Samuel Langhorne Clemens – The Intelligent Collector Magazine

Here’s why I admire Helen Keller, Sir Christopher Wren, Mark Twain and Doctor Who

Peter Cushing starred in *Dr. Who and the Daleks*, a 1965 movie based on the TV series. A British “quad” poster for the film sold for $3,585 at a July 2017 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

Doctor Who was a popular sci-fi TV series in Britain that originally ran from 1963-89 on BBC. Myth has it that the first episode was delayed for 80 seconds due to an announcement of President Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas. We had the opportunity to watch a 1996 made-for-TV movie in London that co-starred Eric Roberts (Julia’s older brother). Alas, it failed to generate enough interest to revive the original Doctor Who series (at least until a new version was launched in 2005).

A 1982 episode from the first run of the show is still popular since the story claimed that aliens were responsible for the Great Fire of London of 1666 and mentioned Pudding Lane. Ever curious, I drove to Pudding Lane, a rather small London street, where Thomas Farriner’s bakery started the Great Fire on Sunday, Sept. 2, shortly after midnight, and then proceeded to rain terror down on one of the world’s great cities.

Pudding Lane also holds the distinction of being one of the first one-way streets in the world. Built in 1617 to alleviate congestion, it reminds one just how long Central London has been struggling with this issue that plagues every large city. Across from the bakery site is a famous landmark monument built in memory of the Great Fire. Not surprisingly, it was designed by the remarkable Sir Christopher Wren (1632-1723).

Wren is an acclaimed architect (perhaps the finest in history) who helped rebuild London with the help of King Charles II. This was no trivial task since 80 percent of the city was destroyed, including many churches, most public buildings and private homes … up to 80,000 people were rendered homeless. Even more shocking is that this disaster followed closely the Great Plague of 1665, when as many as 100,000 people died. A few experts have suggested that the 1666 fire and massive refurbishment helped the disease-ridden city by eliminating the vermin still infesting parts of London.

One of Wren’s more famous restorations is St. Paul’s Cathedral, perhaps the most famous and recognizable sight in London yet today. Many high-profile events have been held there, including the funerals of Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher, jubilee celebrations for Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II, and the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana … among many others.

Even Wren’s tomb is in St. Paul’s Cathedral. It is truly a magnificent sight to view Wren’s epitaph:

“Here in its foundations lies the architect of this church and city, Christopher Wren, who lived beyond ninety years, not for his own profit but for the public good. Reader, if you seek his monument – look around you. Died 25 Feb. 1723, age 91.”

In addition to Wren’s reputation as an architect, he was renowned for his astounding work as an astronomer, a co-founder of the elite Royal Society, where he discussed anything scientific with Sir Isaac Newton, Blaise Pascal, Robert Hooke and, importantly, Edmond Halley of comet fame. Halley’s Comet is the only known short-period comet that is regularly (75-76 years) visible to the naked eye. It last appeared in our solar system in 1986 and will return in mid-2061.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (aka Mark Twain) was born shortly after the appearance of Halley’s Comet in 1835 and predicted he “would go out with it.” He died the day after the comet made its closest approach to earth in 1910 … presumably to pick up another passenger. We all know about Twain, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. But far fewer know about his unique relationship with Helen Keller (1880-1968). She was a mere 14 when she met the world-famous Twain in 1894.

They became close friends and he arranged for her to go to Radcliffe College of Harvard University. She graduated in 1904 as the first deaf and blind person in the world to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. She learned to read English, French, Latin and German in braille. Her friend Twain called her “one of the two most remarkable people in the 19th century.” Curiously, the other candidate was Napoleon.

I share his admiration for Helen Keller.

Intelligent Collector blogger JIM O’NEAL is an avid collector and history buff. He is president and CEO of Frito-Lay International [retired] and earlier served as chair and CEO of PepsiCo Restaurants International [KFC Pizza Hut and Taco Bell].

Twain’s ‘Gilded Age’ in retrospect resembles a warning – comeuppance wrapped in satire

A signed presentation copy of *The Gilded Age* by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner sold for $5,750 at an October 2017 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

The Gilded Age was a fascinating time for millions of people. It is typically used as a metaphor for a period of time in Western history characterized by peace, economic prosperity and optimism. It is assumed to have started circa 1870 and extended until the horrors of World War I spread a plague of death, disease and destruction that consumed civilized nations and destroyed four empires.

In France, it was called La Belle Époque (Beautiful Era) dating from the end of the Franco-Prussian War (1871). In the United Kingdom, it overlapped the Victorian era, and in Spain the Restoration. In Australia, this period included several gold rushes that helped the “convict colonies” transform to semi-progressive cities. These are only a few of many examples.

Historian Robert Roswell Palmer (1909-2002) noted “European civilization achieved its greatest power in global politics, and also exerted its maximum influence upon people outside Europe.” R.R. Palmer was a remarkable and distinguished historian, educated in Chicago (taught at Princeton and Yale) who published A History of the Modern World in 1950. I believe it has been continually updated, the last time in 2013. Although I’ve never actually seen a copy, it gets high marks. At a reported 1,000 pages and weighing five pounds, it is not on any of my wish lists. (His wife once commented she felt sympathetic for his students having to lug it around!)

