Mark Twain's House in Hartford but Mr Clemens is Out

This is the final post in a series on Connecticut museums by Laura Sanderson Healy, a great No Crowds traveller.

   “I have found out that there ain’t no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.” Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer Abroad 

 Ain’t that the truth! I must confess a total devotion to Samuel Clemens here, and in the way that I had to see the IMAX film about Mark Twain’s life, so I had to take myself and family to visit the shrine that is his home and museum in Hartford, way off the beaten track in the most unsalubrious neighborhood I have ever seen (it, and the Harriet Beecher Stowe house next door, sit high on a hill smack in the middle of a bombed out ghetto). If you can make it through the neighborhood, you can park in the lot for the museum, and the adventure is worth it.

  The Mark Twain House and Museum is such a wonderful destination for his fans; there are some 16,000 artifacts assembled. The house, a National Historic Landmark, does not have its original furnishings as it served as a school after the Clemenses but it is well appointed with the period detail. It’s a hulking edifice of Victorian splendor, and the interpretive center adjacent to it is full of interesting items, including a giant LEGO of Mark Twain himself. I would love to know what the great man would have had to say about that, and I’m sure he would love the ghost tours they do. Happenings are always going on at the museum and house, and it’s quite a busy presence on social media. I’m sure he would have liked that.

The family has a great takeaway from the trip to the Twain house: My daughter, who has read Tom Sawyer, was fascinated by a trick Mr. Clemens played on stray callers. If the polite author was working and did not want to be disturbed – he could write thousands of words a day – he simply stepped out onto an upstairs porch and his servant would tell the visitor that “Mr. Clemens is out.”

http://www.marktwainhouse.org/house/history.php

The Mark Twain House & Museum

351 Farmington Avenue

Hartford, CT 06105

Phone: 860 247-0998

The Best of British at Yale

More on Connecticut museums from Laura Sanderson Healy

Over in New Haven, the spectacular collection that is the Yale Center for British Art was philanthropist Paul Mellon’s gift to the university (he selflessly did not want it named for him). Free to the public, it is filled with fantastic works by Old Masters – the horsebreeder Mellon particularly adored equine painter George Stubbs’ work --  and has contemporary rooms as well, thanks to the endowment left for ongoing British study.  The modern boxy building of steel and glass by Louis I. Kahn and is over several light floors right in the middle of downtown New Haven. Mellon’s British collection – strongest in the 18^th century, his passion -- includes 2000 paintings, 200 sculptures, 20,000 drawings and watercolors, 30,000 prints, 35,000 rare books and manuscripts. It is a treat to duck in from the hustle of New Haven and find yourself in this treasure trove where you can look at medieval incunables, no appointment necessary, and nose around the 30,000 reference books on British art.

  One staff member was quite imperious when he rushed over to tell me I was too close to an oil. I had been pointing out a detail on a marine painting to my teenaged daughter, and the poor guard was just doing his duty. He could not have known that I grew up the daughter of a gallery director and that I learned not to touch displayed art before I learned to floss my teeth.

The Center has events throughout the year, including the upcoming “A Celebration of Harold Pinter,” directed by John Malkovich and starring Julian Sands (remember him in “A Room with a View”?) Chamber concerts, dance performances, endless lecture series, you name it. I’d like to visit here more often.

www.britishart.yale.edu

The Yale Center for British Art

1080 Chapel Street,

New Haven, Connecticut 06510

Open Tuesday to Saturday 10 to 5, Sundays noon to 5

Photo of Thomas Rowlandson, watercolor, “An Audience Watching a Play at Drury Lane Theatre,” 1785

 

No Crowds visits some Connecticut museums

Laura Sanderson Healy is back on the road exploring some Connecticut museums that are long on interest and short on crowds. First up is the Barnum Museum in Bridgeport.

Visiting museums in Connecticut can be great fun thanks to the vast array of historical collections, art galleries and noble edifices across the Nutmeg State. Three on the list for my husband, daughter and me were the Barnum Museum in Bridgeport, the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, and the Mark Twain House and Museum in Hartford.  

  A stroll from Bridgeport’s Metro North rail station and the Port Jefferson Ferry, The Barnum Museum was founded in 1891 as The Barnum Institute of Science and History. Usually the ornate structure boasts a huge stash of art and artifacts pertaining to Bridgeport’s most celebrated son, the outrageous impresario and circus showman P. T. Barnum. The museum building was closed by 2010 tornado damage, but that has not stopped it from exhibiting its peculiar treasures – the show must go on! Out loaded oddities from the 25,000 that found emergency storage are shown two days a week -- free -- at the back of the Barnum in the People’s United Bank Gallery. While the museum undergoes restoration and conservation. the exhibition “Recovery in Action” shows its wares in their “disaster mode,” including the Baroque furnishings from Barnum’s home, the midget Tom Thumb’s 1865 miniature carriage, Ulysses S. Grant’s personal items, and ephemera about the Swedish protégée of Barnum’s, singer Jenny Lind.  It may not be the Greatest Show on Earth, but it possesses a fiery chutzpah in showing off some wonderful stuff against all odds.

There is also the worthy “virtual” Barnum Museum that offers on-line exhibitions such as “Heroes of the Home Front” in honor of the 150^th anniversary of the American Civil War and the main exhibits, “Phineas Taylor Barnum,” “Humbugs and Curiosities,” “Jumbo the Elephant,” and “Egyptian Exhibit: Pa-Ib”. A wide range of lectures and seminars swirl around the Barnum, including “Mummy Dearest,” looking into past peoples’ lives.

The Barnum Museum, 820 Main Street, Bridgeport, Connecticut

Hours 11-3 Thursday and Friday

203-331-1104

http://www.barnum-museum.org

www.barnummuseumexhibitions.org

http://twitter.com/BarnumMuseum