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State Historical Marker #128 in [[Columbia, Kentucky]] notes the location of the childhood home of Clemens.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Jane Lampton Home Historical Marker |url=https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=83397 |access-date=2022-12-28 |website=www.hmdb.org |language=en}}</ref> Clemens is also the namesake of the Columbia chapter of the [[Daughters of the American Revolution]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Talbott |first=Tim |title=Jane Lampton House |url=https://explorekyhistory.ky.gov/items/show/217 |access-date=2022-12-28 |website=ExploreKYHistory |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":1" />
State Historical Marker #128 in [[Columbia, Kentucky]] notes the location of the childhood home of Clemens.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Jane Lampton Home Historical Marker |url=https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=83397 |access-date=2022-12-28 |website=www.hmdb.org |language=en}}</ref> Clemens is also the namesake of the Columbia chapter of the [[Daughters of the American Revolution]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Talbott |first=Tim |title=Jane Lampton House |url=https://explorekyhistory.ky.gov/items/show/217 |access-date=2022-12-28 |website=ExploreKYHistory |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":1" />


The influence of Clemens on her son Mark Twain's writings has been the subject of scholarly debate and analysis.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Parsons |first=Coleman O. |date=1947 |title=The Devil and Samuel Clemens |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26439648 |journal=The Virginia Quarterly Review |volume=23 |issue=4 |pages=582–606 |issn=0042-675X}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kisis |first=Michael J. |date=2012 |title=Because He Had Daughters |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41693896 |journal=The Mark Twain Annual |issue=10 |pages=24–34 |issn=1553-0981}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Scharnhorst |first=Gary |date=2010 |editor-last=Smith |editor-first=Harriet Elinor |title=Mark Twain and His Discontents |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26367284 |journal=Resources for American Literary Study |volume=35 |pages=345–351 |issn=0048-7384}}</ref> She has been described as the person from whom Mark Twain inherited his sense of humor and gift of storytelling.<ref name=":2" /><ref name=":3" /><ref>{{Cite web |last=Maranzani |first=Barbara |title=How Mark Twain’s Childhood Influenced His Literary Works |url=https://www.biography.com/news/mark-twain-early-life-facts |access-date=2022-12-28 |website=Biography |language=en-us}}</ref>
The influence of Clemens on her son Mark Twain's writings has been the subject of scholarly debate and analysis.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Parsons |first=Coleman O. |date=1947 |title=The Devil and Samuel Clemens |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26439648 |journal=The Virginia Quarterly Review |volume=23 |issue=4 |pages=582–606 |issn=0042-675X}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kisis |first=Michael J. |date=2012 |title=Because He Had Daughters |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41693896 |journal=The Mark Twain Annual |issue=10 |pages=24–34 |issn=1553-0981}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Scharnhorst |first=Gary |date=2010 |editor-last=Smith |editor-first=Harriet Elinor |title=Mark Twain and His Discontents |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26367284 |journal=Resources for American Literary Study |volume=35 |pages=345–351 |issn=0048-7384}}</ref> She has been described as the person from whom Twain inherited his sense of humor and gift of storytelling.<ref name=":2" /><ref name=":3" /><ref>{{Cite web |last=Maranzani |first=Barbara |title=How Mark Twain’s Childhood Influenced His Literary Works |url=https://www.biography.com/news/mark-twain-early-life-facts |access-date=2022-12-28 |website=Biography |language=en-us}}</ref>

Clemens' story is shared in the 2001 Ken Burns documentary ''[[Mark Twain (film)|Mark Twain]],'' and she is portrayed by a female voice actor in the series.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Episode One |url=https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/mark-twain/video |access-date=2022-12-28 |website=Mark Twain {{!}} Ken Burns {{!}} PBS |language=en}}</ref>


== References ==
== References ==

Revision as of 17:35, 28 December 2022

Jane Lampton Clemens
Born
Jane Lampton

June 18, 1803
Adair County, Kentucky, U.S.
DiedOctober 27, 1890 (aged 87)
Keokuk, Iowa, U.S.
SpouseJohn Marshall Clemens (m. 1823)
Children7, including Orion and Samuel

Jane Lampton Clemens (June 18, 1803 – October 27, 1890) was the mother of author Mark Twain.[1] She was the inspiration of the character "Aunt Polly" in Twain's 1876 novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.[2] She was regarded as a "cheerful, affectionate, and strong woman" with a "gift for storytelling" and as the person from whom Mark Twain inherited his sense of humor.[3][4][5]

Early life

Jane Lampton was born on June 18, 1803 in Adair County, Kentucky, the daughter of Benjamin Lampton and Margaret Casey Lampton. She grew up in Columbia, Kentucky,[6] and was known to be a good horsewoman and dancer.[7]: 10  Her maternal grandfather was Colonel William Casey, an early Kentucky pioneer and the namesake of Casey County, Kentucky.[8] When Colonel Casey became ill, Lampton learned medical skills from her grandfather, but he died when she was sixteen years old.[9] One year later, Lampton's mother (Margaret died).[9]

She married John Marshall Clemens on May 26, 1823,[9] in Columbia, Adair County, Kentucky.[10] She was a religiously conservative Presbyterian, while her husband was an agnostic freethinker who admired Thomas Paine.[11] Together, they had seven children, however four of them died before reaching the age of 20. Three of their children lived into adulthood, including Orion (1825–1897), Pamela (1827–1904), and Samuel (1835–1910).

