William Avery Rockefeller, jr., Co-founder Standard Oil

 

 

William Avery Rockefeller Jr. (May 31, 1841 – June 24, 1922) was an American businessman and financier. Rockefeller was a co-founder of Standard Oil along with his elder brother John Davison Rockefeller. He was also part owner of the Anaconda Copper Company, which was the fourth-largest company in the world in the late 1920s. He was a prominent member of the Rockefeller family. 

William Jr. was born in Richford, New York. He was the middle son of con artist William Avery Rockefeller Sr. and Eliza Davison. In addition to elder brother John, William Jr.'s siblings were Lucy, Mary, and twins Franklin (Frank) and Frances (who died young). He also had two elder half-sisters, Clorinda (who died young) and Cornelia, through his father's affairs with mistress and housekeeper Nancy Brown. In 1853 his family moved to Strongsville, Ohio. As a young pupil in public school, he was inspired and motivated by his teacher-mentor, Rufus Osgood Mason, whom Rockefeller later named "A Rockefeller Patron."

At the age of sixteen, he began work as a clerk for a miller in Cleveland, Ohio. About two years later, he joined his older brother's produce commission business, Clark and Rockefeller, which later supplied provisions to the Union Army. 

Rockefeller was very adept in business matters. When John D. formed Rockefeller, Andrews & Flagler in 1867, he invited William to take charge of the company's export business in New York. In 1867, William Rockefeller and Co. was formed as a subsidiary to Rockefeller and Andrews. In 1870, that company became Standard Oil. In 1911 Standard Oil of New Jersey was split up by the United States Supreme Court. 

In 1899, Rockefeller joined fellow Standard Oil principal Henry H. Rogers in forming the Amalgamated Copper Mining Company, a holding company that intended to control the copper industry. Rockefeller, along with Henry Rogers, devised a scheme which earned them a profit of $36 million. First, they purchased Anaconda Properties from Marcus Daly for $39 million, with the understanding that the check was to be deposited in the bank and remain there for a definite time (National City Bank was run by Rockefeller's friends). Rogers and Rockefeller then set up a paper organization, known as the Amalgamated Copper Mining Company, with their own clerks as dummy directors, saying the company was worth $75 million.

They had Amalgamated Copper Company buy Anaconda from them for $75 million in capital stock, which was conveniently printed for the purpose. Then, they borrowed $39 million from the bank using Amalgamated Copper as collateral. They paid back Daly for Anaconda and sold $75 million worth of stock in Amalgamated Copper to the public. They paid back the bank's $39 million and had a profit of $36 million in cash.

With help from banker John Dennis Ryan, Amalgamated acquired two large competitors, and soon controlled all the mines of Butte, Montana. By the late 1920s it had become Anaconda Copper Company and was the fourth-largest company in the world.

From 1912 to 1913, the Pujo Committee investigated Rockefeller and others for allegedly earning $30 million in profit through cornering the copper market and "synchronizing with artificially enforced activity" in Amalgamated Copper stock in the New York Stock Exchange.

When the newly formed Mutual Alliance Trust Company opened for business in New York on the Tuesday after June 29, 1902, there were 13 directors, including Emanuel Lehman and Rockefeller. Wikipedia

 

 

John Davison Rockefeller, Sr., Co-founder Standard Oil

 

John Davison Rockefeller Sr. (July 8, 1839 – May 23, 1937) was an American business magnate and philanthropist. He has been widely considered the wealthiest American of all time and the richest person in modern history. Rockefeller was born into a large family in Upstate New York that moved several times before eventually settling in Cleveland. He became an assistant bookkeeper at age 16 and went into several business partnerships beginning at age 20, concentrating his business on oil refining. Rockefeller founded the Standard Oil Company in 1870. He ran it until 1897 and remained its largest shareholder.

Rockefeller's wealth soared as kerosene and gasoline grew in importance, and he became the richest person in the country, controlling 90% of all oil in the United States at his peak. Oil was used throughout the country as a light source until the introduction of electricity, and as a fuel after the invention of the automobile. Furthermore, Rockefeller gained enormous influence over the railroad industry which transported his oil around the country. Standard Oil was the first great business trust in the United States. Rockefeller revolutionized the petroleum industry and, through corporate and technological innovations, was instrumental in both widely disseminating and drastically reducing the production cost of oil. His company and business practices came under criticism, particularly in the writings of author Ida Tarbell.

