10 June 1871 • Elmira, N.Y. (Paraphrase: Gray 1871 [bib11850], UCCL 11746)
Mark Twain in the Lecture Field.—ⒶemendationMark Twain is going to make a short lecturing tour in the early part of the coming season. Subject—“An Appeal in behalf of Extending the Suffrage to Boys.” He says he thought he had retired permanently from the lecture field, but upon looking into things and finding that Woman is less persecuted, and is held in a milder bondage than boys, he thinks it incumbent upon somebody to “lift up a voice for the poor little male juvenile.”1explanatory note
Clemens probably wrote this letter just after the preceding one to Redpath and Fall. Among the Boston Lyceum Bureau’s lecturers on women’s suffrage during the 1870–71 lecture season were: Susan B. Anthony, “The Woman Question”; the Reverend James Freeman Clarke, “Why should not Women Vote?”; the Reverend Robert Laird Collier, “Woman’s Place”; the Reverend Rowland Connor, “The Subjection of Woman”; Anna E. Dickinson, “A new lecture on the Woman Question”; the Reverend Jesse H. Jones, “The Supreme Political Reform”; Mary A. Livermore, “The Reasons Why”; the Reverend W. H. H. Murray, “Woman’s Suffrage: and what would be the result of it?”; Petroleum V. Nasby, “Struggles of a Conservative with the Woman Question”; and Judge Edwin Wright, “Woman Greater than her Aspirations” ( Lyceum 1870, 2–4).
References
- Gray, David. “Mark Twain in the Lecture Field.” Buffalo Courier, 12 June, 2. 1871
- Machlis, Paul, ed. Union Catalog of Clemens Letters. Edited by Paul Machlis. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press. [In some cases, UCCL catalog numbers cited in this volume supersede those assigned in 1986 and reflect corrections or additions to the catalog since publication. An updated version of the catalog can be consulted via the Letters Search page at MTPO.] 1986
- SLC (Samuel Langhorne Clemens). Mark Twain’s Letters, Volume 4: 1870–1871. Edited by Victor Fischer, Michael B. Frank, and Lin Salamo. The Mark Twain Papers. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Also online at MTPO[bib32371]. 1995
- Redpath, James, and George L. Fall. The Lyceum: Containing a Complete List of Lecturers, Readers, and Musicians for the Season of 1870–71. Vol. 1, July. Boston: Redpath and Fall. 1870
Paraphrase, David Gray, “Mark Twain in the Lecture Field,” Buffalo Courier, 12 June 71, 2.
Reprinted in the Buffalo Courier, 13 June 71, 2; L4 , 402.