December 19 - Samuel Clemens's First Patent

  Posted on December 19, 2021

This is an update of my post published on December 19, 2010:

I haven't acknowledged inventions and inventors for a while, so I thought I would mention an invention that received a patent on this day in 1871:

Samuel Clemens received a patent for “An Improvement in Adjustable and Detachable Straps for Garments.” These adjustable garment straps could tighten shirts at the waist or help fit underpants or women's corsets. Clemens's intention was to do away with the need for suspenders, which he himself found uncomfortable.

Does the name Samuel Clemens ring any bells?

Perhaps you know him for his other two inventions—a history trivia game, or his most successful invention, a self-pasting scrapbook? Or maybe you know him for his books—under his pen name Mark Twain, Clemens was the author of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Prince and the Pauper, and other books!

Check out Clemens's History Game. 

For more on Samuel Clemens/Mark Twain, check out Activity Village.

Also on this date:

Activist Mary Rice Livermore's birthday 

Inventor Rudolph Hell's birthday

Saint Nicholas Day in the Ukraine

Las Posadas

(December 16 to 24)

National Heroes and Heroines Day in Anguilla

Launch of Gaia

Birthday of the "Father of Black History," Carter G. Woodson

Birthday of Beverly Bond, founder of Black Girls Rock!

Plan ahead:

Check out my Pinterest pages on:

• December holidays 
• December birthdays
• Historical anniversaries in December
  
  

And here are my Pinterest boards for:

• January holidays 
• January birthdays 
• Historical anniversaries in January

November 30, 2009

Happy Birthday, Mark Twain!

On this date in 1835, Samuel Clemens was born. In his lifetime, writing under the pen name Mark Twain, Clemens became one of the best and most popular American writers in history. Mark Twain left school at age 11 because his father died; he needed to earn money and so became a printer. He continued his education on his own, reading books at nearby public libraries.

After a decade of work as a printer, Mark Twain earned his steamboat pilot's license, which is hard to do—he studied 2,000 miles of the Mississippi for two years before he got the license. He was only able to be a pilot for two years because the Civil War broke out and cut down on steamboat travel/shipping.


What's Its Name?

Fill in the blanks below with consonants to spell out the names of some of Twain's most famous books:

1. ___ ___ E *** A ___ ___ E ___ ___ U ___ E ___ *** O ___ ***

___ O ___ *** ___ A ___ ___ E ___

2. A ___ ___ E ___ ___ U ___ E ___ *** O ___ ***

___ U ___ ___ ___ E ___ E ___ ___ ___ *** ___ I ___ ___

3. ___ ___ E *** ___ ___ I ___ ___ E *** A ___ ___ *** ___ ___ E ***

___ A U ___ E ___

LETTER BOX:

B C C D D D F F F H H H H K L M N N N N N N P P P R R R R R R R S S S T T T T T T W V V Y Y

ANSWERS: 1.The Adventures of Tom Sawyer 2. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn 3.The Prince and the Pauper

Quotes from Twain

“Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.”

“Our Civil War was a blot on our history, but not as great a blot as the buying and selling of Negro souls.”

“Education: that which reveals to the wise, and conceals from the stupid, the vast limits of their knowledge.”

Celebrate Twain!

Read from his books. The famed whitewash-fence scene from Tom Sawyer is a perennial favorite.

Watch a movie. Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huck Finn have both been made into movies (in 1973 and 1993, respectively). The Prince and the Pauper has been filmed in 1938 and, in a modernized version, 2007. The Adventures of Mark Twain (1944 and 1986) is another possibility.

Check out the materials on the PBS Mark Twain sites. The interactive scrapbook is pretty fun! There are some lessons on writing, language, and humor at another PBS site.