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*.