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Mark Twain arrived in San Francisco in 1863, fleeing the
draft and seeking adventure. In California he found that the economy
booming, newspapers and magazines thriving, and promise of the
transcontinental railroad soon to become a reality. Ben Tarnoff
tells how Twain connected with the city’s Bohemian writers. But as
these San Francisco writers were drawing attention from eastern taste
makers such as the Atlantic Monthly, Twain was floundering, questioning whether he should be a writer at all. Tarnoff is the author of The Bohemians: Mark Twain and the San Francisco Writers Who Reinvented American Literature.
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Comments [3]
Ward, Harte and Twain were
distinguished from their east coast humorist peers in one major way:
they made more money (and more impact) as speakers on the newly minted
Lyceum circuits (theatre opens at 7:30, trouble beings at 8:00), where
they (a) didn't have to cut their encomiums to three paragraphs as space
filler and (b) got to take a much larger portion of the gate than any
modern entertainer. If willing to work the mining camp circuits (as
they all did), and if not pressed to pay for too much after-hours rotgut
for their audiences, they could and did make respectable livings for a
while. Additionally, they got to talk about "Americans" as opposed to
immigrants (which made such admirable fodder for Dunne/Mr. Dooley), and
could speak (however elliptically) with Southern sympathy without
necessarily insulting the bloody shirted GOP stalwarts that still ruled
their venues. Interestingly, when they wrote about the Chinese (as
Harte and Twain both tried to do), strong censorship and public
antagonism quieted them in a fearful hurry. Only the much later "dark"
Twain would dare defy public opinion, long after his productive writing
days were a memory. As "Americans" (lauded by publishers with an
ideological agenda like Howells and Reid), they gave a written exemplar
of intelligent "taste" (if not moral refinement) that was welcome to the
nouveau riche and self aggrandizing money in New York (where taste was
always bought and sold most dearly). By reflecting a false and
sometimes cloying innocence back to a people who loved humbug better
than anything, they provided a great emotional cover to the rapacity
that swept young men up in the less than Gilded Age. Interestingly,
other humorists (notably, Petroleum V. Nasby) that concentrated their
satire on the new capitalists are not as well remembered now despite
that they were as much or more "in vogue" at the time.
Aug. 13 2014 01:29 PM
Score: 0/0
Score: 0/0
Ward, Harte and Twain were
distinguished from their east coast humorist peers in one major way:
they made more money (and more impact) as speakers on the newly minted
Lyceum circuits (theatre opens at 7:30, trouble beings at 8:00), where
they (a) didn't have to cut their encomiums to three paragraphs as space
filler and (b) got to take a much larger portion of the gate than any
modern entertainer. If willing to work the mining camp circuits (as
they all did), and if not pressed to pay for too much after-hours rotgut
for their audiences, they could and did make respectable livings for a
while. Additionally, they got to talk about "Americans" as opposed to
immigrants (which made such admirable fodder for Dunne/Mr. Dooley), and
could speak (however elliptically) with Southern sympathy without
necessarily insulting the bloody shirted GOP stalwarts that still ruled
their venues. Interestingly, when they wrote about the Chinese (as
Harte and Twain both tried to do), strong censorship and public
antagonism quieted them in a fearful hurry. Only the much later "dark"
Twain would dare defy public opinion, long after his productive writing
days were a memory. As "Americans" (lauded by publishers with an
ideological agenda like Howells and Reid), they gave a written exemplar
of intelligent "taste" (if not moral refinement) that was welcome to the
nouveau riche and self aggrandizing money in New York (where taste was
always bought and sold most dearly). By reflecting a false and
sometimes cloying innocence back to a people who loved humbug better
than anything, they provided a great emotional cover to the rapacity
that swept young men up in the less than Gilded Age. Interestingly,
other humorists (notably, Petroleum V. Nasby) that concentrated their
satire on the new capitalists are not as well remembered now despite
that they were as much or more "in vogue" at the time.
Aug. 13 2014 01:27 PM
Score: 0/0
Score: 0/0
Ward, Harte and Twain were
distinguished from their east coast humorist peers in one major way:
they made more money (and more impact) as speakers on the newly minted
Lyceum circuits (theatre opens at 7:30, trouble beings at 8:00), where
they (a) didn't have to cut their encomiums to three paragraphs as space
filler and (b) got to take a much larger portion of the gate than any
modern entertainer. If willing to work the mining camp circuits (as
they all did), and if not pressed to pay for too much after-hours rotgut
for their audiences, they could and did make respectable livings for a
while. Additionally, they got to talk about "Americans" as opposed to
immigrants (which made such admirable fodder for Dunne/Mr. Dooley), and
could speak (however elliptically) with Southern sympathy without
necessarily insulting the bloody shirted GOP stalwarts that still ruled
their venues. Interestingly, when they wrote about the Chinese (as
Harte and Twain both tried to do), strong censorship and public
antagonism quieted them in a fearful hurry. Only the much later "dark"
Twain would dare defy public opinion, long after his productive writing
days were a memory. As "Americans" (lauded by publishers with an
ideological agenda like Howells and Reid), they gave a written exemplar
of intelligent "taste" (if not moral refinement) that was welcome to the
nouveau riche and self aggrandizing money in New York (where taste was
always bought and sold most dearly). By reflecting a false and
sometimes cloying innocence back to a people who loved humbug better
than anything, they provided a great emotional cover to the rapacity
that swept young men up in the less than Gilded Age. Interestingly,
other humorists (notably, Petroleum V. Nasby) that concentrated their
satire on the new capitalists are not as well remembered now despite
that they were as much or more "in vogue" at the time.
Aug. 13 2014 01:27 PM
Score: 0/0
