Fall 2010 California Publisher
AWARD From page 1 name of Mark Twain and went on to global fame as a shortstory writer, novelist and public speaker, practiced his craft as a mobile correspondent in Nevada and California. A biographical essay on Clemens has resided in the Cal Press Hall of Fame files since its completion in 1958, (see accompanying cover story) but he never was elevated to honorary status, even through decades of consideration by the Hall of Fame judges. Rules for admission to the Hall of Fame, which was begun in 1957 and now contains many well-known publishers and editors from California’s rich newspaper history – plus a few lesser-knowns – never quite accommodated someone like Clemens, who was not a publisher or newspaper executive, nor did he impact the development and furtherance of California or local life in the way the confirmed Hall of Famers did. So the timing was right, at the centennial of Twain’s death, to create a statewide honor for those from the writerly world: editors, writers, cartoonists “whose journalistic work, either regional or statewide in nature, challenged the status quo,” as the award specifications state. As with the Hall of Fame, a committee will consider nominations and will require documentation in the form of a biographical essay. Also as with the Hall, nominees not favored in one year will be reconsidered in succeeding years. After all, Mark Twain had been under consideration since 1958. Here is an excerpt from the rules: To be eligible, nominees must have been newspaper editors, writers or cartoonists whose journalistic work, either regional or statewide in nature, challenged the status quo. Nominees’ work may even have been significant enough to reach past statewide boundaries. Nominees may have rendered service anytime from the beginning of newspapering in California to the present time. The California Newspaper Mark Twain Award is only awarded posthumously. There is no requirement that the nominee shall have devoted
Before Twain
The new Mark Twain Award joins three longstanding newspaper honors administered by the California Press Association: California Newspaper Hall of Fame honors deceased newspaper men and women whose outstanding devotion to their responsibilities resulted in substantial contributions to their regions and to the development of California. Pictured at left is Sam Brannan, California Star, inducted in 1958. Justus F. Craemer Newspaper Executive of the Year Award recipients are publishers, editors-in-chief and equivalents who have involved themselves in the directions of the editorial and news side of their newspapers by showing exceptional editorial achievement. Their newspaper has made an impact on its community or influenced local, state or national concerns as a result of their journalistic effort. Named for Justus F. Craemer, right. Philip N. McCombs Achievement Award honors distinguished publishers who are no longer fully active in the industry but who have served their communities well for an extended period and have made lasting contributions to the newspaper industry. Named for Philip N. McCombs, left.
his or her entire life to newspaper journalism in this state, but obviously a good portion of their career should have been in this profession in California. Papers should outline the nominee’s entire career as fully as possible, but with emphasis on major accomplishments that will make them likely candidates for election to the Mark Twain Award. Biographers are urged to use due diligence in verifying all facts and claims. Authentication and reference sources should be included whenever possible. Papers should be prepared in narrative style, including some local color and occasional anecdotes that help to convey to the judges the nominee’s character and personality.
Recognizing that when more than two eligible candidates are submitted in any one year, rejection by the judges does not mean the individual is unworthy of election. It is Committee policy that all newly submitted papers will be referred to the judges for consideration at least three times. There are no length restrictions on nomination papers, although most run between 5 and 10, double-spaced, typewritten pages. Original copies should be forwarded to Becky Clark, Chair of the Mark Twain Award Committee, P.O. Box 1855, Idyllwild, CA 92549, or to clarkr120@gmail.com. The committee will arrange for additional copies and for their distribution.
TWAIN From page 1 his later literary work. Early journalistic work Most of Clemens’ early writings were printed in his brother’s papers between July 1, 1852, and May 1853. “The Dandy Frightening the Squatter,” a short sketch depicting a bit of Missouri folklore, was published when Clemens was 17. It appeared in the Boston Carpet Bag in May 1852 and was probably his first published piece. The sketch tells about the squelching of a “spruce young dandy with a killing mustache” by a “tall brawny woodsman.” Other pieces which appeared shortly after the “Dandy” were “A Family Muss,” “Historical Exhibition – A No. 1 Ruse,” “‘Local’ Resolves to Commit Suicide,” “Picture Department,” and “Connubial Bliss,” all comic anecdotes which were published in the Journal. In 1853, having gained a journeyman’s status as a printer, Clemens traveled to St. Louis, New York, Philadelphia and Cincinnati, serving as a printer and newspaper contributor. During this period Clemens wrote “The Snodgrass Letters,” a series of humorous letters written in the dialect of a country lout traveling through the city for the first time. Adding to his earlier background, he spent four years as an apprentice Mississippi steamship pilot, developing new ideas and new subjects to write about. Then came a brief two or three weeks’ stint in the Confederate Army with Marion’s Rangers in the summer of 1861. In an abrupt change of mind and sympathies, Clemens quit the Rangers and accompanied Orion to Nevada. Nevada days They arrived in Carson City Aug. 14, 1861. Orion became secretary of the Nevada Territory, but Samuel put in a year of disappointing speculation in mining. Again he returned to journalism, taking a position as reporter for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise. There Clemens had the job of reporting local news and later the proceedings of the Nevada State Legislature. Frequently he wrote feature material that consisted of satires, burlesques and sometimes outright fabrications. In “Roughing It,” Clemens recalls multiplying “one wretched old hay truck dragging in from the country” by 16, and “imagining an Indian