The Supreme Court ruled in 1911 that Standard Oil must be dismantled for violation of federal antitrust laws. It was broken up into 34 separate entities, which included companies that became ExxonMobil, Chevron Corporation, and others—some of which still have the highest level of revenue in the world. In the end it turned out that the individual segments of the company were worth more than the entire company was when it was one entity—the sum of the parts were worth more than the whole—as shares of these doubled and tripled in value in their early years. Consequently, Rockefeller became the country's first billionaire, with a fortune worth nearly 2% of the national economy. His personal wealth was estimated in 1913 at $900 million, which was almost 3% of the US GDP of $39.1 billion that year. That was his peak net worth, and amounts to US$24.7 billion (in 2021 dollars; inflation-adjusted).

Rockefeller spent much of the last 40 years of his life in retirement at Kykuit, his estate in Westchester County, New York, defining the structure of modern philanthropy, along with other key industrialists such as steel magnate Andrew Carnegie. His fortune was mainly used to create the modern systematic approach of targeted philanthropy through the creation of foundations that had a major effect on medicine, education, and scientific research. His foundations pioneered developments in medical research and were instrumental in the near-eradication of hookworm and yellow fever in the United States. He and Carnegie gave form and impetus through their charities to the work of Abraham Flexner, who in his essay "Medical Education in America" emphatically endowed empiricism as the basis for the US medical system of the 20th century.

Rockefeller was also the founder of the University of Chicago and Rockefeller University and funded the establishment of Central Philippine University in the Philippines. He was a devout Northern Baptist and supported many church-based institutions. He adhered to total abstinence from alcohol and tobacco throughout his life. For advice, he relied closely on his wife Laura Spelman Rockefeller with whom he had five children. He was a faithful congregant of the Erie Street Baptist Mission Church, taught Sunday school, and served as a trustee, clerk, and occasional janitor. Religion was a guiding force throughout his life and he believed it to be the source of his success. Rockefeller was also considered a supporter of capitalism based on a perspective of social Darwinism, and he was quoted often as saying, "The growth of a large business is merely a survival of the fittest". Wikipedia

 

William Avery "Devil Bill" Rockefeller, Sr.

 

William Avery "Devil Bill" Rockefeller Sr. (November 13, 1810 – May 11, 1906) was an American businessman, lumberman, herbalist, salesman, and con-artist who went by the alias of Dr. William Levingston. He worked as a lumberman and then a traveling salesman who identified himself as a "botanic physician" and sold elixirs. He was known to buy and sell horses, and was also known at one point to have bought a barge-load of salt in Syracuse. Land speculation was another type of his business, and the selling of elixirs served to keep him with cash and aided in his scouting of land deals. He loaned money to farmers at twelve percent, but tried to lend to farmers who could not pay so as to foreclose and take the farms. Two of his sons were Standard Oil co-founders John Davison Rockefeller Sr. and William Avery Rockefeller Jr.

Family

William Avery Rockefeller was born in Ancram, New York.^[3] He was the eldest son of businessman/farmer Godfrey Lewis Rockefeller (September 24, 1783 in Albany, New York – September 28, 1857 in Richford, New York) and Lucy Avery (February 11, 1786 in Great Barrington, Massachusetts – April 6, 1867). Godfrey and Lucy had married on September 20, 1806, in Amwell, Hunterdon County, New Jersey. Bill had two elder sisters—Melinda and Olympia—as well as seven younger siblings; Norman, Sally, Jacob, Mary, Miles, Mary Miranda, and Egbert.

