Section D · Page 6
The University Daily Kansan
Monday, August 21. 2000
Twain class road trips to author's hometown
y Karen Lucas
y Karen Lucas
Kansan staff writer
Grant's Drug Store in Hannibal, Mo., displays a collection of dusty chemical bottles. Mark Twain's family lived in the rooms above the store for a brief time. Photo by Karen Lucas/KANSAN
The riverboat Mark Twain travels down the Mississippi River not far from his boyhood home. Photo by Karen Lucas/KANSAN
HANNIBAL, Mo. — On a hilly, brick-covered street, a restored white-frame house has much the same view of the majestic Mississippi River that a legendary American author had more than a century ago.
The two-story house with a picket fence about 100 miles north of St. Louis is where author Mark Twain lived as a boy.
Henry Sweets, director of the Mark Twain Museum in Hannibal, Mo., points as he talks with Susan K. Harris, visiting professor from Pennsylvania State University, and her students in front of Twain's childhood home. Harris' class, which studied selected works by Twain, traveled to Hannibal this summer.
"I just think it's a wonderful house, a wonderful place to live," said Oliver Schannath, Paterborn, Germany, graduate student. "I would love to have the experience of living in the place for a week. This house reminds me of the old houses I've seen in German museums of this kind."
Schannah was one of seven graduate students who made a one-day trek in July to Humbain with Susan K. Harris, a visiting professor from Pennsylvania State University. Harris taught a two-week graduate seminar at the University of Kansas called "Mark Twain, the Past and the Creation of Regional History."
"Why do people associate the Mississippi River Valley with Twinain?" she said. "What is it about his work that is so powerful that he has really come to stand for that region? Hopefully, the trip will answer some of those questions, will give us some immediate contact with the landscape that he describes."
In a conversation prior to the trip, Harris said she and her students hoped to learn how Twain had become an American cultural icon.
Before arriving in Hannibal at about noon, Harris' class stopped at a museum in Mark Twain State Park near Florida, Mo., which is about 30 miles southwest of Hannibal.
The museum's centerpiece is a weathered, two-room wood cabin where Twain was born. Other items on display include paintings, photographs and Twain's handwritten 655-page manuscript of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
"It was fascinating to see his humble beginnings and how he became this larger-than-life character," said Phyllis Copt, an English teacher at Free State High School and seminar participant.
Grant's Drug Store in Hannibal, Mo., displays a collection of dusty chemical bottles. Mark Twain's family lived for a brief period in the rooms above the store.
The Hannibal tour began in the annex of the Mark Twain Museum, where the class was met by museum director Henry Sweets. After watching a video about Twain's life, the group looked at items ranging from one of the author's trademark white jackets to a typewriter and a high-wheel bicycle, both dating back to the late 1900s.
On the wall behind the bicycle, is an inscription with one of Twain's quotations: "Get a bicycle. You will not regret it if you live."
"He liked to try out new inventions and machines. He bought one of the first typewriters," Sweets said. One of the more recent display items in the annex is a 300-pound bronze bust of Twain. Its nose has been discolored by tourists who rubbed their hands on it, Sweets said.
The next stop on the tour was Twain's childhood home overlooking the Mississippi. Inside the house, the class saw a refurbished kitchen, dining room and parlor on the first floor and two bedrooms on the second floor.
At the older museum building next door, the group looked at foreign editions of Twain's works and the gift shop.
Sweets next took the class members across the street for a tour of Grant's Drug Store, which has on display countless dusty chemical bottles in a first-floor exhibit.
Harris and her students also got a glimpse of the nearby law office of Twain's father.
For the museum's biographical video, Sweets and a
film crew re-created a scene that took place in the office, which was described by Twain in one his earlier works. The Innocents Abroad. Sweets, who played the part of a dead man lying on the floor, said it was difficult to perform the scene in an unheated building in 20-degree weather.
"It was very hard to keep from shivering or breathing too deeply," said Sweets, who was wearing only jeans and a flannel shirt during the filming of the scene. The ripper shot Mark
The Riverboat Mark Twain travels down the Mississippi River not far from its namesake's boyhood home in Hannibal, Mo. Twain had a view of the river from his family's house.
The final stop of the Hannibal tour was a new Twain museum several blocks away on Main Street, which is lined with shops that play on the Twain theme.
Upon entering the museum, Michael Carriger, Ottawa graduate student, reflected on how Twain served as a symbolic as well as a commercialized figure.
"He represents more than himself," Carriger said. "He is Americana. He's nostalgia. He's old times. Although you feel kind of 'iffy' about the commercialization of him for everything, nonetheless it brings people here, and it educates them. And that's a good thing."
At one of the main exhibits, class members sat on a simulated wood raft while watching a video that showed excerpts from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Twain's famous fictional account of a trip down the Mississippi River.
In a separate exhibit, the group also observed 15 Norman Rockwell paintings that depicted scenes from some of Twain's novels.
Before heading back to Lawrence, Harris said she thought the trip had been a meaningful experience for her students.
"They're great," said Jill Blanche, Leavenworth graduate student. "I like that you can see the mischievousness in some of the pictures juxtaposed with the sweetness in the other ones."
"It looked like it was highly successful," she said. "People have absorbed a lot of information, and they have lots to think about in the future."
Susan K. Harris will give a lecture titled "Love Texts: The Role of Books in the Courtship of Olivia Langdon and Mark Twain" at 7 p.m. tomorrow in 4051 Wesco Hall. The lecture is free.
Harris taught the Mark Twain seminar for this year's Alice F. Holmes Institute.
The Twain seminar is this year's presentation of the Alice F. Holmes Institute, which is sponsored by the department of English. The institute consists of a two-week graduate seminar that focuses on either American or British literature and is taught by a distinguished visiting scholar, said Chester Sullivan, associate professor of English.
By the end of the seminar, Harris' class finished its study of selected works by Twain, including Huckleberry Finn, Pudd'nhead Wilson, Tom Sauyer and The Autobiography of Mark Twinan.
In addition to writing a 15 to 20-page paper and keeping a reading journal, students met with Harris for three hours each afternoon during the week to discuss the readings.
Blanche gave ringmarks for the class discussions:
"They've been really good," she said. "I think everybody in the class has a different focus, which helps bring us the big picture."
Harris agreed.
That's what makes a seminar work "
"The whole class is dynamic," she said. "Everyone is really pitching in there and talking."
Schannath said that he had been introduced to German translations of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer while he was growing up, but that this was the first time he had read them in English.
"I have to admit that I had as much fun now reading these books as I had when I was a kid," he said. "That hasn't changed."
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