Mark Twain and His Times

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• Learn more about American history, biographies, literature, maps, research skills, and visual learners.

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This interpretive archive, drawn largely from the resources of the Barrett Collection, focuses on how “Mark Twain” and his works were created and defined, marketed and performed, reviewed and appreciated. The goal is to allow readers, scholars, students and teachers to see what Mark Twain and His Times said about each other, in a way that can speak to audiences today. The collection includes dozens of texts and manuscripts, scores of contemporary reviews and articles, hundreds of images, and many different kinds of interactive exhibits. This fluid site is both a permanent electronic archive and an evolving virtual exhibition. As an archive, it contains a growing number of searchable primary texts: of Mark Twain’s works, of contemporary reviews, of advertisements, and so on. As an ongoing experiment in ways of using the capabilities of computers to help people explore the meaning of a writer’s achievement, it contains several different kinds of interactive displays. The “Memory Builder Game” offers a fun way for students to test their historical knowledge of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.