbar. These series of books were probably from the bestselling books that dunbar produced, and then they also point to that tension between the evolving image of free blacks and the new free black nation within america, and the older images and how to negotiate that. And that was an issue that dunbar dealt with in poetry as well. A lot of the poetry is dialect poetry, attempting to bring along cultural idioms and ideas he inherited from his parents and grandparents and others who has been enslaved and make them new and interesting for an audience that was living beyond slavery. This case brings us into the early 20th century, and the period of the new negro. These first books by booker t. Washington, the author formerly enslaved author and education activist, launches this part of the conversation. Booker t. Washington, who vehemently believed in the significance and the importance of free blacks staying where they were, committing to owning the land cult building a community in the south and maybe in the north but certainly in the south, this is an important magazine at the time. An issue of survey graphic launched a number of notable artists. This issue of survey graphic refers back to therm er issue named for the new negro, a followup to the work done bylock in the 1920s. In this case, we have a number of piece biz civil rights leaders who were also musicians. Notable here would be james johnson. James loven johnson is literally the renaissance man of the hard. He renaissance. As a lawyer, high school principal, diplomat, song writer and performer, and then ultimately a field secretary for the naacp and helps to build chapters for the organization around the country. Bringing all the skills he gained from doing all those other jobs to bear as in that role as field secretary. Many folks know him as the author of the National Negro anthem lift every voice and sing. Sheet music was significant. It was an entree into Popular Culture in the same way that we exchange mixed tapes or downloads to hear popular music. People in the early 20th 20th century bought sheet music. Many folks to play and it was a way of bringing the family together and sort of enjoying a musical song. Children were a significant audience for books as the early 20th Century Moves along. Folks like dr. Dubois and other activist thought it was important to reach a younger audience, and in d. C. And other black capitals it was important for activists there to think about the next generation. This piece, this series, the first book of which has the first book of negroes, the first of africa emerges right at the point in his life when is calling black activists to d. C. To defend themselves against the charge of communism. Hughes is called to washington to face the house on American Activities Committee and talk about whether he was a communist. He goes to the hearing. He does his best not to incriminate anyone else or himself. And when they see the galleys for the first book, the first book of negroes, about a family going on a very patriotic trip around america, the committee decides that anybody who is writing this book couldnt be a communist. And so he gets out by the skin of his teeth. To produce this first book of jazz, which really is an incredible piece. It points us to the moment in which jazz and jazz history is being canonized for a younger audience, and also is the one of the early pairings of hughes with cliff roberts, and the illustrations are pretty incredible and they are in some ways a signature of the period, and you begin to see roberts images and images like this in esquire and in gq and in all kinds of mens magazines and in ads and that graphic style proliferates throughout the culture in the late 50s and 60s. Kaitlin and drakes black metropolis is the exclaim make point on the black literary renaissance based on the south site of chicago. This book helped to introduce the context in which a lot of important black writers based on the south side were writing, and is a companion piece in many of the books in this case, margaret walkers jubilee, motleys knock on any door, number of books by richard wright, native son, and the thomas and the challenges he faces on the south side of chicago the one outlier in this case is ann petri, the author of the streets, who grows up here in connecticut and then heads to new york, where she writes her book that is sort of parallelling the story of thomas, and native son, bat woman who is living in harlem with her son and trying as hard as she can to keep him from the ills of the streets and everything she overcomes in that struggle and ultimately whether she will succeed or fail is the world that petrie and is timely. This case takes us from midcentury, southside chicago, back to the northeast, new york, really, and the civil rights moment. In the center we have this quartet of book biz two authors, the voice of the civil rights ear remark james balled win ball baldwin, and Martin Luther king with why we cant wait. We hope that visitors will have a better sense of the ways in which writers and musicians helped to build a freedom culture, a culture that helped to push along the freedom struggle and how intricately linked literacy and the word and publishing and being an author was to being an activist. Certainly in the 19th century and the present. During booktvs recent steroid hartford, connecticut, we spoke with mark twain house and Museum Curator tracy brian del about the museums collection of letters written by mark twain to his three daughters. Were here in our Research Library at the mark twain house and museum. Were on the third floor of our webster bank museum center, and this is the place where we have books that mark twain wrote, books about him, his contemporaries, about his life during the times he lived here in hartford, and we have a lot of researchers who come in with students. We have twain scholars. This is our library and our resourcesment we have our collection boasts 16,000 items so that includes paper documents, books, 3d objects some of which we see on the table here. So what im going to show you today are pieces that we have pulled from our collection that are specific to the clemens family. They were owned by the clemens family, owned by the daughters of mark twain and we are going to be organizing an exhibit that will open march 24th, 2016, called in their fathers image suzie, clara and jean clemens that means by focusing on the daughters and their lives and the house we get a different view of mark twain, rather than the humorist, he was known for the missouri boy and the steam pilot. He was papa to them. So what i fuld for us to i pulled for us to look at today were some of the books owned by the clemens family. Theres different stories attached to them, we also have some of the baby items from the children. As well as different items belonging to the daughters. Mark twains oldest daughter, suzey, started writing a biography of her father when she was 13 years old because she wanted to show people who he was when he was at home, also i said he was known as these humorist. He was a famous for being famous, and she wanted people to know about what he was really like. I thought i would start off with this new testament, the bible. This was where it all began with the clemens family. This was mark twain and his wife, fl and ll, this was their bible and the date, february 2, 18670, 1870 and thats the date they were married and this represents the beginning of their family, the beginning of mark twain finally finding a woman he wanted to marry, settle down with and races a family. Raise and family. We have fairly large collection of some of this christening silver baby items of the