How Not to Get Rich

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How Not to Get Rich Page 20

by Alan Pell Crawford


  Twain’s impatience with, 120, 142, 143, 144–45

  Twain’s introduction to, 115–16

  Paige Compositor

  in competition, 162, 163, 164–65

  description and promise of, 116–18

  failure of, 165–66, 168, 169, 193–94

  investors sought for, 115–16, 149

  publishing profits pumped into, 136, 142, 155

  Rogers and, 156–58

  slow progress on, 120–24, 142–46

  Twain’s investments in, 118–20, 142–43, 159, 160–61

  Paine, Albert Bigelow, 11, 16, 41, 82, 110, 119, 130, 192

  Panic of 1873, 93

  Panic of 1893, 140, 159, 167

  Paul Jones (steamboat), 15, 19–21

  perpetual calendar, 110

  personal brand, 190–91

  Personal Memoirs of P. H. Sheridan (Sheridan), 134

  Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant (Grant), 1–2, 110, 111–13, 114, 123, 125, 126–27, 134, 137

  Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc (Twain), 165, 168, 173

  Plasmon, 179–81, 183–85, 189, 191–92

  Porras, Jerry, 13–14

  Powers, Ron, 12, 42, 82–83, 105, 151

  Prince and the Pauper, The (Twain), 103, 104

  Q

  Quaker City (paddle-wheeler), 60–62, 63, 83, 130–31

  Quarry Farm, 75, 81, 106

  R

  railroads, 7, 23, 24, 86, 185

  Rasmussen, R. Kent, 8

  Redding, Connecticut, 188–89

  Rice, Clarence, 151–52

  Richards, Charles B., 92

  Riley, John, 68–70

  Rockefeller, John D., 4, 28, 144, 152

  Rockefeller, William, 152

  Rogers, Henry Huttleston

  life and financial success of, 152–53

  Paige Compositor failure and, 164–66

  Twain’s communications with, 163–64, 167, 174, 175–76, 179–80, 181, 182–84, 185

  Twain’s financial assistance from, 152, 153, 155–62, 171, 173, 189, 191

  Twain’s friendship with, 168–69

  Twain’s introduction to, 151–52

  Roughing It (Twain), 31–32, 41, 43, 47, 69, 81

  S

  Sacramento Union, 55–56, 58

  Salt Lake City, Utah, 29

  San Francisco, California, 54

  San Francisco Alta, 60

  Santa Monica, California, 86

  Saturday Press, 57

  Schmidt, William, 135

  Schumpeter, Joseph, 117

  Scott, Frank, 132–34

  Self-Pasting Scrap Book, 82, 83, 95, 99

  Sheridan, P. H., 134

  Sherman, W. T., 134

  silver fever, 35

  Slote, Dan, 83–84, 91, 95–100

  Sneider, Charles, 96–100

  South African diamond strike and expedition, 67–70

  spiral pin, 110

  Standard Oil, 152, 155, 182

  Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, 131

  steam, 92–93

  steamboats, 7, 15, 19–25, 26, 27, 105

  St. James Hotel, 87–88

  St. Louis, Missouri, 25, 27

  Stormfield, 188–89

  Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 78, 131

  St. Paul, Minnesota, 100–101

  Studebaker, Clement, 29

  subscription book business, 61, 77–78, 104, 134, 135–36

  Szczepanik, Jan, 181–83

  T

  Tarbell, Ida, 152–53

  telephone, 88–90

  Tennessee, property in, 6, 7, 8, 21, 30, 40, 43, 46, 49, 58–59, 65, 94–95, 100, 195

  Territorial Enterprise, 51–54, 55

  Tiffany, Louis Comfort, 79

  Tocqueville, Alexis de, 7

  Tom Sawyer, Detective (Twain), 173

  Tom Sawyer Abroad (Twain), 173

  Tragedy of Puddin’head Wilson, The (Twain), 173

  Tramp Abroad, A (Twain), 94, 95

  Trombley, Laura Skandera, 191

  Twain, Mark

  birth and early life of, 3–13

  books and writings of, 2–3, 8–9, 16, 146, 150, 160, 189, 191

  Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The, 105–6, 107, 110, 113–14, 123, 125, 192

  Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The, 81–82, 167

  American Claimant, The, 140–41

  autobiography, 22–23, 40, 41, 192

  Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County and Other Sketches, The, 57–58