Ancestry

The Rockefellers trace their patrilineal line to Goddard Rockefeller (born Gotthard Rockenfeller) (1590) of Fahr, today part of Neuwied, Germany. The first Rockefeller to emigrate to America (1723) was Johann Peter Rockenfeller (1710 in Segendorf, Neuwied – 1787 in Amwell Township, New Jersey), who changed his name to Rockefeller. Godfrey Lewis Rockefeller was a son of distant cousins William Rockefeller (1750–1793) and Christina Rockefeller (1754–1800). Lucy Avery was born to Miles Avery and Melinda Pixley, New England Yankees of mostly English descent, being a descendant of James Avery.

Marriage and children

Rockefeller married his first wife, Eliza Davison (September 12, 1813 – March 28, 1889), a daughter of farmer John Davison and Cynthia Selover, on February 18, 1837 in Niles, Cayuga Co., New York. John highly opposed the union. Since Cynthia had died when Eliza was twelve, Eliza had been raised by her elder sister, Mary Ann Davison, and father John.

Rockefeller met Eliza on one of his business trips in Upstate New York. It is said that Rockefeller pulled out a slate and chalk to communicate when he arrived at the Davison residence, as he often pretended to be deaf and dumb on his selling trips. Eliza is to have supposedly remarked, "If that man were not deaf and dumb, I'd marry him."

Bill and Eliza were the parents of three sons and three daughters:

• Lucy Rockefeller (1838–1878), married Pierson Briggs
• John Davison Rockefeller Sr. (1839–1937), married Laura Celestia "Cettie" Spelman (1839–1915)
• William Avery Rockefeller Jr. (1841–1922), married Almira Geraldine Goodsell (1844–1920)
• Mary Ann Rockefeller (1843–1925)
• Franklin "Frank" Rockefeller (1845–1917) [twin]
• Frances Rockefeller (1845–1847) [twin]

Bill once bragged, "I cheat my boys every chance I get. I want to make 'em sharp." Although Bill abandoned the family while Lucy, John, and William Jr. were teenagers, he remained legally married to Eliza until her death. In 1856, having assumed the name Dr. William Levingston, he married Margaret Allen (1834–1910) in Norwich, Ontario, Canada. Bill and Margaret had no children together. Before leaving his first wife, Bill also had two daughters with his mistress and housekeeper Nancy Brown:

• Clorinda Rockefeller (c. 1838–?, died young)
• Cornelia Rockefeller (c. 1840–?)

Before marrying Eliza, Bill had been in love with Nancy. However, he ended up marrying Eliza since her father was to give her $500 when she married, and Nancy was poor.

When John D. Rockefeller started his own produce commission business with Maurice B. Clark in 1859, Clark initiated the idea of the partnership and offered $2,000 towards the goal. John D. Rockefeller had only $800 saved up at the time and so borrowed $1,000 from his father, "Big Bill" Rockefeller, at 10 percent interest.

Bill visited with his grandchildren at the Forest Hill estate in Cleveland and at Pocantico Hills in Tarrytown. He taught his grandchildren how to shoot and played fiddle in the evenings for them. Prior to Bill's visits, John D. would invite some of Bill's Upstate New York relatives and friends.

In July 26, 1849, in the city of Auburn, New York, William was indicted for a rape which had occurred at gunpoint. His victim had worked in the Rockefeller household; her name was Ann Vanderbeak. In the 1905 book Memoirs of an American Citizen, Robert Herrick says an improper relationship had been rumoured to exist.

The court document reads, "That William A. Rockefeller late of the Town of Moravia in the County of Cayuga, on the first day of May in the year of the Lord one thousand eight hundred and forty eight, with force and arms at the Town of Moravia in said County, in and upon one Ann Vanderbeak in the Peace of God with the People of the State of New York then and there being, violently did make an assault on her, the said Ann Venderbeak, then and there make violently and against her will feloniously did ravish and carnally know […]". William Cooper, the Rockefeller family Doctor, was also indicted for assault and battery with the intention of raping Ann Vanderbeak.

Because of the allegations, William sold the Moravia home and moved to Owego, New York, possibly to avoid trial, under the pretence of providing better opportunities for the boys. Four days later, Eliza's father sued Bill in the Supreme Court of Cayuga for failure to pay a $1,175 debt. His plea states that Bill had asked him for help with his bail for the rape charges, but that Eliza's father had not seen Bill since. Eliza also informed authorities that her husband had "absconded and cannot now be found within the state." William assumed the title Doctor Bill Levingston and worked as a travelling snake oil specialist. Although nothing became of the charges, William left the family penniless.

