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113-576: Olana State Historic Site is a historic house museum and landscape in Greenport, New York , near the city of Hudson . The estate was home to Frederic Edwin Church (1826–1900), one of the major figures in the Hudson River School of landscape painting . The centerpiece of Olana is an eclectic villa which overlooks parkland and a working farm designed by the artist. The residence has

226-462: A copyright . In 1883, Twain paid a brief visit to Ottawa , and he visited Toronto twice in 1884 and 1885 on a reading tour with George Washington Cable , known as the "Twins of Genius" tour. The reason for the Toronto visits was to secure Canadian and British copyrights for Twain's upcoming book Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , to which he had alluded in his Montreal visit. The reason for

339-836: A stagecoach across the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains , visiting the Mormon community in Salt Lake City . Twain's journey ended in the silver-mining town of Virginia City, Nevada , where he became a miner on the Comstock Lode . Twain failed as a miner and went to work at the Virginia City newspaper Territorial Enterprise , working under a friend, the writer Dan DeQuille . Twain first used his pen name here on February 3, 1863, when he wrote

452-576: A time traveler from the contemporary U.S., using his knowledge of science to introduce modern technology to Arthurian England. This type of historical manipulation became a trope of speculative fiction as alternate histories . In 1909, Thomas Edison visited Twain at Stormfield , his home in Redding, Connecticut and filmed him. Part of the footage was used in The Prince and the Pauper (1909),

565-722: A "wealthy but liberal family"; through her, Twain met abolitionists , "socialists, principled atheists and activists for women's rights and social equality ", including Harriet Beecher Stowe , Frederick Douglass , and utopian socialist writer William Dean Howells , who became a long-time friend. The Clemenses lived in Buffalo, New York , from 1869 to 1871. Twain owned a stake in the Buffalo Express newspaper and worked as an editor and writer. While they were living in Buffalo, their son Langdon died of diphtheria in 1872 at

678-457: A 126-acre (50.99 ha) farm, which he developed into a ferme ornée, an ornamental farm.[6] Around Cosy Cottage, a profitable 15.5 acres (6.3 hectares) orchard and 4.3 acres (1.7 hectares) of vegetable and fruit gardens were created in addition to pastures and crop land, each with a distinct visual character. The family always called their place "the farm," but when he bought the land, Church took about half out of active agricultural production to create

791-561: A Canadian resident; Twain addressed this by his short visits to the country. In his later years, Twain lived at 14 West 10th Street in Manhattan . He passed through a period of deep depression which began in 1896 when his daughter Susy died of meningitis . Olivia's death in 1904 and Jean's on December 24, 1909, deepened Twain's gloom. On May 20, 1909, his close friend Henry Rogers died suddenly. In April 1906, Twain heard that his friend Ina Coolbrith had lost nearly all that she owned in

904-469: A Doctorate of Law in 1907. Twain was born two weeks after Halley's Comet 's closest approach in 1835; he said in 1909: I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don't go out with Halley's Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: "Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together". Twain's prediction

1017-608: A Second Lieutenant . Twain later wrote the sketch " The Private History of a Campaign That Failed ", describing how he and his friends had been Confederate volunteers for two weeks before their unit disbanded. Twain then left for Nevada to work for his brother Orion, who was Secretary of the Nevada Territory . Twain describes the episode in his book Roughing It . Orion became secretary to Nevada Territory governor James W. Nye in 1861, and Twain joined him when he moved west. The brothers traveled more than two weeks on

1130-608: A collection of Old Master paintings. The eclectic assortment of furniture and decorative arts includes carpets, metalwork, ceramics and costumes from the Middle East, folk art and fine art from Mexico, and high-style American and Oriental furniture. The main residence at Olana has been described as a prime example of the Aesthetic Movement in America. Frederic Church executed some of his most famous works at Olana, in

1243-450: A correspondence for many years after Clemens left the river. While training, Samuel convinced his younger brother Henry to work with him, and even arranged a post of mud clerk for him on the steamboat Pennsylvania . On June 13, 1858, the steamboat's boiler exploded; Henry succumbed to his wounds eight days later. Twain claimed to have foreseen this death in a dream a month earlier, which inspired his interest in parapsychology ; Twain

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1356-454: A cover story on Olana in Life magazine , New York State purchased the property in 1966 and it was opened to the public. Over the last forty years of his life, Frederic Church created a 250-acre (1.0 km) designed landscape at Olana. In an 1884 letter, Church wrote of his work on the grounds at Olana, "I can make more and better landscapes in this way than by tampering with canvas and paint in

1469-573: A day after the comet was at its closest to Earth. Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born on November 30, 1835, in Florida, Missouri . He was the sixth of seven children of Jane ( née Lampton; 1803–1890), a native of Kentucky , and John Marshall Clemens (1798–1847), a native of Virginia . His parents met when his father, a lawyer called to the bar in Kentucky, tried to help Jane's father and uncle avoid bankruptcy. They were married in 1823. Twain

1582-571: A fortified treasure-house named Olana, or Olane , situated on a hillside near the Araxes River in Artaxata , a city in modern-day Armenia, close to the eastern border of Turkey and the northwestern arm of Iran. Carr assumed that the Churches began calling their residence "Olana" after reading Strabo. John Ashbery agreed, writing in 1997 that Strabo's Artaxata "was one of the supposed sites of