  Colonel Sellers (play), 82

  Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, A, 122, 135

  Following the Equator, 173, 174

  Gilded Age, The, 3, 81, 82

  Innocents Abroad, The, 60–62, 67, 70, 81, 104, 173

  Life on the Mississippi, 100, 104

  Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, 165, 168, 173

  Prince and the Pauper, The, 103, 104

  Roughing It, 31–32, 41, 43, 47, 69, 81

  for Sacramento Union, 55–56, 58, 59–60

  for Territorial Enterprise, 51–54

  Tom Sawyer, Detective, 173

  Tom Sawyer Abroad, 173

  Tragedy of Puddin’head Wilson, The, 173

  Tramp Abroad, A, 94, 95

  travel pieces, 59–62, 141, 173

  children of, 67, 81, 108, 171, 173, 174, 177, 188–89, 192

  death of, 189, 191–92

  goals of, 8–9, 14–16, 22, 44–46

  health of, 140–41, 160, 163–64, 173, 179–80, 187–88

  as insurance underwriter, 85–87

  inventions of, 9, 72–75, 82–84, 95, 99, 106–10

  as investor, 87–88, 91–93, 95–100, 110–11, 115–24, 181–85, 189, 193 (see also Paige Compositor)

  as laborer in quartz mill, 39–41

  as lecturer, 60, 91, 151, 160, 190–91 (see also world tour)

  marriage of, 62, 63–66, 67 (see also Clemens, Olivia Langdon)

  move out West, 28–33

  products based on, 111, 189–90

  as prospector and speculator, 35–39, 41–42, 43–50, 55–56

  as publisher, 1–2, 3, 9, 104–7, 111–14, 125–37, 139–41, 194

  as steamboat pilot, 19–25, 105

  Twichell, Joseph, 78, 131

  typesetting machines, 115–16, 162, 163, 164–65. See also Linotype machine; Paige Compositor

  U

  Ury, William, 20

  V

  Vaporizer, 92–93

  Virginia City, Nevada, 51–54, 91

  W

  Walter, William Thompson, 135

  Wanamaker, John, 29

  Ward (Twain’s business partner), 14–15

  Warner, Charles Dudley, 78, 81

  watch, Mark Twain, and watch thieves, 110–11

  Watson, Tom, 14

  Wealthy 100, The, 153

  Webster, Charles. See also Charles L. Webster & Company

  as head of Webster & Company, 1, 104–6, 125–29, 131

  Kaolotype business and, 98–100

  Livy and, 103–4, 127, 128–29

  resignation of, 136–37

  Scott’s embezzlement and, 132–34

  Tennessee land and, 100–101

  Twain’s baby-bed clamp and, 108–9

  as Twain’s business manager, 103–4

  Twain’s game and, 107

  watch thieves and, 110, 111

  Webster, Samuel, 106, 109, 111, 128, 134

  Westinghouse, George, 71

  What Mark Twain Learned Me ’bout Public Speakin’ (Cunneen), 190

  Whitmore, Frank, 119, 121

  Wide West Mine, 42, 43

  Wilhelm II, Kaiser, 142

  Willis, Resa, 172, 176, 181

  Woodhull, Victoria, 131

  world tour, 171–74, 179, 189

  Z

  Zacks, Richard, 135–36, 161, 173–74, 176–77

  About the Author

  * * *

  ALAN PELL CRAWFORD is the author of Twilight at Monticello: The Final Years of Thoma
s Jefferson, Unwise Passions: The True Story of a Remarkable Woman and the First Great Scandal of Eighteenth-Century America, and Thunder on the Right: The “New Right” and the Politics of Resentment. His articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the Washington Post.

  Formerly a resident scholar at George Washington’s Mount Vernon and at the International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello, Crawford has spoken at Harvard University, the Cooper Union in New York, the Union League Club of New York City, and the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Executive Institute, among others.

  Crawford lives in Richmond, Virginia, with his wife, Sally Curran, an editor at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. They have two grown sons, Ned and Tim.

  Crawford’s band, the Ham Biscuits, is available for both public and private events.

  He can be reached at [email protected].

  Connect with HMH on Social Media

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  Footnotes

  The $74,000 Twain had invested in Webster & Company would come to about $1,830,000 in 2015, the most recent year for which such calculations are available. The investment of $175,000 in the Paige Compositor would be roughly $4 million. Twain’s monthly investment of $3,000 in the compositor would be about $74,000 now. Paige’s $7,000 annual salary would be approximately $173,000. The publishing company’s $30,000 debt to the Mount Morris Bank would be worth some $762,000, with Twain’s personal indebtedness of $6,000 worth $168,000.

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  The $5,000 owed to the Mount Morris Bank would be about $127,000 in today’s dollars. The same is true, obviously, for the money Livy had budgeted for the family’s living expenses. The $100,000 debt the Twain family carried would come to roughly $2.5 million in our own time. The $175,000 the publishing company owed the family is worth roughly $4 million. Hall had borrowed, in today’s currency, $366,000.

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