[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Page 18288]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         SUBMITTED RESOLUTIONS

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SENATE RESOLUTION 690--COMMEMORATING THE 175TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BIRTH 
                             OF MARK TWAIN

  Mrs. McCASKILL (for herself and Mr. Bond) submitted the following 
resolution; which was considered and agreed to:

                              S. Res. 690

       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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