1695-523: A friend, "I am building a house and am principally my own Architect. I give directions all day and draw plans and working drawings all night." The result was a villa with asymmetrical massing of towers and block masonry punctuated by fanciful windows and porches. The irregular silhouette of the exterior contrasted with the more regular rhythm of rooms arranged around a central hall. On the exterior, Middle Eastern motifs were carried out in colored brick, slate, ceramic tile and especially stenciling. The cornices of

1808-534: A historic house museum derives from a branch of history called social history that is solely based on people and their way of living. It became very popular in the mid-twentieth century among scholars who were interested in the history of people, as opposed to political and economical issues. Social history remains an influential branch of history. Philip J. Ethington, a professor of history and political science, further adds to social history and its relationship to locations by saying – Following this historical movement,

1921-648: A humorous travel account titled "Letter From Carson – re: Joe Goodman; party at Gov. Johnson's; music" and signed it "Mark Twain". Twain's experiences in the American West inspired Roughing It , written during 1870–71 and published in 1872. His experiences in Angels Camp (in Calaveras County, California) provided material for "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" (1865). Twain moved to San Francisco in 1864, still as

2034-467: A journalist, and met writers such as Bret Harte and Artemus Ward . He may have been romantically involved with the poet Ina Coolbrith . Twain's first success as a writer came when his humorous tall tale "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" was published on November 18, 1865, in the New York weekly The Saturday Press , bringing him national attention. A year later, Twain traveled to

2147-467: A landscaped park. In this park, Church planted thousands of native trees (many transplanted from elsewhere on site); created a 10-acre (40,000 m) lake from a swamp; built a freestanding studio, summer house, and rustic benches and railings; and designed five miles (8.0 km) of carriage drives paved in crushed red shale mined on site. Church strategically acquired additional adjacent parcels until his property encompassed 250.2 acres (101.3 hectares) and

2260-583: A lead by Poultney Bigelow , who had a good experience being treated by Dr. Jonas Henrik Kellgren, a Swedish osteopathic practitioner in Belgravia . They were persuaded to spend the summer at Kellgren's sanatorium by the lake in the Swedish village of Sanna. Coming back in fall, they continued the treatment in London, until Twain was convinced by lengthy inquiries in America that similar osteopathic expertise

2373-440: A look at the importance of collective memory and how it is embedded in culture and place. Thus, collective memory does not only reside in a house or building, but it also resonates in outdoor space – particularly when a monumental event has occurred, such as war. Problematic creation of collective memory occurs within historic house museums when the narrative of non-family members is dismissed, ignored, or completely rejected. Within

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2486-620: A much sought-after speaker. His wit and satire, both in prose and in speech, earned praise from critics and peers, and Twain was a friend to presidents, artists, industrialists, and European royalty. Although Twain initially spoke out in favor of American interests in the Hawaiian Islands , he later reversed his position, going on to become vice president of the American Anti-Imperialist League from 1901 until his death in 1910, coming out strongly against

2599-676: A parcel of mature woods at the top of his hill, and began planning a large house for the site. After an 18-month trip to Europe and the Middle East, Church hired architect Calvert Vaux and worked with him on the design of the mansion, which was constructed between 1870 and 1872. The Churches hosted notable figures from the literary, religious, artistic and business worlds: writer Charles Dudley Warner and his pianist wife Susan, author and artist Susan Hale , sculptor Erastus Dow Palmer and his wife Mary Jane, industrialist William H. Osborn and his wife Virginia, and humorist Mark Twain . For Christmas in 1879, Isabel Church gave her husband several books on

2712-672: A pedestrian walkway across the Rip Van Winkle Bridge opened in 2019, connects the site to the Thomas Cole National Historic Site in Catskill. Historic house museum Historic house museums are sometimes known as a "memory museum", which is a term used to suggest that the museum contains a collection of the traces of memory of the people who once lived there. It is often made up of the inhabitants' belongings and objects – this approach

2825-608: A port town on the Mississippi River that inspired the fictional town of St. Petersburg in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn . Slavery was legal in Missouri at the time, and it became a theme in these writings. His father was an attorney and judge who died of pneumonia in 1847, when Twain was only 11. The following year, Twain left school after the fifth grade to become

2938-567: A printer's apprentice. In 1851, he began working as a typesetter , contributing articles and humorous sketches to the Hannibal Journal , a newspaper that Orion owned. When Twain was 18, he left Hannibal and worked as a printer in New York City , Philadelphia , St. Louis , and Cincinnati , joining the newly formed International Typographical Union , the printers' trade union . Twain educated himself in public libraries in

3051-448: A proposed power plant. Olana has been the subject of scholarly study by a succession of students and experts on Church's life. David C. Huntington's cataloging and analysis in the mid-1960s is acknowledged as the first foundational work. Huntington is credited not only with saving the site from public auction but with bringing Church's reputation from obscurity to prominence in relation to the Hudson River School . Huntington theorized that

3164-655: A quiet place in which to write and enjoy his cigars. Twain wrote many of his classic novels during his 17 years in Hartford (1874–1891) and over 20 summers at Quarry Farm. They include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), The Prince and the Pauper (1881), Life on the Mississippi (1883), Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889). The couple's marriage lasted 34 years until Olivia's death in 1904. All of

