What: Mark Twain House & Museum
Where: 351 Farmington Ave.
Hartford, CT
Who: Ages 2 and Up
Me - The Mark Twain House & Museum was interesting. I never actually read any of his books, but I am familiar with some of them. It was fun learning about him and his family. I especially enjoyed learning about all the pets they had and the crazy names they gave them.
There were lots of books in his house. I appreciated that because I love to read too. He had a really big bed and it was placed in a weird position so it made his room look small. A lot of the furniture did not actually belong to the family but it was from that time period. The bed, however, did belong to him.
In the Museum, there was a giant frog statue. Also, there was a life-size lego statue of Mark Twain as well as a metal statue of him. Also, there were pictures of him and his family. He had three daughters. There were pictures of them when they were little, and they were really cute.
The Museum was small, but both the house and the Museum were fun and fascinating to visit.
Mom - Anyone interested in learning more about Mark Twain will definitely want to visit his house and museum in Hartford, CT. Of course, as most people know his real name was Samuel Clemons. That is what he was known as in his daily life, and that is what they refer to him as at his house and museum.
The museum has a permanent exhibit on his life and works. There are also some fun statues that you can take pictures with. Plus, some of Twain's most famous quotes adorn the walls of the building. There is a short film to watch about Mark Twain, the Clemons family, and the house. The film is about 23 minutes long, and it is taken from a much longer film by documentarian, Ken Burns. The film plays in a continuous loop so if you arrive in the middle of it and you just wait it will go back to the beginning and start again. There are also temporary exhibits at the museum.
Only a limited amount of people at a time are permitted on the house tour and tickets must be purchased in advance. There are a quite lot of stairs and no elevator on the tour so if stairs are an issue you should skip it. Although young children are allowed on the tour, it is not necessarily a good place to bring them. Not only are you not allowed to touch anything on the tour, you are not even allowed to lean against anything in the house even the walls. You can't take pictures in the house either although you can take pictures outside of the house. There are postcards of the interior of the house which can be purchased at the gift shop. The gift shop also has many books available to purchase not just Mark Twain books and/or books related to Mark Twain. It also has other things for sale as well including a Mark Twain key chain and a Mark Twain doll.
The tour will take you through most of the house and into the majority of the rooms. On it you will learn many fascinating things about the family and their life. Some of which were quite surprising like the fact that even though he was a successful writer, he lost a lot of money investing in unsuccessful inventions and paying to build the house so he was forced to go out on a speaking tour to make money. Also, he has no surviving relatives. You will also get to see some objects and furniture that belonged to the family including a desk where he worked on some of his most famous books. Although the majority of his writing was done at their summer house in Elmira, New York, he did do some of the writing in the Hartford home as well. All in all, even if you have not read any of Twain's books if you are at all familiar with him his house and museum are definitely worth a visit.
And that's our view. For more information or to register for a tour, visit marktwainhouse.org.
Tune in tomorrow for Theater Thursday.
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