9 Awesome Facts about Mark Twain the Technophile

Samuel Clemens, aka, Mark Twain, was obsessed with technology. He once famously said, “Name the greatest of all inventors… Accidents.” But whatever was going on around him was no accident.

The Industrial Revolution was in full tilt. He bought, used, championed, invested in, and lost money on all kinds of marvels of the 19th and early 20th century. Mark Twain was the king of early adopters.

Invention Fail

Mark Twain was a big fan of the fountain pen, which at first was a total mess. It spread ink all over your paper as often as it worked right, and was the butt of many jokes.

Twain disliked suspenders, so he devised an adjustable strap for clothing, for which he received his first patent (#121,992) in 1871. Its full title was: “Improvement in Adjustable and Detachable Straps for Garments” The strap was supposed to tighten shirts at the waist. So, like a belt?

Twain conjured up a memorization game for children, but it was so complex that children couldn’t even comprehend it. It was called Mark Twain’s Memory-Builder (A Game for Acquiring and Retaining All Sorts of FACTS and DATES). Oddly enough, the quintessentially American Twain focused primarily on facts about European Royalty.

Stick to writing

When it came to inventions, Twain was all about the ‘better mouse trap.’ He loved ideas that improved on others, but when it came to novel inventions he wasn’t interested. So when Alexander Graham Bell offered him as much stock as he wanted for $500, Twain refused. This would be like Bill Gates coming to you in 1984 with a nearly free bucket of Microsoft stock. Doh! Twain commented:

“A man invents a thing which could revolutionize the arts, produce mountains of money, and bless the earth, and who will bother with it or show any interest in it?–and so you are just as poor as you were before. But you invent some worthless thing to amuse yourself with, and would throw it away if let alone, and all of a sudden the whole world makes a snatch for it and out crops a fortune.”
- The American Claimant

Despite his missed fortune, in 1877 Twain became one of the first private citizens to have a telephone installed in his home (mind you the telephone had been invented the year before). There were only a few other telephones in existence, and so there was no one really to call. One notable example was the telephone in the White House, which resided in a phone booth outside the Oval Office.

The 200 Ton Piano

Twain was an original fan of the Telharmonium, said to be the first electronic musical instrument. It transmitted ‘music’ over telephone wires, which could be piped into hotels, stores, and private homes. Typically as a technology progresses, it gets smaller and better - not so with the Telharmonium. By its second incarnation it weighed 200 tons, took up much of a New York Building, and essentially required its own power station just to run. The fact that it disrupted phone service and sounded horrible probably had to do with its failure as well. This didn’t stop Twain’s fascination with it. His was the only favorable review of the contraption at the time.

Pay Dirt

Twain finally scored when he invested money in a self-pasting scrap book he called “Mark Twain’s Patent Scrapbook.” According to The St. Louis Post-Dispatch (8 June 1885), he had made $200,000 from all his other books, and $50,000 from the scrapbook alone.

Mark Twain and Nikola Tesla were good friends. Twain often ventured into Tesla’s lab to mess with awesome newfangled gadgets.

Bad Idea Jeans

Despite his modest success as an inventor, Twain’s gadgetophilia was hardly a blessing. Such was the case with the Paige Compositor, an automatic typesetting machine which replaced a human with a mechanical arm. Its inventor, James Paige, had convinced Twain to invest $300K ($7 Million today) - all of his earnings from books, and much of his wealthy wife’s inheritance money. The machine was never built successfully, and Twain was forced to claim bankruptcy.

“I have, as you say, been interested in patents and patentees. If your books tell how to exterminate inventors send me nine editions. Send them by express.” 
 -Mark Twain, A Biography

If Mark Twain were alive he’d already have the iPhone 5. And a hoverboard. But knowing him he’d also probably invent the Slanket, only to have someone come along and make millions off the Snuggie.