I. Speaking Out about Race: “The United States of Lyncherdom” Clemens Really Wrote

Abstract

On June 21, 1901, Samuel and Olivia Clemens and their daughter Jean ensconced themselves for the summer at Kane Camp, a “little bijou of a dwelling-house,” Clemens called it, on the south end of Ampersand Bay on Lower Saranac Lake in upstate New York. The family nicknamed the cottage The Lair. “Everyone knows what a lair is,” Clemens said; “lairs do generally contain dangerous animals, but I bring tame ones to this one.” As we shall see, danger did lurk in The Lair that summer, in the thought and writing of Clemens himself.