Conservation Assessment of Objects with Twain Provenance from the Collections of The Mark Twain House & Museum

FAIN: PG-263545-19

Mark Twain Memorial (Hartford, CT 06105-6400)
Tracy Brindle (Project Director: May 2018 to November 2019)
Mallory Howard (Project Director: November 2019 to February 2022)

Engaging a professional conservator to assess the conservation treatment needs of twenty-six objects in the Mark Twain House that need conservation and play key roles in house interpretation. They include Twain’s billiard table and other furniture, travel case and trunks, walking cane, and personal items, such as his pipe case. The objects are described as invaluable to the accurate and comprehensive interpretation of the house, offering unique insight into Twain’s life and work and illuminating the evolution of Samuel Clemens from a poor boy of the South to an upper-class “Connecticut Yankee.” The billiard table, for example, dominates the room where he did his writing and entertained his male friends. The items illustrate upper-class domestic life of Twain’s era, including its conspicuous consumption.

The Mark Twain House & Museum will engage a professional conservator to assess the conservation treatment needs of twenty-six objects in the museum’s collections. The objects include personal items and furnishings, all of which belonged to Samuel Clemens("Mark Twain")or his family members. They are irreplaceable artifacts of America’s literary history and culture, which provide unique and valuable insight into Mark Twain, his work, his era, and his enduring legacy. The project will provide the information the museum needs to set conservation priorities, and to budget and fundraise for needed conservation work. The project’s ultimate goal is to ensure that the collection objects are properly preserved so that they will continue to be available for display in the historic Mark Twain House, which is a National Historic Landmark, and in exhibitions at the museum and at other cultural institutions, as well as for research by museum staff, scholars, and others.