In the United States, the Gilded Age is considered to have started following the Panic of 1873. There were a number of contributing factors. Naturally, the post-Civil War era benefited from the cessation of mindless destruction in the Southern states. Then the extensive rebuilding boosted economic activity at the same time Western expansion to the Pacific Ocean created widespread urbanization.

With workers’ wages in the United States significantly higher than Europe, millions of immigrants were eager to join and this provided the manpower ingredient to natural-resource opportunities. It was a perfect fit – unlimited land, vast forests, rivers, lakes and unknown quantities of gold, silver and coal. We had fur-bearing animals, unlimited fish, millions of bison and weather that was moderate and dependable. In a 30-year period, real wages grew 60 percent as the silhouette of a new world power was taking shape. All without the tyranny that was so prevalent in the world.

Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens) actually coined the terminology in a novel co-authored by Charles Dudley Warner in 1873. Their book – The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today – was a typical Twain satire that captured the widespread social problems that were masked by a thin gold gilding. It also obscured the massive corruption and wealth creation of the perpetrators.

This was well before his better-known work The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), which described life on the Mississippi River. The sequel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), was even more popular. First published in England, it exposed the prevalence of racism and the frequent use of the “n” word. The U.S. publication in 1885 only fanned the flames of racial debate.

It was banned in many schools and libraries, remaining controversial during the entire 20th century. As late as 2016, both Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird were banned in a Virginia school. Of course, there was some irony in the fact that our first black president was serving his second term in office.

In fact, Twain’s Gilded Age was meant as a pejorative and didn’t really enter contemporary usage until the 1920s. But it was an apt description throughout the 1870s, until the late 1920s ushered in the crash of Wall Street. With the Union off the gold standard, credit was readily available and the U.S. monetary supply was far larger than before the war.

Northerners, largely insulated from the actual war, sensed the almost inevitability of an industrialize nation and railroads across the country like an iron spiderweb. The early days of the Gilded Age – before the name gained its truer historical meaning – were alive with the optimism and speculation on America’s potential. It was a great run and established America as the greatest country in the history of man.

Twain’s Gilded Age looks in retrospect like a prescient warning – comeuppance wrapped in satire. The Great Depression quickly evaporated the hopes and dreams of millions and then consigned them back to poverty pending another cycle of war followed by prosperity. Andrew Carnegie noted for posterity his opinion on wealth creation: “The proper policy was to put all eggs in one basket and then watch that basket.”

It is hard to draw lessons from these cycles if we consider the current federal government, the U.K. and their Brexit, Africa, most of Latin America, virtually the entire Middle East, and the possible outcome of Hong Kong-China. But we keep trying.

Twain’s Era Marked America’s Emergence on the World Stage

An 1876 first edition, first printing of Mark Twain’s *The Adventures of Tom Sawyer* sold for $13,750 at an August 2015 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

American writer and satirist Mark Twain was born on Nov. 30, 1835 – exactly two weeks after Halley’s Comet made its appearance. In his 1909 biography, he wrote, “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 died shortly after the comet returned.

Twain – real name Samuel Langhorne Clemens – co-wrote a novel with his friend Charles Dudley Warner titled The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today. It was the only time Twain wrote with a collaborator and it was supposedly the result of a dare from their wives. Whatever the truth, the novel lent its name to the post-Civil War period, which has become widely known as the Gilded Age. The novel skewered that era of American history because of the widespread corruption and materialistic greed of a few at the expense of the downtrodden masses.

From a purely economic standpoint, the period of 1870-90 was when the United States became the dominant economy in the world. For the majority of recorded history, China and India were the global powerhouses, with 70 percent of world GDP. Economic output, up until about 200 years ago, was largely driven by large populations of people. But with the industrial revolution, followed by the information revolution, the significance of mere huge populations declined. While Europe was going through its resurgence following the Dark Ages, the Asian superpowers were divided into small kingdoms fighting each other.

Factors contributing to the post-Civil War growth were primarily in the North as industrial expansion surged while the slave-labor system was abolished and cotton prices collapsed. New discoveries of coal in the Appalachian Mountains, oil in Pennsylvania, and iron ore around Lake Superior fueled the growth of the United States infrastructure. Railroad systems more than tripled from 1860 to 1880 – concurrent with the Transcontinental Railroad (1869) that linked remote areas with the large industrial hubs; along with commercial farming, ranching and mining. London and Paris poured money into U.S. railroads and American steel production surpassed the combination of Britain, Germany and France. Technology flourished with 500,000 patents issued for new inventions and Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla electrified the industrial world.

Capital investment increased by 500 percent and capital formation doubled. By 1890, the United States surpassed Britain for manufacturing output and by the beginning of the 20th century, per-capita income was double that of Germany or France and 50 percent higher than Great Britain.

Then, inexplicably, Europeans started a world war and 20 years later, both the European and Asian nations started another global conflict. The United States strategically entered both wars late, preserving our capital, military and human resources. Excluding a few ships here and there (e.g. Pearl Harbor), we kept 100 percent of our domestic infrastructure intact. Excluding 9/11, we have probably damaged more of our own cities in domestic protests and rioting than all foreign enemies combined in acts of war.

As Pogo wisely observed, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

Intelligent Collector blogger JIM O’NEAL is an avid collector and history buff. He is president and CEO of Frito-Lay International [retired] and earlier served as chair and CEO of PepsiCo Restaurants International [KFC Pizza Hut and Taco Bell].