Mark Twain by Jordan A.F. Bradley, 1906

ABOUT THIS PHOTOGRAPH

This photograph of the Great American Novelist, taken by A.F. Bradley, was used as a relief fundraiser for his friend the poet Ina Coolbirth, who lost her worldly possessions in the San Francisco earthquake on April 18th, 1906. The autographed photographs, along with books went for USD$10 (that's USD$285 in today's money).

George Wharton James, writing in an issue of Physical Culture, recalls the sitting. '[I]t occurred to me that if I could get Mark Twain to pose, and Mr. Bradley would make me some photographs at a wholesale price, and Mark would then autograph them, I could sell quite a number, to the happy increase of our "Ina Coolbrith Home Fund." Mr. Bradley agreed and said he would help make the posing as easy as possible by building a revolving platform, to save the usual troubles and annoyances of constantly moving the sitter to produce the proper effects of light and shade... of the negatives thus obtained he [Twain] wrote me that he regarded four as the finest photographs of himself that had ever been taken of him in his life.' – Jordan J. Lloyd

Taken: May 20th, 1906
Location: New York, United States
Photographer: A.F. Bradley
Remaster: Jordan J. Lloyd
Original Format: Photograph
Commercial Use: ⇲ License this Image

RELATED PRINT

This photograph is also available as a ⇲ restored & remastered colorized original print from our ⇲ ColorGraph Co. imprint.