Mark Twain House
| Mark Twain House | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| National Register of Historic Places | |||
| National Historic Landmark | |||
 Front facade of the Mark Twain House and Museum (2007) |
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| location | Hartford , Connecticut | ||
| Coordinates | 41 ° 46 '1.7 " N , 72 ° 42' 1.8" W | ||
| Built | 1874 | ||
| architect | Edward Tuckerman Potter | ||
| Architectural style | Neo-Gothic | ||
| NRHP number | 66000884 | ||
| Data | |||
| The NRHP added | October 15, 1966 | ||
| Declared as an NHL | December 29, 1962 | ||
The Mark Twain House is a historically significant home in Hartford , Connecticut . Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known under his pseudonym Mark Twain, lived here from 1874 to 1891 and wrote some of his most famous works during this time.
history
The Mark Twain House was built in 1874 on the site of Nook Farm on behalf of Clemens by the architect Edward Tuckerman Potter in the neo-Gothic style. One reason for the choice of location was that his publisher Elisha Bliss as well as several literary friends lived here. The company was financially supported primarily by the proceeds from The Unsuspecting Abroad . Clemens supervised the construction work and made various changes and additions. Among other things, he had a part of the roof clad with tin so that the rain could be heard, a sweeping veranda built in front of the house in the style of a ship's deck and the stairs in the entrance hall made as squat as a riverboat. At his request, a window was also installed over the dining room fireplace so that in winter he could watch the smoke and snowflakes mix. Twain lived here for 17 years, during which time he wrote his world-famous works, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn . In addition, the Prince and the Begging Boy , Life on the Mississippi and A Yankee at the court of King Arthur were created during this phase . Harriet Beecher-Stowe and Charles Dudley Warner also lived in the immediate vicinity . The design of the music room on the ground floor goes back to Beecher-Stowe.
The construction work was completed in September 1874, after which the Clemens family moved in with little delay. In 1880, Clemens third daughter, Jean, was born in the Mark Twain House. In 1881, Clemens had the house rebuilt, including adding a wing to the northwest for the house servants. The ground floor was redecorated by Louis Comfort Tiffany , who also partially renewed the interior of the White House the following year . When redesigning the rooms, Tiffany used typical stylistic elements from American, Oriental, Indian and Turkish handicrafts.
Due to bad investments, especially in the typesetting machine developed by James W. Paige, as well as mismanagement of his own book publisher, Clemens was forced to move out of the house. In 1891 he therefore left America for Europe to go on a lecture tour. When the panic of 1893 worsened his economic situation, he had to give his readings worldwide. In 1903, Clemens Mark sold Twain House.
As a result, the new owners leased the property to a boys' school from 1917 to 1922. It then functioned as a warehouse and then as an apartment block. To prevent the planned demolition in 1929, the Mark Twain Memory and Library Commission was founded with the purpose of buying the property and restoring it . For this purpose, 150,000 US dollars were collected. After the purchase by the Mark Twain Memory and Library Commission, the Hartford Public Library remained on the property's ground floor while the guest room was converted into a museum space. From 1955 onwards, there were enough funds to restore Mark Twain House and turn it into a museum. In order to restore the original furnishings, interviews with contemporaries of Clemens were conducted and recorded. The property opened as a museum in 1960 and a major restoration was completed in 1974. The interior of Tiffany in the rooms on the ground floor is the only one of its kind that is open to the public.
On December 29, 1962, Mark Twain House was granted National Historic Landmark status . On October 15, 1966, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places . As a contributing property , in addition to Mark Twain House, there was also a carriage house located in the rear of Nook Farm. In 2003, a visitor center designed by Robert AM Stern was built there, which contains two exhibitions, an auditorium, a café and a souvenir shop.
architecture
With his neo-Gothic house, Clemens sought a radical departure from the previous architecture in his region, which was characterized by box-shaped residential buildings.
The front facade of the three-story Mark Twain House faces east. The building has three towers, with the octagonal shape being the highest in the west at almost 16 m. The extended bay windows form a tower to the south, which is crowned by a porch, the Texas Deck . The overall outer facade is asymmetrical, has a wooden cornice and gable and has a steeply rising roof. The masonry consists of brightly colored black and vermilion bricks, which form a waffle pattern. Inside, Mark Twain House has 19 exotically decorated rooms.
On the ground floor there is the entrance hall, library, dining room and salon, on the first floor the children's room of the first-born daughter Susy, another, larger children's room for the two later-born daughters, a room for school lessons and a room for Mrs. Langdon, Clemens mother-in-law, on the second floor the Texas Deck , a billiard room, a guest room and the room of the butler George Griffin.
Web links
- Website Mark Twain House & Museum
literature
- Steve Courtney, Hal Holbrook (preface): The Loveliest Home That Ever Was: The Story of the Mark Twain House in Hartford . Dover Publications, Mineola (NY) 2011, ISBN 978-0-486-48634-5 .
- Victor J. Danilov: Famous Americans: A Directory of Museums, Historic Sites, and Memorials . Scarecrow Press, Lanham (MD) 2013, ISBN 978-0-8108-9186-9 , pp. 64, 65.
- Hilary Iris Lowe: Mark Twain's Homes and Literary Tourism. Chapter Three: The Right Stuff: Mark Twain, Material Culture and the Gilded Age Museum . University of Missouri Press, Columbia 2012, ISBN 978-0-8262-1976-3 , pp. 99-140.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g h Blanche Higgins Schroer: Mark Twain House: Nomination Form . In: National Register Information System. National Park Service . November 6, 1974, accessed on September 1, 2015 (English, PDF 440 kB).
- ^ A b c Victor J. Danilov: Famous Americans: A Directory of Museums, Historic Sites, and Memorials. P. 63.
- ↑ Listing of National Historic Landmarks by State: Connecticut. National Park Service , accessed July 20, 2019.
- ↑ Entry in the National Register Information System . National Park Service , accessed September 1, 2015.
- ↑ Stacey Stowe: Arts Institutions Suffer Growing Pains . nytimes.com, August 17, 2003, accessed October 1, 2015.