The Mark Twain House & Museum welcomes John Muller to the Trouble Begins stage for his lecture: The Lost History of Mark Twain and Frederick Douglass

The lecture begins at 7 PM. This event will be held on Zoom Webinar. A recording will be available after the program. This is a FREE event sponsored by Kathleen and David Jimenez. SIGN UP HERE

About the program:

Calling all Twainiacs and Douglassonians!

Known throughout the country and the world as two of the most recognized Americans of the 19th century, Mark Twain and Frederick Douglass shared numerous associations and friendships across generations and geography.

First meeting in the 1860s, Twain and Douglass maintained close connections within political, literary and reform networks throughout New England, New York and Washington City across decades.

Learn more about the Underground Railroad ties between Frederick Douglass and Mark Twain’s in-laws, the Langdon Family of Buffalo and Elmira, New York, mutual correspondence with writer and author George Alfred Townsend, speaking tours with Redpath’s Lyceum, political canvassing and shared associations with Presidents, members of Congress and Washington City journalists and more.

Presentation will include ongoing research on a previously unknown meeting between Mark Twain and Frederick Douglass in New England, adding to the growing bibliography documenting the nuanced friendship of the two iconoclasts.

About the Speaker: John Muller, author of Frederick Douglass in Washington, D.C.: The Lion of Anacostia (2012) and Mark Twain in Washington, D.C.: The Adventures of a Capital Correspondent (2013), has presented widely throughout the Washington, D.C. and Baltimore metropolitan area and Maryland’s Eastern Shore at venues including the Library of Congress, Enoch Pratt Free Library, D.C. Public Library, Frederick Douglass National Historic Site and local universities. Muller has previously presented on Mark Twain in Washington City at the Mark Twain House and Museum in Hartford, Connecticut. He is a frequent guest on D.C. and Baltimore radio and broadcast stations and has been featured on C-SPAN’s BOOKTV and C-SPAN’s American History TV. He lives in Columbia, Maryland with his wife and two children.