3277-414: A reconstruction of the wagon house and a stabilization of the main barn, to better fit their role as year-round centers for education. Olana has been cited as an innovative example of a public-private partnership. Olana advocates the preservation of its viewshed by encouraging donations of scenic easements on properties and by discouraging development of industrial projects, such as a proposed cement plant and

3390-484: A studio that stood on the hill above the Cosy Cottage. Throughout his life but especially in the 1850s, Church traveled throughout North and South America, making oil and pencil sketches that served as notes for the artwork to come. Although Church's major artworks appear to be transcriptions of the landscape, they are, as Church called them, "compositions"—composed from his sketches and his own artistic intentions. In

3503-571: A two-reel short film. It is the only known existing film footage of Twain. Twain made a substantial amount of money through his writing, but he lost a great deal through investments. Twain invested mostly in new inventions and technology, particularly the Paige typesetting machine . It was considered a mechanical marvel that amazed viewers when it worked, but it was prone to breakdowns. Twain spent $ 300,000 (equivalent to $ 9,471,724 in 2023) on it between 1880 and 1894, but before it could be perfected it

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3616-700: A wide view of the Hudson River Valley , the Catskill Mountains and the Taconic Range . Church and his wife Isabel (1836–1899) named their estate after a fortress-treasure house in ancient Greater Persia (modern-day Armenia), which also overlooked a river valley. Olana is one of the few intact artists' home-, studio- and estate-complexes in the United States; it was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1965. The house

3729-480: A year-long around-the-world lecture tour in July 1895 to pay off his creditors in full, although Twain was no longer under any legal obligation to do so. It was a long, arduous journey, and he was sick much of the time, mostly from a cold and a carbuncle . The first part of the itinerary took Twain across northern America to British Columbia , Canada, until the second half of August. For the second part, he sailed across

3842-557: Is a mixture of Victorian , Persian and Moorish styles. The interior remains much as it was during Church's lifetime, exotically furnished and decorated with objects from his global travels, and with some 40 paintings by Church and his friends. The house is intricately stenciled inside and out; Church designed the stencils based on his travels in the Middle East . The house contains Church's last studio, built as an addition from 1888 to 1890. In 1845, Frederic Church first sketched on

3955-495: Is also a prime example of Orientalist architecture. It is owned and operated by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation , and is also supported by The Olana Partnership, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization. The main building is an architectural masterpiece designed by Frederic Church in consultation with the architect Calvert Vaux . The stone, brick, and polychrome-stenciled villa

4068-438: Is completed. Another alternative approach, deployed by nonprofit organization House Museum , includes contemporary art integration, where artists are invited to respond to the physical and conceptual history of a site, thus injecting contemporary perspectives and value into historic places. In each kind of museum, visitors learn about the previous inhabitants through an explanation and exploration of social history . The idea of

4181-399: Is mostly concerned with authenticity . Some museums are organised around the person who lived there or the social role the house had. Other historic house museums may be partially or completely reconstructed in order to tell the story of a particular area, social-class or historical period. The " narrative " of the people who lived there guides this approach, and dictates the manner in which it

4294-469: Is open to the public and includes over 700 works by Church as well as thousands of works of art by other artists, including paintings by Martin Johnson Heade , Arthur Parton and John Thomas Peele and numerous works by Church's close friend, the sculptor Erastus Dow Palmer . The archive, open to scholars, contains letters, scrapbooks, bills, receipts and other ephemera. A visitor center is housed in

4407-622: The North American Review . The same year, Charlotte Teller , a writer living with her grandmother at 3 Fifth Avenue, began an acquaintanceship with him which "lasted several years and may have included romantic intentions" on his part. In 1906, Twain formed the Angel Fish and Aquarium Club, for girls whom he viewed as surrogate granddaughters. Its dozen or so members ranged in age from 10 to 16. Twain exchanged letters with his "Angel Fish" girls and invited them to concerts and

4520-447: The 1906 San Francisco earthquake , and he volunteered a few autographed portrait photographs to be sold for her benefit. To further aid Coolbrith, George Wharton James visited Twain in New York and arranged for a new portrait session. Twain was resistant initially, but he eventually admitted that four of the resulting images were the finest ones ever taken of him. In September, Twain started publishing chapters from his autobiography in

4633-608: The Garden of Eden ", and that the Churches must have felt kinship with both the idyllic and the protected qualities of ancient Olana. Olana is in the south part of Greenport, New York , in Columbia County , south of Hudson and east of Catskill. By car, the estate can be reached from New York State Route 9G , less than an hour's drive south of Albany . The nearest Amtrak train station is in Hudson . The grounds are open during

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4746-641: The Philippine–American War and American colonialism . Twain published a satirical pamphlet, " King Leopold's Soliloquy ", in 1905 about Belgian atrocities in the Congo Free State . Twain earned a great deal of money from his writing and lectures, but invested in ventures that lost most of it, such as the Paige Compositor , a mechanical typesetter that failed because of its complexity and imprecision. He filed for bankruptcy in

4859-775: The Sandwich Islands (present-day Hawaii) as a reporter for the Sacramento Union . His letters to the Union were popular and became the basis for his first lectures. In 1867, local newspapers The Alta California and New-York Tribune funded Twain's trip to the Mediterranean aboard the Quaker City , including a tour of Europe and the Middle East. He wrote a collection of travel letters which were later compiled as The Innocents Abroad (1869). It

