twain and Coal

Mark Twain and the coal Question

Mark Twain was thirty-three years old in 1869. Events of that year provide a benchmark to gauge Twain’s lifelong ambivalence toward management and labor, capitalism and free enterprise. More often than not, Twain tossed aside his working class and mining credentials, and pledged his allegiance, publicly and privately, to corporate privilege— particularly when it related to the J. Langdon Coal Company.

He officially joined the Langdon family and became associated with its vast coal enterprises when he became engaged to Olivia on February 4, 1869. Three weeks later Twain found himself hanging out in New York City with his future father-in-law, Jervis Langdon, and even invited to sit in on the J. Langdon Coal Company annual meeting. Although he described the experience in humorous terms, Twain was dazzled by his confidential view of naked capitalism. In a suite at the luxurious 600-room St. Nicholas Hotel on Broadway, Twain listened to Jervis Langdon and his managers discuss ways to increase the coal company’s profit margin.

There he met Eaton N. Frisbie from the Elmira headquarters and two high-ranking agents from the Buffalo branch office, George Dakin and John De La Fletcher Slee. Twain comically described the scene to Olivia. His letter began with a pun: “I could not get much of Mr. Langdon’s company (except his Coal company).”1 He then satirized the cutthroat nature of the big business world, referring to the attendees as “two or three suspicious looking pirates from other districts,” “that dissolute Mr. Frisbie from Elmira and a notorious character by the name of Slee, from Buffalo.” Twain’s fascination with inside business machinations seems evident, as he confessed to Olivia: “The subject of coal is very thrilling. I listened to it for an hour— till my blood curdled in my veins.”…