The Gilded Age (the late 1800s), the history of the city of Hartford, and American author Mark Twain (1835-1910) all intersected in the streets of Connecticut’s capital city. It was here in 1869 that Samuel Clemens (better known as Mark Twain) came to build his career as an author and performer, by telling American stories in American voices, trying to make sense of a changing world, while calling out the hypocrisy of this turbulent time. Samuel Clemens, or as you may know him – Mark Twain – is considered to be one of the quintessential American voices in literature. But to become that “voice” Clemens had to hustle his way through financial instability, climb the social ladder, and build what was then a relatively new career–that of a professional creative and celebrity. He was an innovator in using new media such as photography to gain public recognition and develop what we now call branding, all in the effort to find a stable way to make a living as a writer and performer. He did this here in Hartford while he and his wife Olivia also built a home in the Nook Farm neighborhood and raised three daughters, Susy, Clara, and Jean. Ultimately, the instability of Clemens’ chosen profession and some bad business decisions cut short the family’s time in this city, but for a while Hartford was at the center of the Mark Twain universe and an important anchor in the developing story of the modern information economy. To commemorate 150 years since Samuel Clemens built his Hartford home, and to showcase the role that the city played in his life, The Mark Twain House and Museum has recently opened a new exhibition, It Happened In Hartford: 150 Years of the Mark Twain House, that probes deeper into the stories of Twain’s struggles, successes, and his creative lifestyle. This exhibition starts with displays at the Mark Twain Museum Center featuring over 100 artifacts from the museum’s collection, then continues with a walking tour of through downtown Hartford and Bushnell Park. Each location on the 12-stop walking tour was specifically chosen to illuminate the very human side of Mark Twain’s growing career and life in Hartford. One of the twelve It Happened In Hartford walking tour signs, this one located in Bushnell Park. Credit: Jodi C. DeBruyne, for The Mark Twain House and Museum A short trip through downtown Hartford, from the Old Statehouse to the Union Train Station, past contemporary office buildings and into Bushnell Park, takes the walker into a cityscape that would be part familiar and part unrecognizable by Samuel Clemens when he lived here in the late 1800s. This period was one of rapid change–and the mass production and distribution of information, in the form of widely published newspapers, magazines, and books, happened alongside full-on industrialized production of every facet of daily life, from food to transportation, to clothing, home goods and more. These developments forever changed America from an agrarian nation to one on the forefront of industrialized production of goods that were sold around the world. The city of Hartford grew in this time as a leader in manufacturing many of these goods. And Mark Twain, who grew up during legalized slavery, witnessed the Civil War, and then experienced the changes thereafter, was fully alive to possibilities and challenges of this time of social and economic upheaval. Seeking to make a living with little family wealth to support him, Clemens restlessly explored America’s east coast and the west, trying his hand at jobs such as printing, writing and reporting. In the 1860s these experiences solidified Clemens’ strong intuition about the importance of certain modern trends–travel, leisure, writing, lecturing, and celebrity. These became his trademark and made his career.  In truth, Clemens was in the business of inventing the fictional persona of Mark Twain as the author of his books and the speaker of his words. From his earliest days in Missouri, to his travels across America, Clemens absorbed the ideas, voices, and mannerisms of everyone he encountered, distilling these into Mark Twain, the quintessential American who tried to tell it like it was.  It was Samuel Clemens’s book (as Mark Twain), The Innocents Abroad (1869), that gave him his first taste of fame and money as an author. The book, about tourists traveling the world, helped stake his claim as the voice of everyday American culture. Riding that success, Samuel came to Hartford in the 1870s to build his new career as a professional writer. Hartford was then a center of the American printing industry. Many of Mark Twain’s books were published by the American Publishing Company and printed at Case, Lockwood & Brainard, then one of the largest printing companies in the country.  The walking tour stops at the location of both of these businesses, which were located at 284 and 185 Asylum Street, respectively. Printing-office and book-bindery of the Case, Lockwood & Brainard Co., 49 Trumbull Street, Hartford, c.1870 Credit: Courtesy of The Mark Twain House and Museum In America of the late 1800s there was no real roadmap to create a sustainable career as a writer, but Clemens recognized that to sell his books he needed to build an audience by reaching out to as many readers as he could. So, while he and his family lived in Hartford for 17 years, Samuel Clemens rarely stayed put. Union Station at the west end of downtown Hartford, and a stop on the walking tour, would have been very familiar to Clemens as he traveled the world for weeks or even months at a time promoting his work through public appearances. Clemens also supported a relatively new way to publish and distribute books faster and cheaper; subscription printing. Unlike traditional printing, subscriptions were sold door to door and offered a range of price points—which ensured that more people could access new works. But, before Clemens began writing as Mark Twain, subscription publishing was used for “low-brow” works such as torrid romance novels. By publishing his books through subscription, Clemens helped create consumable public culture that broke the divide between what was considered “high-class literature” and “popular fiction.” Despite being a well-known author, Clemens did not make enough from selling his books to fully support his family and maintain their lifestyle; speaking on a range of topics from race, class, gender, and politics to his own writings, played a key role in keeping Clemens and his family financially stable (along with the support of Olivia’s wealthy family). He lectured many times at the Allyn House, the largest Hartford hotel in its day and located at 203 Trumbull, near three walking tour stops which showcase Hartford’s historic commercial core. Carte-de-visite portrait of Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain). Credit: Edwin P. Kellogg, for The Mark Twain House Twain would go on to write the works he is most known for – The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn—while in Hartford, but his time here was not without struggle. A bad business investment in new printing technology, along with an expensive lifestyle centered on the family home on Farmington Avenue, left Clemens deep in debt, with no choice but to go on a world lecture tour, trying to recoup his wealth. For some time the family hoped that they would return to Hartford one day, but that never came to pass. Still, Clemens’ time in Hartford played an important role in establishing the information economy–the mass production and distribution of words, images and ideas. Here, Samuel Clemens, and his alter ego Mark Twain, was a true innovator. For more information about It Happened In Hartford go to Twainsworld.org. And to learn more about visiting the Mark Twain House & Museum go to marktwainhouse.org.