4972-627: The Virginia City Territorial Enterprise . Twain first achieved success as a writer with the humorous story " The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County ," which was published in 1865; it was based on a story that he heard at Angels Hotel in Angels Camp, California , where Twain had spent some time while he was working as a miner . The short story brought Twain international attention. He wrote both fiction and non-fiction. As his fame grew, Twain became

5085-605: The 1860s and 1870s this process occurred at Olana, and also at Church's Tenth Street Studio Building in New York City. Typically, Church did the bulk of his work in the studio at Olana, then finished the painting in New York. Church also made vibrant sketches of the Olana landscape; he framed a few and hung them in the main residence. In the studio at Olana he made hundreds of pencil and oil technical drawings for stencils, mantels, banisters, and other architectural elements of

5198-519: The Arabic word Al ' ana , meaning "our place on high", was possibly transliterated to Latin as "Olana". Art historian and Church scholar Gerald L. Carr found no confirmation that the Churches ever considered this meaning; instead, Carr believed the answer to be in a copy of Strabo 's Geographica in Olana's library, a multi-volume reference work given by Isabel Church to her husband on Christmas 1879. One volume of this classic Greek work describes

5311-631: The Churches opened the Olana grounds to the public. From the popular carriage drives, visitors experienced the artist's landscape vignettes almost as cinema, in a sequence choreographed by Church. The ultimate aspect of Church's designed landscape is the view from the main house. There, the ground drops away sharply, the Hudson widens to two miles (3.2 km) across, and the Catskills rise up steeply. Like Church's painted views of Niagara Falls, Canadian icebergs, and South American volcanoes this scene captures

5424-662: The Clemens family are buried in Elmira's Woodlawn Cemetery . Twain was fascinated with science and scientific inquiry. He developed a close and lasting friendship with Nikola Tesla , and the two spent much time together in Tesla's laboratory. Twain patented three inventions, including an "Improvement in Adjustable and Detachable Straps for Garments" (to replace suspenders ) and a history trivia game. Most commercially successful

5537-622: The Hudson River Valley and extend toward Massachusetts, Vermont, and Connecticut. To the west, the ridge of Sieghenburgh drops off abruptly, offering a view of the Hudson River through a series of native trees planted by Frederic Church in the nineteenth century. West of the Hudson River the eastern range of the Catskill Mountains can be viewed. To the southwest and south the terrain descends to Quarry Hill directing

5650-531: The Hudson Valley. The Church estate covers a series of small knolls rising up to the Sienghenbergh – Dutch for "Long Hill" – where the main house is sited. From various points around the property, one has views of the Hudson River, the Catskill, Taconic and Berkshire Mountain ranges, as well as New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont. In 1860, Frederic Church made his initial acquisition of

5763-668: The Olana Viewshed. In 1977, The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Power Authority of the State of New York held hearings on siting a nuclear power plant in Cementon , south of Catskill and in the Olana Viewshed. The proposed cooling tower would have reached 250 feet in diameter at its highest point discharging a heavy plume and obscuring views of the Catskill Mountains from several locations, including Olana. A painting of

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5876-639: The Ottawa visit had been to secure Canadian and British copyrights for Life on the Mississippi . Publishers in Toronto had printed unauthorized editions of Twain's books at the time, before an international copyright agreement was established in 1891. These were sold in the United States as well as in Canada, depriving him of royalties. Twain estimated that Belford Brothers' edition of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer alone had cost him $ 10,000 (equivalent to $ 340,000 in 2023). He had unsuccessfully attempted to secure

5989-636: The Pacific Ocean. Twain's scheduled lecture in Honolulu , Hawaii, had to be canceled due to a cholera epidemic. Twain went on to Fiji , Australia, New Zealand, Sri Lanka , India, Mauritius , and South Africa. His three months in India became the centerpiece of his 712-page book Following the Equator . In the second half of July 1896, Twain sailed back to England, completing his circumnavigation of

6102-537: The Southern United States, plantation museums (the former homes of enslavers) constitute a significant portion of the museum community and contribute to the racialized collective memory of the United States. Because museums are responsible for "the building of identity, cultural memory and community", neglecting to include the narrative of all people who lived there is dangerous. While some plantation museum narratives have changed following an outcry from

6215-419: The actual structure belongs to the museum collection as a historical object. While some historic home museums are fortunate to possess a collection containing many of the original furnishings once present in the home, many face the challenge of displaying a collection consistent with the historical structure. Some museums choose to collect pieces original to the period, while not original to the house. Others, fill

6328-484: The age of 19 months. They had three daughters: Susy (1872–1896), Clara (1874–1962), and Jean (1880–1909). The Clemenses formed a friendship with David Gray, who worked as an editor of the rival Buffalo Courier , and his wife Martha. Twain later wrote that the Grays were " 'all the solace' he and Livy had during their 'sorrowful and pathetic brief sojourn in Buffalo ' ", and that Gray's "delicate gift for poetry"

6441-570: The architecture they had seen on their travels in Beirut, Jerusalem and Damascus in 1868. Upon their return to their farm, they abandoned preliminary plans from Richard Morris Hunt delineating a manor house in the French style. Instead, Church worked closely with architect Calvert Vaux to realize a more personal vision. Church was responsible for the overall design and much of the detail, with Vaux's involvement essentially that of consultant. Church wrote to