girls, of the family. This bowl you can maybe see this is for lang don clemens. The first born child, the first son of mark and libby. And unfortunately he passed away when he was 19 months old of diphtheria. That is langdons. We have a plate of jeans. With her birthday inscribed. Also have this cup of claras. And these were given to all of the children from their grandmother or grandmama langdon, so libbys mother got these for the children, and they are tiffani and company. So the silver gifts for the birth of the baby, symbolizes the joy in their first, also wishing them a long, happy, healthy life, and the christening silver is also a little bit of the symbol of wealth. Also i said, the langdons were very wealthy and able to give thieves gifts to the children. While suzies biography about her father was never published during her lifetime or his lifetime, it has been since published circuit is available to read and i have a copy here of papa an intimate guyography of mark twin by susie clemens, his daughter. And here we see this great picture offsets si and her father, mark twain, putting on a little play together so theyre both dress up. Hes the loving the loving wonderful kindhearted father that she looks up, to that she adores, that she only wants the best of. So she is writing about him in ways that at the time really know one else is because they dont know him as the family man, as the father. She is writing about him in his private life. The next thing we have is a letter from mark twain to his daughter susie. What he says in his letter here, my dear daughter. Your grandmother with a family friend joins your mother and me with great love to yourself and your brother langdon. We are enjoying our stay here to an extent not part ofunder enjoyment is derived from sleeping all night long and never listening to see if you have the sniffles afresh or the grand duke upstairs has wakened and wants a wet rag. No doubt both of you prosper all night along as if you had our usual supervision. There is is a letter written to sues i si by her father when she was a tiny baby and shows the love he had for his daughter, how much of a father he really is. He was thinking of her and i think its something that parents still do today, whether its sending a text now or an email, writing expressly to their little children, even though they cant read yet. But its very similar to what we still do today. The thing i have another letter, and this was written by libby, but for suzie to her grandmother. So, susie told libby what she wanted to say, and libby wrote it down for her. My deer grand mama. Im having a beautiful time playing and throwing stones in the water. When mama was at church this morning. There came a big boat along. I didnt know if there was music on it so i went and asked rose if there was music on it and she said, yes. I heard music somewhere and didnt know where it was. Once while we were at interlaken we were on a boat to see the falls the most wonderfullest falls in switzerland and on the back of the letter you can see where susie was practicing her capital as. Susie as a child was actually more outsubpoenas a very tiny child. She was a little bit of a handful but as she grew up, she actually became more reserved and was always trying to do the right thing, being more of the proper girl, and then she had her younger sister clara, more boisterous and independent. We have other few photographs. They had their own costumes. They took different parts. They got the neighborhood girls involved. And they would put on plays for the family residence. Inside the house as well. Susie he was, as we have been mentioning, was a voracious writer and wrote several plays. We have some photographs of the girls performing her play, love chase in the drying room of the hartford home. Unfortunately susies life was cut short at the age of 24. She passed away in the house of spinal meningitis, and so it can be hard to speculate maybe what she would have become had she had more of a full life. Clara, however, the middle daughter, and as we said before she had great musical talent. She went and studied at berlin and vienna, studied singing and she came back to the u. S. And she performed concerts and here we have a program for one of her first concerts in the United States at unity hall here in hartford. February 4, 1901. I also have this advertisement here for clara. So wonderful image of her. She is in her late 20s. And this is a program for joan of arc. An adaptation of mark twains joan of arc that clara starred in as joan. And she traveled the country performing this play. This is from 1926. So this is after her father passed away. She was continuing his legacy, and clara, as the only daughter to survive to adulthood, she really became the guardian, the protector of her fathers legacy. And here we have a copy of the love letters of mark twain, and this is actually claire ares copy, and Something Interesting about this book. There are a few notations made by clara that really tells us more of kind of her how she felt about her father and how he was being portrayed at the time. So, on this page, you can see these markings were made by clara so the first one clemens called on and had the was a stickler for grammar. She wanted it to be inserted but when her father is being described, they describe him as other Steamboat Pilot now rising in the world by his quit wit and slow drawl and she writes the word no because towards the end of his life he didnt have too much of a drawl anymore, and then he is described as having piercing bluegreen eyes and she circles blue because she knew her fathers eye color, and it was blue, not bluegreen. Over here actually belongs to jean clemens, the youngest daughter, and she was a woodcarver. This is one of her hobbies. She was diagnosed with epilepsy when she was 15 years old, and that meant that she actually had a lot of restrictions in life. She didnt go out with friend as much. She wasnt allowed to have romantic relationships because they might trigger her seizures, and so she had a very bland diet. For a while she was sent to several different sanitariums. They went to europe and traveled all around, trying to seek a cure for her, but she wasnt couldnt be quite as independent like clara was, studying her music and honing her craft. So jean actually found an escape in wood carving and at first her father wasnt too keen on it but he kind of came around when he realized that it was at bit like therapy for her because she could do something. Because of her epilepsy, because of the restrictions placed on her, she never really felt like she had a place or a purpose, and this helped her have at bit more of a purpose with her carving. So these are her tools. Also i said clara was the only one who lived she lived the longest life of the three girls. Jean actually died from complications of her epilepsy when she was 29 years old. She loved to take baths nice cold baths in the morning, and christmas eve, 1909, she had finished with wrapping up all of the gifts and decorating the house and she went to bed, woke up in the morning, and went to take her bath, and she was found in her bathtub. She had died from what we believe to be a heart attack brought on by her seizure, and it was of course heartbreaking for mark twain at this point he had lost his oldest his oldestson, his oldest daughter and his wife, liby, had passed away a few years before and so he actually passed away four months later. Some argue he passed away from a broken heart but he did die from what he called i believe he called a cigar heart. He smoked powerball that is what he died from. So, the items we have been looking at today reflect mark twains family, thegh