'Trouble Begins' Lecture Features Twain's Hartford Home
Elmira, NY (05/24/2021) — The spring portion of the 2020-2021 The Trouble Begins Lecture Series, presented by the Center for Mark Twain Studies, concludes Wednesday, May 26, with "Twain's Hartford," presented by Jodi DeBruyne and Mallory Howard of The Mark Twain House & Museum. The lecture is free and will be available to the public on marktwainstudies.org.
Samuel Clemens, his wife Olivia, and their three daughters, Susy, Clara, and Jean, called Hartford, Connecticut home for twenty years. Clemens called it the happiest and most productive period of his life. At the time Hartford was one of the wealthiest cities in the nation, booming with industry, publishing, and the arts. Today their Hartford house, which Clemens referred to as "the loveliest home that ever was," is now the Mark Twain House & Museum (MTH&M). Join Assistant Curator Mallory Howard and Director of Collections Jodi DeBruyne as they take you through the House and the MTH&M collections using art, artifacts, and archives to share stories about the family's daily lives and their engagement with the Hartford community.
DeBruyne and Howard share the responsibility for the care, exhibition, and interpretation of the Mark Twain House and the museum's collection of more than 20,000 artifacts and documents. Howard has aided countless researchers, done important work herself on Twainian subjects, and has spoken on aspects of Twain's life and work in venues ranging from scholarly conferences to Mississippi riverboats. She earned her BA in American history at Central Connecticut State University and was inducted into the national history honor society Phi Alpha Theta. She holds a certification from the Modern Archives Institute in Washington, D.C. DeBruyne has worked at museums across the country including the Chrysler Museum in Norfolk, Virginia, the City Museum in Juneau, Alaska, and the Abbe Museum in Bar Harbor, Maine. She earned her BA in art history at Old Dominion University and her MA in museum studies from Johns Hopkins University.
About The Trouble Begins Lecture Series
In 1984, the Elmira College Center for Mark Twain Studies initiated a lecture series, The Trouble Begins at Eight lecture series. The title came from the handbill advertising Mark Twain's October 2, 1866 lecture presented at Maguire's Academy of Music in San Francisco. The first lectures were presented in 1985. By invitation, Mark Twain scholars present lectures in the fall and spring of each year, in the Barn at Quarry Farm or at Peterson Chapel in Cowles Hall on Elmira College's campus. All lectures are free and open to the public.
Media Attachments
The spring portion of the 2020-2021 The Trouble Begins Lecture Series, presented by the Center for Mark Twain Studies, concludes Wednesday, May 26, with “Twain’s Hartford,” presented by Jodi DeBruyne and Mallory Howard of The Mark Twain House & Museum. The lecture is free and will be available to the public on marktwainstudies.org.