6554-477: The banks of the Hudson River. In 2001, Riverkeeper and a broad environmental coalition, including Olana, petitioned for consulting party status in a New York State Department of Environmental Conservation permit hearing for the proposed project. On April 24, 2005, after severe protest from the Hudson Valley community and environmentalists, St. Lawrence Cement abandoned the Greenport project Since 1992 Scenic Hudson and its conservation partners have contributed to

6667-401: The concept of " open-air museums " became prominent. These particular types of museums had interpreters in costume re-enact the lives of communities in earlier eras, which would then be performed to modern audiences. They often occupied large wooden architecture buildings or outdoor sites and landscapes, that were true to the era, adding to authenticity. Collective memory is sometimes used in

6780-426: The day throughout the year and the original carriage roads are accessible. Organized tours of the residence are generally available Tuesday through Sunday, and holiday Mondays, from April to October. From November to March, tours are conducted Friday through Sunday. Reservations for house tours are recommended. Photography is permitted anywhere on the grounds, including the interior of the house. The Hudson River Skywalk,

6893-428: The diplomat Charlemagne Tower, Jr. He delivered the speech " Die Schrecken der Deutschen Sprache " ("The Horrors of the German Language")—in German—to the great amusement of the audience. In 1901, Twain was invited to speak at Princeton University 's Cliosophic Literary Society , where he was made an honorary member. In 1881, Twain was honored at a banquet in Montreal , Canada where he made reference to securing

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7006-867: The dwindling income and moved to Europe in June 1891. William M. Laffan of The New York Sun and the McClure Newspaper Syndicate offered him the publication of a series of six European letters. Twain, Olivia, and their daughter Susy were all faced with health problems, and they believed that it would be of benefit to visit European baths. The family stayed mainly in France, Germany, and Italy until May 1895, with longer spells at Berlin (winter 1891–92), Florence (fall and winter 1892–93), and Paris (winters and springs 1893–94 and 1894–95). During that period, Twain returned to New York four times due to his enduring business troubles. Twain rented "a cheap room" in September 1893 at $ 1.50 per day (equivalent to $ 51 in 2023) at The Players Club , which he had to keep until March 1894; meanwhile, Twain became "the Belle of New York," in

7119-467: The establishment of the country's first historic site in 1850, Washington's Revolutionary headquarters in New York, Americans have found a penchant for preserving similar historical structures. The establishment of historic house museums increased in popularity through the 1970s and 1980s, as the Revolutionary War's bicentennial set off a wave of patriotism and alerted Americans to the destruction of their physical heritage. The tradition of restoring homes of

7232-452: The evenings, finding wider information than at a conventional school. Twain describes his boyhood in Life on the Mississippi , stating that "there was but one permanent ambition" among his comrades: to be a steamboatman. "Pilot was the grandest position of all. The pilot, even in those days of trivial wages, had a princely salary – from a hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty dollars a month, and no board to pay." As Twain described it,

7345-442: The eye three miles away toward Inbocht Bay. To the southeast and east Blue Hill rises in the distance. In 1876 a New York journalist reported "There are no finer views in the world than he can command from his windows." Church spent over thirty years meticulously designing the landscape—including the excavation of an artificial lake in 1873 to mirror the Hudson and add balance to the viewshed—meanwhile producing dozens of oil sketches of

7458-536: The former carriage house, and an upstairs bedroom has been converted into the Evelyn and Maurice Sharp Gallery, which shows changing exhibitions of artwork drawn mainly from the archival collections. The site was closed during the 2006 season for extensive renovation. Stencils on the walls were stabilized and new carpeting was laid in the Court Hall. Curators and conservators performed rehabilitation work on furniture, upholstery and textiles. Fire safety and climate-control systems were improved. Commissioner Carol Ash said at

7571-451: The geography of the ancient Middle East, and shortly thereafter the couple began calling their property "Olana". Church continuously improved the property, plotting scenic carriage roads and adding a studio wing to the house over the period 1888–1891. Although the Churches often wintered in warmer climates, and spent time in New York City , Olana was their main residence. After Isabel Church's death in 1899 and Frederic Church's death in 1900,

7684-506: The home with replicas of the original pieces, reconstructed with the help of historic records. Still other museums adopt a more aesthetic approach and use the homes to display the architecture and artistic objects. Because historic homes have often existed through different generations and have been passed on from one family to another, volunteers and professionals also must decide which historical narrative to tell their visitors. Some museums grapple with this issue by displaying different eras in

7797-486: The home's history within different rooms or sections of the structure. Others choose one particular narrative, usually the one deemed most historically significant, and restore the home to that particular period. There are a number of organizations around the world that dedicate themselves to the preservation, restoration, or promotion of historic house museums. They include: Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by

7910-434: The issue in his speeches, interviews, and writings. In January 1901, Twain began serving as vice-president of the Anti-Imperialist League of New York. Twain was in great demand as a featured speaker, performing solo humorous talks similar to modern stand-up comedy. He gave paid talks to many men's clubs, including the Authors' Club , Beefsteak Club , Vagabonds, White Friars , and Monday Evening Club of Hartford. In

8023-417: The late 1890s, Twain spoke to the Savage Club in London and was elected an honorary member. He was told that only three men had been so honored, including the Prince of Wales , and Twain replied: "Well, it must make the Prince feel mighty fine." He visited Melbourne and Sydney in 1895 as part of a world lecture tour. In 1897, Twain spoke to the Concordia Press Club in Vienna as a special guest, following

