Financial Trouble

Mark Twain never really cared about money. People may argue this point with great passion but to me any individual that loved the work they do could care less about the money they make. It's all about the passion in his writing that depicts he loved what he did, and the money was just a bonus. Well until he lost it that is.

Mark Twain grew up very poor. He never had much growing up and had gotten into a lot of fights in his early child years. He made his initial money working for as a printer apprentice with his brother at Hannibal Journal. His brother owned the company. He liked this job but wanted to venture west to find new offerings. He eventually became a river boat captain, hint hint. He met many people on his way west including a tribe of Indians, sailors, and even investors. On his way west he met up with hi brother once again. He met up with him  in Nevada but moved further west to Virginia City, Nevada. His brother was working as a secretary to James W. Nye, the governor of Nevada Territory. Twain wasn't to enthusiastic about working as a secretary, so he had tried his luck mining for silver in this small town. He eventually failed at that and once again began working as a printer for the Territorial Enterprise. Here is where he had his break through. He had wrote a story called "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County". He had written from a story he had heard when mining in California.

Twain made a majority of his money in his writings. From the beginning with The Celebrated Jumping From of Calaveras County to his critically acclaimed writing of The adventures of Tom Sawyer. This was only to be short lived with horrible investments. He loved science and technology, so much that he had invested over $300,000.00 of his money into a company that was creating to obsolete the man driven printing press. Coming from a printer background he had thought this was a great investment. Knowing now that he had lost everything to a company buying and squishing the product. $300,000 today is almost equivalent to $8.2 millions dollars. This money wasn't all his. He had taken a hefty amount from the inheritance of his wife. What most people don't know is that because of this huge loss of money is to why he went on a book tour. He filed for bankruptcy in 1984.

The tour he had gone on was to pay back the debt he not legally had to but morally felt needed. He traveled to Hawaii, Fiji, New Zealand, and UK. All of which he put on plays and acted out books. The people loved him. They loved him so much he to this day is known as one of the first World wide celebrities.

This is the face that most people think of when referring to Mark Twain. He made this character as a second alter ego. Anytime he was to take a picture or be interviewed or even in public he would be wearing his iconic White Suit. Anyone else think he looks like Coronel Sanders?