Astounding accomplishment, Scott. Thank you! Miki On Sat, Aug 27, 2022 at 1:45 PM Scott Holmes <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > For those who might be interested: I have been parsing David Fears' Day > By Day, as published by the Center for Mark Twain Studies, for inclusion > in my Twain's Geography web site. I had made a number of attempts at > providing a time-line of Mark Twain's travels but was always > dissatisfied with the results. Day By Day provides a ready made > time-line provided by the years of work put in by David Fears. Most of > the material does not relate to geographic issues but significant > nuggets are found throughout. > > Twain’s Geography began as an attempt to create an on-line course in > American History based on Twain’s 1895 tour across North America. He > wrote next-to-nothing on this but treated it as a mere prelude to his > book “Following the Equator”. Fortunately Major Pond kept a journal and > took photographs of the journey. As Olivia accompanied him, Sam wrote no > letters home to her. This section of Twain’s Geography remains the most > complete section of the site. > > Another journey taken by Sam Clemens (he was not yet Mark Twain) > occurred in 1861 when he and his brother, Orion, traveled from St. > Joseph, Missouri to Carson City in the Nevada Territory. Previous to my > invention of Twain’s Geography, I was interested in his journey across > the Great Basin, Salt Lake City to Carson City. Again there is little in > the way of geographic information from Mark Twain, as related in his > book “Roughing It”. Fortunately Richard Francis Burton had made the same > journey just the year before and was prolific in describing the landscape. > > There was a third journey made by Mark Twain that picqued my interest > before creating Twain’s Geography and that was his lecture tour with > George Washington Cable in 1884 and 1885. It was while plotting this > tour that I first became aware of David Fears’ “Day By Day” and he was > gracious enough to send me pdfs of pertinent sections from his work in > progress. > > I have since gone on to attempt tracking all of Mark Twain’s travels, > based on his books, not in terms of chronology but geography. This > resulted in the site being difficult to follow,Eurocentric readers > generally prefer a chronological foundation. As a result, Twain’s > Geography is now organized firstly by distinct periods in the life of > Samuel L. Clemens. These periods (which I refer to as “Epochs”) are > perhaps a bit arbitrary but I think they serve the purpose. Epochs > consist of sub-divisions, referred to as “Episodes”, which in turn > contain “Chapters”. > > Twain’s Geography is not a project about Mark Twain. Mark Twain serves > as my Virgil in a tour through the purgatory of the industrialization of > North America and indeed most of the English-speaking world. “Day By > Day” has been my best source for determining the “where and when” of > Twain’s travels. My single biggest problem searching for information was > identifying the year a particular entry occurred in. Of secondary > importance, and to me minor, is the issue of strange formatting in many > places. It became necessary for me to download pages from the Day By Day > web site and create separate files for each year of interest. From here > it was a simple decision to incorporate the Day By Day entries into the > Twain’s Geography site. > > I had not initially intended to include all the Day By Day entries, but > only those I had found of interest. This proved unsatisfactory as I > often hoped for details that I might have over-looked. As of this date I > am still far from a complete parsing of the Day By Day document but > there is quite a bit currently available. The menu bar on Twain’s > Geography contains a Day By Day option. This option provides a method > for searching by date range. Also, each of the major sections of Twain’s > Geography: Epochs, Episodes and Chapters, have an option for selecting > the Day By Day entries significant to that section. > > At this time there are two significant departures from the Twain > mythology found in the Day By Day entries. Both are long accepted events > in Twain’s history. The first is Sam Clemens returning to St. Louis from > New York in 1854. He could not have taken a train the entire route as > there were no trains in St. Louis at this time. But I have no clue as to > what Sam actually did on this journey. The second involves a now well > researched idea that Sam Clemens did travel to St. Joseph, Missouri with > Horace Bixby during his time as a cub pilot. > > I have included an input field for each of my Day By Day entries, > referred to as an Editorial Note, to allow for commentary about the > entry. I don’t consider myself as an authority on Mark Twain so I am > reluctant to include input here but leave it for any feedback I get from > those scholars that choose to comment. This field is open only to > registered editors for the site. > > There is another new form provided for all the major segments of the > site and this is open to anonymous uers. Its requirements are that > Javascript must be enabled on their browers and that they be willing to > identify themselves with an acceptable email address. > > I do wish I was more knowledgeable about the events and their causations > of Mark Twain’s lifetime, so that I could adequately compose some > synthesis and analysis of these phenomena. I do attempt this on occasion > but Twain’s Geography remains, for the most part, a “card catalogue” of > references and a gazetteer of locations. > > -- > /Unaffiliated Geographer and Twain aficionado/ > /https://twainsgeography.com > / > -- Miki Pfeffer, Ph D *A** New Orlean**s Author i**n Mark Twain's Court: * *Letters from Grace King's New England Sojourns * (LSU Press, 2019) *Southern Ladies and Suffragists: Julia Ward Howe and Women's Rights at the 1884 New Orleans World's Fair *(University Press of Mississippi, 2014)