That brought up an interesting point. Having an enquiring mind, I
checked in JSTOR, a major retrospective database of full-text journals.
The results confirm Penny's claim that the word racism was not used in
Twain's time. The first occurrence was in 1940. In that year alone,
JSTOR shows 22 occurrences of the word.

Terry Ballard
Quinnipiac College

From: PENNY
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Call for Papers
Date: Tuesday, June 29, 1999 2:18PM

Have a piece call "The Last of Her Race," which deals with Mark Twain
and the
aboriginies and, therefore, does deal with his ideas on "racism" -- a
word not
used in his time.  Let me know if you want to see it.  The research
concerns
Twain's writing in *Following*.