Category: The Trouble Begins Lectures

The Trouble Begins in Hartford: Twain and Child Healthcare

Posted on by Center for Mark Twain Studies

Sam and Olivia Clemens’ idyllic early years of marital happiness were shattered with the loss of their first child, Langdon, to diphtheria. Only one hundred years ago, even in the world’s wealthiest nations, children died in great numbers—of diarrhea, diphtheria and measles, of scarlet fever and meningitis. Culture was shaped by these deaths; diaries and letters recorded them, poets and writers wrote about and lamented them.The near-conquest of infant and […]

Seybold concludes the 2020 Trouble Begins Lectures

Posted on by Joe Lemak

The fall portion of the 2020-2021 The Trouble Begins Lecture Series presented by the Center for Mark Twain Studies concludes with a presentation by Dr. Matthew Seybold, assistant professor of American Literature & Mark Twain Studies at Elmira College. During the mid-1860s, Mark Twain waged a prolonged and inflammatory media war against the San Francisco Police. By some accounts his campaign led directly to the replacement of the SFPD’s longtime Commissioner, as […]

“Trouble Begins” Interview with Susan K. Harris Now Available

Posted on by Joe Lemak

The fall portion of the 2020-2021 The Trouble Begins Lecture Series presented by the Center for Mark Twain Studies continues with an interview with author Susan K. Harris about her new book Mark Twain, The World, and Me.  The interview can be found HERE. In Mark Twain, the World, and Me: “Following the Equator,” Then and Now, Susan K. Harris follows Twain’s last lecture tour as he wound his way through the British Empire […]