attack on an emigrant wagon train to this day has no parallel in history.” It was while working on the Enterprise that readers started chuckling over articles carrying the byline of Mark Twain. The use of a pen name was undoubtedly an attempt by Clemens to separate his serious reporting from his humor. Henry Nash Smith says, “Although Mark Twain was privileged to say anything … or almost anything … he pleased, Sam Clemens was expected to practice serious journalism and most of the time he accepted this professional responsibility.” San Francisco days Before Clemens left the Enterprise, he had already published some of his writings in California. The first San Francisco paper to publish his work was the Golden Era, a weekly literary magazine. When Clemens was in San Francisco on one of his many trips from the mining country, Colonel Joe Lawrence, editor of the Era, persuaded him to write his observations on fashions and politics while he was in the city. In the summer of 1864 Clemens left the Nevada Territory for good to join the staff of the San Francisco Morning Call as a city reporter. The journalism that Clemens found in San Francisco was far from modern journalistic standards. San Francisco was still a rough and tumble seaport bulging with people who came from all over the world. In those times a newspaper could be started on a borrowed $20 gold piece – the way Michael and Charles De Young did when they founded the Daily Dramatic Chronicle in January 1865. In those times of personal and sometimes highly critical journalism, an editor had to worry about life and limb, not to mention his print shop. In 1865 after the announcement of Lincoln’s assassination, angry mobs marched through seven of the smaller San Francisco papers accused of being sympathetic to the South and tore up the shops, scattering type as they went. Some of the popular San Francisco papers in this period were the Daily Dramatic Chronicle, the Alta California, the Evening Bulletin, the News Letter and the Daily Morning Call. Clemens, long accustomed to the freedom
and bylines he enjoyed at the Enterprise, was disappointed by the anonymity of his job and by the editorial restrictions of the Call. Despite his personal feelings, he made the rounds covering the police court, the theater and the town in general. The Call described itself as a “remarkably spirited and chatty little journal, published at a cheap rate, having a large circulation and being full of piquant paragraphs, bits of scandal, sensation ‘items’ and special scraps of news interesting to its numerous lady readers.” Clemens had his own description of writing for the Call. He said that he “spread this muck out in words and phrases and made it cover as much acreage as he could.” This expression was typical of the light manner in which he referred to his literary efforts – efforts that were widely read in the San Francisco of his day. While at the Call, Clemens contributed to the Californian, a magazine, and became associated with such literary figures as its editor, Bret Harte, and Charles Warren Stoddard, Prentice Mulford and Joaquin Miller. Clemens’ literary restlessness kept him on the move and he left the Call before the year was out. He journeyed to the gold diggings at Jackass Hill and Angels Camp. There, Clemens composed “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.” This humorous story, published Nov. 18, 1865, in the New York Saturday Press; brought the “Washoe Giant” instant national fame. The big scoop Capitalizing on his newfound fame, Clemens hired out to the Sacramento Union in 1866 for a series of travel letters on a trip to the Sandwich Islands. During this trip he did what was probably his best and most serious reporting job. He wrote 25 letters for the Union, three of them dealing with Hawaiian industry and trade and their relation to American economics. Edgar Marquess Branch says, “This writing was specialized reporting, at times semi-technical … The letters represent his ability to assemble the facts and present them with clarity and force.” During his four months’ stay on the Islands, Clemens got the Union a scoop on the burning of the clipper ship Hornet. Recognizing it as front-page material, he
wrote a three-column story complete with interviews of survivors. All this was done in a few hours and dispatched on the first ship leaving for California. It was a remarkable scoop, and, when he returned to Sacramento, he was granted a $300 bonus by the Union editors. It has often been said that the Hawaiian letters represent the “last fling” of the wild humorist of the Pacific slope, and that they mark the transition from “Sam Clemens the itinerant journalist” to “Mark Twain the writer.” The letters have been hailed as Clemens’ best work during his stay in California except for his “Jumping Frog.” Last days in California When Samuel Clemens sailed for New York Dec. 15, 1866, he said that he was “leaving more friends behind than any other newspaperman that ever sailed out of the Golden Gate …” Those words closed the door on an important venture in California journalism. But, as historian Rockwell D. Hunt puts it, these years laid the “firm foundations for his unmatched literary distinction.” An appraisal Samuel Clemens was one of the first of many American reporters who have achieved literary fame. One of the important journalistic distinctions in his life is the fact that some of his first and most popular writings, such as the “Jumping Frog” and his Hawaiian letters, found their journalistic cradle in California newspapers. Anyone appraising Mark Twain as a newspaperman must look at the time he lived in the Golden State. It was a gaudy era and Mark Twain fitted well into that period. His work in California bolstered the newspapers of the day and helped them in their journalistic development. Thomas Emery wrote this article in 1958 while a junior at (then) Fresno State College. He was editor of The Collegian his senior year and worked at the Merced Sun-Star and The Fresno Bee. He received the MA at San Francisco State College and the MFA from the University of Iowa Writers Workshop. Emery taught at DePauw University in Indiana for 33 years and retired as professor emeritus of