November 30 is the birthday of Samuel Langhorne Clemens—the author better known as Mark Twain. Clemens was born in Florida, MO, in 1835, and soon after moved to Hannibal, MO. Leaving school after the fifth grade, Clemens worked as a printer's apprentice and riverboat pilot before a two-week stint with the Confederate Army. When "Gold Fever" drew him westward, Clemens failed to find gold, but did turn a conversation he overheard in Calaveras County, CA, into the popular short story The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County . The story garnered the attention of the Sacramento Union newspaper, which sent the author to the Sandwich Islands (Hawaiian Islands) and serialized the travelogue of his adventures in 1866. Clemens' Sandwich Island success and income from subsequent lectures encouraged the author to travel to Europe and the Middle East and publish his first book—The Innocents Abroad—which quickly became a best seller.
In 1870, Clemens married Olivia Langdon and worked as editor and part owner of the Buffalo Express in Buffalo, NY. The couple, along with son Langdon, moved to Hartford, CT, in 1871. Clemens wrote two of his most beloved books while living in Hartford—The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn—which Clemens claimed were inspired by his Hannibal, MO, childhood.
A series of financial and personal tragedies dogged the Clemens family after the author published his last novel—Pudd'nhead Wilson—in 1894. In 1894, Charles L. Webster & Co, the publishing house Clemens founded 10 years earlier, declared bankruptcy. In 1896, his oldest daughter Susy died of meningitis at the family's Hartford, CT, home while her father lectured in Europe to repay creditors; Clemens' wife Olivia died after a lengthy illness in 1904; and his youngest daughter Jean was institutionalized for epilepsy in 1906 and died in 1909. A heartbroken Samuel L. Clemens died at his Redding, CT, home on April 21, 1910.
Today, Clemens is considered by many bibliophiles to be America's greatest author. His writing remains a core component of schools' curriculum because of the depictions of adventures on the Mississippi River and western frontier as well as the harsh reality of slavery, the failures of Reconstruction, government corruption, and imperialism. In 1935, Ernest Hemingway (a literary giant in his own right) stated that, "All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn." Clemens' wit and humor are as relevant today as when first published and his work continues to inspire authors, comedians, politicians, and young boys who want to avoid painting fences or taking baths.
You can learn more about Samuel Langhorne Clemens, his family, and the nation that shaped the author's writing using census data and records. For example:
Samuel L. Clemens sits with his longtime friend John T. Lewis for a series of photographs taken in 1903. Many scholars
believe Lewis—a tenant farmer from Elmira, NY—inspired the runaway slave character named "Jim" in
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
During the week of November 14–20, 1937, the Census Bureau conducted the 1937 Unemployment Census.
The 1937 census was followed by a survey of 2 percent of the nation's labor force—the Census Bureau's first use of statistical sampling—in December 1939. After several months of testing, collection of monthly data on the nation's labor force began in March 1940, and continues today as part of the Current Population Survey.
One of the last people Samuel L. Clemens spoke to before he died on April 21, 1910, was a census taker conducting the 1910 Census.
The census taker interviewed Clemens at his Redding, CT, home called "Stormfield" (pictured above). The author reported that he was a 74-year-old widower from Missouri and veteran of the Civil War. He was mortgage-free and earned income from humor writing and farming.
Photo courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration.
The Census Bureau conducts an annual Public Library Survey for the Institute of Museum and Library Services. In 2012, the survey found that there were 9,082 public libraries in the United States, including Mark Twain Branches of the Los Angeles, CA, Long Beach, CA, and Hartford, CT, public libraries.