The Clemens family moved to Fentress County, Tennessee, where her husband practiced law, operated a general store, and served as a county commissioner, county clerk, and acting attorney general as a conservative Whig.[12] The cabin in which the Clemens family is believed to have lived in Fentress County is displayed as part of the collection of the Museum of Appalachia in Norris, Tennessee.

In 1835, the Clemens family moved to Florida, Missouri where their son Samuel,[13] who was to become famous as the author Mark Twain, was born on November 30, 1835 (now preserved as the Mark Twain Birthplace State Historic Site)[12] In 1839, the Clemens family moved to Hannibal, Missouri,[14] a port town on the Mississippi River which was to eventually inspire some of Mark Twain's stories. The home in Hannibal is now known as the Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum.

In the years following her husband's death in 1847, Clemens moved around living with her surviving children. When she lived in Keokuk, Iowa in the 1880s, Clemens was a neighbor and friend of feminist and suffragette Ida Hinman.[15]

Clemens died on October 27, 1890 in Keokuk at the age of 87. She was buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery in Hannibal, Missouri.[1] After her death, her son Mark Twain wrote, "The greatest difference which I find between her and the rest of the people whom I have known, is this, and it is a remarkable one: those others felt a strong interest in a few things, whereas to the very day of her death she felt a strong interest in the whole world and everything and everybody in it."[16] Twain also wrote a memoir to his mother that was published in Mark Twain's Hannibal, Huck, and Tom.[17][18]

Legacy

State Historical Marker #128 in Columbia, Kentucky notes the location of the childhood home of Clemens.[19] Clemens is also the namesake of the Columbia chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.[20][3]

The influence of Clemens on her son Mark Twain's writings has been the subject of scholarly debate and analysis.[21][22][23] She has been described as the person from whom Twain inherited his sense of humor and gift of storytelling.[4][5][24]

Clemens' story is shared in the 2001 Ken Burns documentary Mark Twain, and she is portrayed by a female voice actor in the series.[25]

References

  1. ^ a b Varble, Rachel (McBrayer) (1964). Jane Clemens: The Story of Mark Twain's Mother. Doubleday.
  2. ^ "Mark Twain Project - Biographies - Clemens, Jane Lampton". www.marktwainproject.org. Retrieved 2022-12-28.
  3. ^ a b "Jane Lampton Chapter". www.kentuckydar.org. Retrieved 2022-12-28.
  4. ^ a b "Jane Lampton Clemens". twain.lib.virginia.edu. Retrieved 2022-12-28.
  5. ^ a b Watts, Aretta (5 February 1928). "Mark Twain's Gay Mother: 'Becky Thatcher' Describes the Woman From Whom He Inherited His Sense of Humor". The New York Times. Retrieved 27 December 2022.
  6. ^ "The myth regarding Mark Twain's mother". Winchester Sun. 2017-11-10. Retrieved 2022-12-28.
  7. ^ Trombley, Laura E. Skandera (1997). Mark Twain in the Company of Women. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0-8122-1619-6.
  8. ^ Lewis Collins (1877). History of Kentucky. p. 124. ISBN 9780722249208.
  9. ^ a b c McMillen, Margot (Fall 2020). "Jane Clemens, Slavery, and Abolitionists in Missouri". Mark Twain Journal. 58 (2): 98–121.
  10. ^ "Kentucky, County Marriages, 1797-1954," database with images, FamilySearch.org
  11. ^ Harold K. Bush, Mark Twain and the Spiritual Crisis of His Age (2007) pp. 30–36.
  12. ^ a b Oliver and Goldena Howard (1993), The Mark Twain encyclopedia, pp. 153–4, ISBN 9780824072124
  13. ^ Andrew Hoffmann (April 27, 1997). "Inventing Mark Twain". New York Times.
  14. ^ "Mark Twain, American Author and Humorist". Retrieved 2009-03-12.
  15. ^ "January 3, 1904". Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan: 23. 1904. Retrieved 14 August 2017.
  16. ^ "Mark Twain quotations - mother - Jane Lampton Clemens". www.twainquotes.com. Retrieved 2022-12-28.
  17. ^ Twain, Mark (1969). Mark Twain's Hannibal, Huck & Tom. Walter Blair. Berkeley: University of Calif. Press. ISBN 0-520-01501-0. OCLC 3841.
  18. ^ SARGENT, MARK L. (1986). "A Connecticut Yankee in Jane Lampton's South: Mark Twain and the Regicide". The Mississippi Quarterly. 40 (1): 21–31. ISSN 0026-637X.
  19. ^ "Jane Lampton Home Historical Marker". www.hmdb.org. Retrieved 2022-12-28.
  20. ^ Talbott, Tim. "Jane Lampton House". ExploreKYHistory. Retrieved 2022-12-28.
  21. ^ Parsons, Coleman O. (1947). "The Devil and Samuel Clemens". The Virginia Quarterly Review. 23 (4): 582–606. ISSN 0042-675X.
  22. ^ Kisis, Michael J. (2012). "Because He Had Daughters". The Mark Twain Annual (10): 24–34. ISSN 1553-0981.
  23. ^ Scharnhorst, Gary (2010). Smith, Harriet Elinor (ed.). "Mark Twain and His Discontents". Resources for American Literary Study. 35: 345–351. ISSN 0048-7384.
  24. ^ Maranzani, Barbara. "How Mark Twain's Childhood Influenced His Literary Works". Biography. Retrieved 2022-12-28.
  25. ^ "Episode One". Mark Twain | Ken Burns | PBS. Retrieved 2022-12-28.

Further reading

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