[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 154 (Tuesday, November 30, 2010)] [Senate] [Pages S8304-S8305] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] SUBMITTED RESOLUTIONS ______ 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. [[Page S8305]] ____________________