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Mark Twain House struggling financially
Story By: Bea Karnes
Source: KOAA
Published Fri Jun 06, 2008, 04:03 PM MDT
Updated Fri Jun 06, 2008, 04:03 PM MDT
The Mark Twain House & Museum in Hartford Connecticut is having financial trouble. It's gotten so bad that the overseers of the national historic landmark, where
Samuel Clemens, using the pen-name Mark Twain, wrote The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, is in danger of closing.
The institution's financial challenges are the results of daily operating costs and debt associated with the museum center built in 2003. Without an immediate influx of cash, the Mark Twain House & Museum could be out of operating funds within a matter of weeks. To help alleviate the financial strain, the museum is asking corporations and individuals for donations.
Mark Twain said of this house, "To us, our house . . . had a heart, and a soul, and eyes to see us with; and approvals and solicitudes and deep sympathies; it was of us, and we were in its confidence and lived in its grace and in the peace of it benediction." He often referred to his years in Hartford as the happiest of his life, and during his 17 years at his home, Twain wrote several major works – including The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court – that would redefine modern American literature.
The New York Times wrote an article about the museum's financial troubles on June 3. Since then, donations and offers of goods and services have arrived from as far away as Japan.
Donations are being accepted online. Checks can be mailed to: The Mark Twain House & Museum, 351 Farmington Avenue, Hartford, CT 06105.