8136-470: The lives of everyday people. Historic house museums usually operate with small staffs and on limited budgets. Many are run entirely by volunteers and often do not meet the professional standards established by the museum industry. An independent survey conducted by Peggy Coats in 1990 revealed that sixty-five percent of historic house museums did not have a full-time staff, and 19 to 27 percent of historic homes employed only one full-time employee. Furthermore,

8249-663: The main house. With the onset of rheumatism in the 1870s, Church's painting became severely curtailed. Increasingly, he turned his attention to Olana itself, improving the landscape, buying artwork for the house, and building the studio wing. Olana was one of several grand artist's homes in the Hudson River valley, comparable to Albert Bierstadt 's Malkasten in Irvington (destroyed by fire in 1882) and Jasper Francis Cropsey 's Ever Rest , in Hastings-on-Hudson . The Olana Viewshed comprises panoramic views that begin in

8362-587: The majesty of nature. For the artist and his contemporaries, this vista also captured the essence of their new nation with references to pioneering history, present economic strength, and the distinguished literary and artistic legacies of the region's Knickerbocker Group and Hudson River School. The stone, brick, and polychrome-stenciled villa at Olana is an unusual mixture of Victorian structural elements and Middle-Eastern decorative motifs from different times and places. Moorish elements mix with contrasting Italianate themes. Frederic and Isabel Church were impressed by

8475-440: The majority of these museums operated on less than $ 50,000 annually. The survey also revealed a significant disparity in the number of visitors between local house museums and national sites. While museums like Mount Vernon and Colonial Williamsburg were visited by over one million tourists a year, more than fifty percent of historic house museums received fewer than 5,000 visitors per year. These museums are also unique in that

8588-478: The past and designating them as museums draws on the English custom of preserving ancient buildings and monuments. Initially homes were considered worthy of saving because of their associations with important individuals, usually of the elite classes, like former presidents, authors, or businessmen. Increasingly, Americans have fought to preserve structures characteristic of a more typical American past that represents

8701-604: The pen name Mark Twain , was an American writer, humorist , and essayist. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," with William Faulkner calling him "the father of American literature ." Twain's novels include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), with the latter often called the " Great American Novel ." He also wrote A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889) and Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894) and cowrote The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873) with Charles Dudley Warner . Twain

8814-404: The pilot's prestige exceeded that of the captain. The pilot had to "get up a warm personal acquaintanceship with every old snag and one-limbed cottonwood and every obscure wood pile that ornaments the banks of this river for twelve hundred miles; and more than that, must... actually know where these things are in the dark". Steamboat pilot Horace E. Bixby took Twain on as a cub pilot to teach him

8927-504: The property that was to become Olana. He was then a student of Thomas Cole , now considered a founding figure of the Hudson River School of painters. On March 31, 1860, a few months before his marriage to Isabel Carnes, Church returned to purchase a 126-acre (51 ha) hardscrabble farm on a south-facing slope of a hill in Columbia County, near the thriving towns of Hudson and Catskill, New York . The first element he added to

9040-500: The property was a small country cottage, believed to have been designed by Richard Morris Hunt . In addition, Church laid out gardens and orchards, dredged a marsh to create a 10-acre (4.0 ha) lake, planted trees, and built a studio . Frederic and Isabel Church called their house "Cosy Cottage" and their property "the Farm". Two children were born to the Churches, a son in 1862 and a daughter in 1865. The family's bucolic life at Olana

9153-466: The property was inherited by their son Louis Church, who married Sarah Baker Good (known as Sally) in 1901. Louis and Sally Church maintained the property largely as it had been left to them, adding additional acreage for farming. Upon Sally Church's death in 1964, a nephew inherited the estate and intended to sell it to developers at a public auction. After a two-year anti-development campaign led by scholar David C. Huntington (1922–1990), which culminated in

9266-554: The protection of more than 2,400 acres in the Olana Viewshed. In 2015, a conservation easement protected views from Letterbox Farm Collective, a farm nearby. Olana is managed by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, with support from the Olana Partnership. Both work to restore Olana to its 1890s appearance. A large museum and archive, part of the original Church property,

9379-399: The public and the academy, "plantation museums reflect, create, and contribute to racialized ways of understanding and organizing the world" by limiting or eliminating the narrative of the enslaved inhabitants. A degree of authenticity is also to be considered in the restoration and creation of a historic house museum. The space must be authentic in terms of truly replicating and representing

9492-465: The re-opening in May 2007, "The installation of new state-of-the-art equipment underscores the commitment of New York State to protect this remarkable historic landmark, and we look forward to once again showcasing the unique collections and extraordinary landscapes of one of our most important cultural resources." The former wagon house in the barn complex now houses educational programs. Future plans include

9605-510: The results: "The ensemble is breathtaking, and despite the proliferation of architectural elements and polychrome tile decoration, it is not busy but solemn and wildly fanciful, like Church's painting." Church designed or commissioned many other devices, such as amber glass windows overlaid by cut-paper patterns and carved teak woodwork by Lockwood de Forest's workshops in Ahmadabad, India. With no architectural adviser, Church designed and built

