Bill Text
111th Congress (2009-2010)
S.RES.690.ATS

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SRES 690 ATS

Commemorating the 175th anniversary of the birth of Mark Twain.

November 30, 2010

Mrs. MCCASKILL (for herself and Mr. BOND) submitted the following resolution; which was considered and agreed to

Commemorating the 175th anniversary of the birth of Mark Twain.

Whereas Mark Twain was born with the name Samuel Langhorne Clemens on November 30, 1835, in Florida, Missouri, the 6th child of John Marshall and Jane Lampton Clemens;

Whereas in 1839, the Clemens family moved to Hannibal, Missouri, the inspiration for the fictional town of St. Petersburg depicted in the novels `The Adventures of Tom Sawyer' and `Adventures of Huckleberry Finn', where the Clemens family lived until 1853, including several years of residence at 206 Hill Street, known as the boyhood home of Mark Twain;

Whereas in 1848, Samuel Clemens left school to become a printer's apprentice at the Missouri Courier newspaper, his first in a series of occupations that include, most notably, author, but also, printer, typesetter, steamboat pilot, journalist, lecturer, publisher, editor, prospector, and political activist;

Whereas while working at the Virginia City newspaper, the Territorial Enterprise, Clemens first used the pen name `Mark Twain' in 1863;

Whereas with the publication of the short story `Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog' in The Saturday Press in 1865, Mark Twain experienced his first significant success as an author;

Whereas in 1869, Twain's first book, `The Innocents Abroad', was published, detailing Twain's adventures through Europe and the Middle East;

Whereas Samuel Clemens, known for the love and affection he demonstrated for his wife and family and to whom the quote, `What is a home without a child?', is attributed, in 1870 married Olivia Langdon, with whom he had 4 children, Langdon, Olivia Susan, Clara Langdon, and Jane Lampton;

Whereas the book `Roughing It', part autobiography and part tall tale, chronicling Twain's adventures in the early American West and critiquing society's treatment of Chinese Americans, was published in 1872;

Whereas `The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today', a novel Twain wrote in collaboration with Charles Dudley Warner satirizing political corruption and greed in American life, was published in 1873;

Whereas Twain's novel, `The Adventures of Tom Sawyer', through which he sought `to pleasantly remind adults of what they once were themselves, and of how they felt and thought and talked, and what queer enterprises they sometimes engaged in', was published in 1876;

Whereas in 1881, Twain addressed class issues and attacked injustice and hypocrisy in English society with the publication of his novel, `The Prince and the Pauper';

Whereas in 1883, `Life on the Mississippi', Twain's book exploring the history and lore of the Mississippi River and detailing his time spent as a Mississippi River steamboat pilot, was published;

Whereas Mark Twain's most famous work, `Adventures of Huckleberry Finn', which attacked the institution of slavery, the failures of Reconstruction, and the continued mistreatment of African Americans in American society, and which is considered a masterpiece of American fiction and is widely known as one of the Great American Novels, was published in 1884;

Whereas Twain's powerful social critique, `A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court', was published in 1889;

Whereas `The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson', Twain's strongest critique of racism and the institution of slavery, was published in 1894;

Whereas on April 21, 1910, Samuel Clemens died at the age of 74; and

Whereas the 175th anniversary of the birth of Mark Twain is an historic occasion: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the Senate commemorates the 175th anniversary of the birth of Mark Twain on November 30, 2010, and his enduring legacy as one of our Nation's greatest authors and humorists.

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