In our episode of the C19: America In The 19th-Century podcast, Matt Seybold took listeners on an audio-tour of Woodlawn Cemetery in Elmira, the resting place of not only Mark Twain, but conductors and stationmasters on the Underground Railroad and many unsung activists and philanthropists. The podcast was one of our major projects of 2019, alongside the launch of several notable resources for scholars and teachers. We are proud to announce that our first resource launch of 2020 is an interactive map of Woodlawn Cemetery, created in collaboration with SmallTown360.
As you can see, the map can be used in a variety of ways. If you are visiting the cemetery, you can use the precise geo-located pins to help you find family plots and even individual headstones, many of which are not clearly demarcated by the maps on the grounds. Each pin also has a short bio associated with it. For both tourists and scholars working remotely, we hope these bios will provide some context for the Elmira which appears in Mark Twain’s writings, as well as encourage further research about early Elmirans and the unusual community they created.
If you have information about one of the people included on our map which you think should be part of their bio, please let us know. In fact, if you are doing research on any aspect of Elmira and the families who resided here during Twain’s lifetime, we’d love to hear about it. Likewise, if there is an gravesite at Woodlawn which you think should be included on our map, let us know. We will continue to update the map in the coming months and years.
In the meantime, if you’d like to learn more about Woodlawn, Elmira, and the peculiar social group which included Mark Twain and his extended family, please check out our episode!
The Center For Mark Twain Studies also hosted its 6th Quarry Farm Weekend Symposium in October, organized by Ben Click, Editor of Mark Twain Annual, with a keynote address from Michael Branch (University of Nevada – Reno). The topic was “Mark Twain & Nature” and you can read all about it, as well as listen to the ten speakers who participated in the event. You can also find an extensive recap of the 2019 Summer Teachers Institute hosted at Quarry Farm, led by Jocelyn Chadwick (Harvard School of Education) and Matt Seybold (Elmira College). We also added twelve new lectures to our Trouble Begins archives from 2019 series hosted at the Chemung Valley Museum, Elmira College, Quarry Farm, and The Park Church.
Jocelyn Chadwick talks with local teacher, Michelle Halperin, during the 2019 Summer Institute
Dr. Ann Ryan steers a riverboat during the 2019 Clemens Conference in Hannibal
Michael Branch & Ben Click read from “How To Cuss In Western” at the 2019 Quarry Farm Symposium
Henry Sweets recieves the thanks of fellow Twain scholars at the 2019 Clemens Conference in Hannibal
Matt Seybold narrates a Twain-themed holiday concert by the Orchestra of the Southern Finger Lakes.
Tim DeRoche & Joe Lemak before Trouble Begins lecture on “The Ballad of Huck & Miguel”
In July, the staff took a road trip to Hannibal for the 2019 Clemens Conference, the last to be organized by retiring Director of the Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum, Henry Sweets. We were proud to host tributes to Henry from Cindy Lovell and other grateful Twain scholars. Finally, we produced an episode of the C19: America in the Nineteenth Century podcast, released earlier this month, and featuring performances by Emmy-winning and Oscar-nominated actor, Hal Holbrook, and his grandson, Will Holbrook. The episode, “The Gospel of Revolt: Mark Twain in Elmira,” can be streamed or downloaded from iTunes or SoundCloud.
In the meantime, “The Study” blog at MarkTwainStudies.org published over a hundred posts from more than thirty scholars. Here are some highlights:
During the Summer, Dr. Seybold published the first two installments of his ongoing “Mark Twain’s Portfolio” series, the first of which was named “Best of The Week” by Politico.
Many thanks to the many Friends of the Center For Mark Twain Studies, including you, for visiting MarkTwainStudies.org, coming to CMTS lectures and performances (or giving them!), and supporting our ongoing mission. We’ve got more in store for 2020. Happy New Year!
Also available on iTunes and other podcast purveyors.
The Center For Mark Twain Studies is proud to announce the release of our first podcast project, a collaboration with C19: The Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists for their podcast, C19: America in the Nineteenth Century. The episode provides a tour through the history of Elmira, with stops at the Park Church, Woodlawn Cemetery, and Quarry Farm. Did you know that Mark Twain’s father-in-law, Jervis Langdon, lobbied for the release of a young woman arrested under the Fugitive Slave Law in 1853? That Mark Twain’s grave lies in a cemetery with numerous conductors and stationmasters on the Underground Railroad? That Mark Twain’s eulogy was given by the first woman ordained in the state of New York? Our episode explores the largely forgotten and often surprising political history of this small town.
The episode was written and narrated by Matt Seybold, Assistant Professor of American Literature & Mark Twain Studies, and co-produced by Joe Lemak, Director of the Center for Mark Twain Studies. Our C19 producer was Ashley Rattner of Tusculum University. It also features performances from Emmy-winning and Oscar-nominated actor, Hal Holbrook, who spent 65 years touring Mark Twain Tonight! and is the focus of the new documentary, Holbrook/Twain: An American Odyssey, available now on Amazon Prime Video and Apple iTunes. In our podcast, Holbrook plays a 71-year-old Mark Twain and is joined by his grandson, Will Holbrook, who plays Twain at 33.
We are also grateful to Quarry Farm caretaker, Steve Webb, and Larry Howe, President of the Mark Twain Circle. They provided music for the episode with their ensembles, The Compass Rose Sextet and Steve Webb & The Balance.
We hope you find time to give it a listen this holiday season. Let us know what you think!