9718-434: The resurrection of historic house museums; however, not all historic house museums use this approach. The notion of collective memory originated from philosopher and sociologist Maurice Halbwachs , in "La Memoire Collective" ("On Collective Memory", 1950). This extended thesis examines the role of people and place, and how collective memory is not only associated with the individual but is a shared experience. It also focused on

9831-519: The rights for The Prince and the Pauper in 1881, in conjunction with his Montreal trip. Eventually, Twain received legal advice to register a copyright in Canada (for both Canada and Britain) prior to publishing in the United States, which would restrain the Canadian publishers from printing a version when the American edition was published. There was a requirement that a copyright be registered to

9944-417: The river between New Orleans and St. Louis for $ 500 (equivalent to $ 18,000 in 2023), payable out of Twain's first wages after graduating. Twain studied the Mississippi, learning its landmarks, how to navigate its currents effectively, and how to read the river and its constantly shifting channels, reefs, submerged snags, and rocks that would "tear the life out of the strongest vessel that ever floated". It

10057-438: The separate sections of the structure were each ornamented with multi-colored and gilt stenciling, the patterns designed by Church himself. The stenciling continued in the principle rooms of the first floor. Together, the various motifs and themes create a unique artistic unity, one that is difficult to categorize. It has been called variously Persian-Moorish-Eclectic, and Italianate-Eastern-Picturesque. Poet John Ashbery described

10170-478: The sketches and paintings that Church displayed at Olana, ones he either kept outright or reacquired, were key to understanding the painter's personal values. Huntington supposed that the name "Olana" was a corruption of an ancient language—an article to that effect had been published in the 1890s in the Boston Herald and believed for many decades. In 1966, Huntington re-established this story, writing that

10283-440: The south view of Olana by Frederic Church was used in the hearings as evidence to support the cultural and historical significance of the Olana Viewshed. In 1979 the Power Authority of the State of New York announced that it was abandoning plans for the proposed Cementon nuclear power plant. On September 14, 1998, St. Lawrence Cement announced plans for a 2.2 million ton coal-fired cement plant in Hudson and Greenport, New York, near

10396-552: The studio wing at the west end of the house, which included guest rooms and a glassed-in observation room in the tower. Describing his house to a newspaper reporter, Church characterized it as "Persian, adapted to the Occident". The furnishings Frederic and Isabel acquired over the course of their lives remain in the house. There are paintings by Frederic Church as well as artwork by his mentor Thomas Cole and friends Martin Johnson Heade and Erastus Dow Palmer. The dining room houses

10509-605: The studio." Today Olana is known as one of the most important surviving Picturesque landscapes in the United States. Produced during the same period with the same aesthetic and ideological motivations, the landscape at Olana has been compared to Central Park, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux. Church began the physical landscape design at Olana by searching three years for the ideal property. He had walked and sketched throughout much of New England and elsewhere by that time, but his formative two years studying with Thomas Cole in nearby Catskill, New York, brought him back to

10622-493: The theatre and to play games. Twain wrote in 1908 that the club was his "life's chief delight". In 1907, he met Dorothy Quick (then age 11) on a transatlantic crossing, beginning "a friendship that was to last until the very day of his death". Twain was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters (D.Litt.) by Yale University in 1901 and a Doctor of Law by the University of Missouri in 1902. Oxford University awarded him

10735-403: The top of the hill where the main house at Olana now stands. To conceal, reveal and frame vistas of his own property and the wider Hudson Valley, Church combined natural landforms with the careful layout of carriage drives and extensive plantings of trees and shrubs. Frederick Law Olmsted thought of such landscapes as "pictures" through which people might wander. In addition to entertaining often,

10848-399: The view from Olana. The property on Long Hill was purchased by Church because of its grand views: "To his skeptical father (who was financing the purchase), Church argued that the lot was important in 'securing fine openings for the views.'" After Frederic Church's lifetime, the Olana Partnership has been pivotal in discouraging the production of two industrial projects that would have impeded

10961-404: The wake of these financial setbacks, but in time overcame his financial troubles with the help of Standard Oil executive Henry Huttleston Rogers . Twain eventually paid all his creditors in full, even though his declaration of bankruptcy meant he was not required to do so. Twain was born shortly after an appearance of Halley's Comet , and predicted that his death would accompany it as well, dying

11074-557: The way individual memory is influenced by social structures, as a way of continuing socialisation by producing memory as collective experience. An example of a site that utilizes collective memory is the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park in Japan. It was restored and is based on the dialectics of memory, however it also has the inclusion of joyous festivals to mask the turmoil. The Hiroshima Traces (1999) text takes

11187-413: The way it once stood in its original form and appear to be untouched and left in time. There are three steps when declaring if a space is authentic: The earliest projects for preserving historic homes began in the 1850s under the direction of individuals concerned with the public good and the preservation of American history, especially centered on the first U.S. president, General George Washington. Since

11300-704: The words of biographer Albert Bigelow Paine . Twain's writings and lectures enabled him to recover financially, combined with the help of his friend Henry Huttleston Rogers . In 1893, Twain began a friendship with the financier, a principal of Standard Oil , that lasted the remainder of his life. Rogers first made Twain file for bankruptcy in April 1894, then had him transfer the copyrights on his written works to his wife to prevent creditors from gaining possession of them. Finally, Rogers took absolute charge of Twain's money until all his creditors were paid. Twain accepted an offer from Robert Sparrow Smythe and embarked on

