The Daily Bulletin Archive

Thomas Reigstad, professor emeritus of English, presented his paper “Mark Twain and the Coal Question” at the Eighth International Conference on the State of Mark Twain Studies, hosted by the Center for Mark Twain Studies at Elmira College August 3–5. His presentation examined the complex and often contradictory positions Twain took toward the coal industry during his time as co-owner and editor of the Buffalo Express. Twain’s ambivalence—on one hand siding with victimized coal consumers and even low-paid coal miners, while on the other embracing the entrepreneurship of multimillionaire coal moguls like his father-in-law, Jervis Langdon—reflects his lifelong tug between his personal allegiances toward the working class he was born to and the privileged class he aspired to.