MTH&M Deputy Director of Strategic Initiatives and exhibit co-curator Jessica Neuwirth, PhD explains, “As we look backward at the Mark Twain House’s 150-year history, we are also looking outward. Hartford was the Clemens’ city, and this exhibit uses much of the city as our second ‘gallery space.’” It Happened In Hartford begins with a content-rich in-person exhibit at the Mark Twain Museum Center featuring over 100 artifacts drawn from the museum’s collection, then continues with a walking tour of Twain-related sites in downtown Hartford. The exhibit also includes a dedicated digital exhibition, TwainsWorld.org, so that visitors can see a map of the walking tour, interact digitally with many of the artifacts and share some of their own stories relevant to Mark Twain and Hartford.
Commenting on the exhibition, MTH&M Beatrice Fox Auerbach Director of Collections, Curatorial, and Preservation and exhibit co-curator Jodi C. DeBruyne states, “Samuel Clemens was an innovator in the creative economy of the 19th century, an early adopter of branding, brand extensions, and side-hustles simultaneously as he made a living as a writer. This exhibition highlights both his successes and his failures in ways that help us understand the creative and driven human behind the ‘face’ of Mark Twain.”
The museum has specifically chosen twelve walkable locations as they relate to Samuel Clemens’ groundbreaking work as a career creative. Each of the stops features a pink sign that details the history of the location and its relation to Twain. There is no cost for individuals to participate in this self-guided tour of the city Twain loved.
It Happened In Hartford: 150 Years of the Mark Twain House is proudly sponsored by The Hartford and supported by the Bushnell Conservancy and the Hartford Forestry Department.
Photo: TrigPhotography, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons. The setting sun on the beautiful Mark Twain House and Museum in Hartford, CT 2014.