11413-590: The world begun 14 months before. Twain and his family spent four more years in Europe, mainly in England and Austria (October 1897 to May 1899), with longer spells in London and Vienna . Clara had wished to study the piano under Theodor Leschetizky in Vienna. However, Jean's health did not benefit from consulting with specialists in Vienna, the "City of Doctors". The family moved to London in spring 1899, following

11526-428: Was a self-pasting scrapbook; a dried adhesive on the pages needed only to be moistened before use. More than 25,000 were sold. Twain was an early proponent of fingerprinting as a forensic technique, featuring it in a tall tale in Life on the Mississippi (1883) and as a central plot element in the novel Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894). Twain's novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889) features

11639-644: Was an early member of the Society for Psychical Research . Twain was guilt-stricken and held himself responsible for the rest of his life. Twain continued to work on the river and was a river pilot until the Civil War broke out in 1861, when traffic was curtailed along the Mississippi River. At the start of hostilities, he enlisted briefly in a local Confederate unit, the Marion Rangers as

11752-646: Was at the Brick Presbyterian Church on Fifth Avenue, New York. He is buried in his wife's family plot at Woodlawn Cemetery in Elmira, New York . The Langdon family plot is marked by a 12-foot monument (two fathoms, or "mark twain") placed there by Twain's surviving daughter Clara. There is also a smaller headstone. He expressed a preference for cremation (for example, in Life on the Mississippi ), but he acknowledged that his surviving family would have

11865-648: Was available there. In mid-1900, Twain was the guest of newspaper proprietor Hugh Gilzean-Reid at Dollis Hill House , located on the north side of London. Twain wrote that he had "never seen any place that was so satisfactorily situated, with its noble trees and stretch of country, and everything that went to make life delightful, and all within a biscuit's throw of the metropolis of the world." Twain then returned to America in October 1900, having earned enough to pay off his debts. In winter 1900/01, Twain became his country's most prominent opponent of imperialism , raising

11978-617: Was eerily accurate; he died of a heart attack on April 21, 1910, in Stormfield , one month before the comet passed Earth that year. Upon hearing of Twain's death, President William Howard Taft said: Mark Twain gave pleasure – real intellectual enjoyment – to millions, and his works will continue to give such pleasure to millions yet to come … His humor was American, but he was nearly as much appreciated by Englishmen and people of other countries as by his own countrymen. He has made an enduring part of American literature . Twain's funeral

12091-578: Was forever changed in March 1865, with the deaths of the children from diphtheria . Grieving from this, the greatest emotional blow of their lives, the parents traveled with sympathetic friends to Jamaica for four months, then to a retreat in Vermont. Late in 1865, the couple returned to Cosy Cottage to start anew. Frederic Joseph Church was born in autumn 1866, the first of three sons and a daughter that were raised to adulthood at Olana. In 1867 Church acquired

12204-521: Was more than two years before he received his pilot's license. Piloting also gave Twain his pen name from " mark twain ", the leadsman's cry for a measured river depth of two fathoms (12 feet), which was safe water for a steamboat. As a young pilot, Clemens served on the steamer A. B. Chambers with Grant Marsh , who became famous for his exploits as a steamboat captain on the Missouri River. The two liked and admired each other, and maintained

12317-416: Was of English and Scots-Irish descent. Only three of his siblings lived beyond childhood: Orion (1825–1897), Pamela (1827–1904), and Henry (1838–1858). His brother Pleasant Hannibal (1828) died at three weeks of age, his sister Margaret (1830–1839) died when Twain was three, and his brother Benjamin (1832–1842) died three years later. When he was four, Twain's family moved to Hannibal, Missouri ,

12430-703: Was on this trip that Twain met fellow passenger Charles Langdon, who showed him a picture of his sister Olivia . Twain later claimed to have fallen in love at first sight . Upon returning to the United States, Twain was offered honorary membership in Yale University 's secret society Scroll and Key in 1868. Twain and Olivia Langdon corresponded throughout 1868. She rejected his first marriage proposal, but Twain continued to court her and managed to overcome her father's initial reluctance. They were married in Elmira, New York in February 1870. She came from

12543-717: Was raised in Hannibal, Missouri , which later provided the setting for both Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn . He served an apprenticeship with a printer early in his career, and then worked as a typesetter, contributing articles to his older brother Orion Clemens ' newspaper. Twain then became a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River , which provided him the material for Life on the Mississippi (1883). Soon after, Twain headed west to join Orion in Nevada . He referred humorously to his lack of success at mining, turning to journalism for

12656-545: Was rendered obsolete by the Linotype . He lost the bulk of his book profits, as well as a substantial portion of his wife's inheritance. Twain also lost money through his publishing house, Charles L. Webster and Company , which enjoyed initial success selling the memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant but failed soon afterward, losing money on a biography of Pope Leo XIII . Fewer than 200 copies were sold. Twain and his family closed down their expensive Hartford home in response to

12769-413: Was wasted working for a newspaper. Starting in 1873, Twain moved his family to Hartford, Connecticut , where he arranged the building of a home next door to Stowe. In the 1870s and 1880s, the family summered at Quarry Farm in Elmira, the home of Olivia's sister, Susan Crane. In 1874, Susan had a study built, an octagonal gazebo, apart from the main house as a surprise to Twain so that he would have

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