After hearing rumors that John D. Rockefeller—then the richest man in the world at the height of his fame—had a shameful family secret, the press went into a frenzy. Joseph Pulitzer offered a reward of $8,000 for information about "Doc Rockefeller," who was known to be alive and living under a false name, but whose whereabouts were a family secret. Despite slim clues picked up from interviews with family members and an 18-month search, the journalists failed to track him down before he died. The full story was not exposed until two years later. 

Rockefeller had spent some time in Park River, North Dakota under the Levingston alias. He died on May 11, 1906, in Freeport, Illinois, at the age of 95. He was buried there in Oakland Cemetery. John D. Rockefeller never publicly acknowledged the truth about his father's life as a bigamist, and the cost for Bill's grave marker was paid by the second wife's estate.   Wikipedia 

 

 

LTG Ralph J. Canine--First Director of NSA

 

Ralph Julian Canine (November 9, 1895 – March 8, 1969) was a lieutenant general in the United States Army and the first director of the National Security Agency. 

Canine was born in 1895 in Flora, Indiana, one of two children of the local superintendent of schools. When he left home, he was intent on being a doctor, and had completed pre-med studies at Northwestern University when he entered the United States Army during World War I and was commissioned a second lieutenant.  

Canine served in various combat posts in France during World War I, and elected to stay in the army after the armistice was signed in 1918. The interwar period was his education, when he traveled from one army post to another, filling just about any job that was vacant. When World War II broke out, Canine was well-fitted for responsibility. He became the chief of staff for the XII Corps, which served in General George S. Patton's Third Army during its race across France in 1944. After the war, he was rewarded with command of the 1st Infantry Division.

In 1951 Canine became director of the Armed Forces Security Agency, which was America's first tentative step toward cryptologic unification. He was there long enough (one year) to see what the organization lacked. When President Harry S. Truman created the National Security Agency in 1952, Canine continued as its first director. He died unexpectedly of a pulmonary embolism in March 1969. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery

 

John King Fairbank--A Founder of Chinese Studies in the U.S.

 

John King Fairbank (May 24, 1907 – September 14, 1991) was an American historian of China and United States–China relations. He taught at Harvard University from 1936 until his retirement in 1977. He is credited with building the field of China studies in the United States after World War II with his organizational ability, his mentorship of students, support of fellow scholars, and formulation of basic concepts to be tested.

The Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard is named after him. Among his most widely read books are The United States and China, first published in 1948 and revised editions in 1958, 1979, and 1983; East Asia: The Great Tradition (1960) and East Asia The Great Transformation (1965), co-authored with Edwin O. Reischauer; and his co-edited series, The Cambridge History of China.

 

Betty Hutton (Elizabeth June Thornburg}--Comedienne & Songbird

 

Betty Hutton (born Elizabeth June Thornburg; February 26, 1921 – March 11, 2007) was an American stage, film, and television actress, comedian, dancer,and singer.  

Hutton was born Elizabeth June Thornburg on February 26, 1921, in Battle Creek, Michigan. While she was very young, her father abandoned the family for another woman. They did not hear of him again until they received a telegram in 1937, informing them of his suicide. Betty and her older sister, Marion, were raised by her alcoholic mother, who took the surname Hutton. Marion was later billed as the actress Sissy Jones.

The three started singing in the family's speakeasy when Betty was 3 years old. Troubles with the police kept the family on the move. They eventually landed in Detroit, where she attended Foch Intermediate School. On one occasion, when Betty, preceded by a police escort, arrived at the premiere of Let's Dance (1950), her mother, arriving with her, quipped, "At least this time the police are in front of us!" Hutton sang in several local bands as a teenager, and at one point visited New York City hoping to perform on Broadway, but she was turned away. A few years later, she was scouted by orchestra leader Vincent Lopez, who gave Hutton her entry into the entertainment business.

She appeared in several musical shorts for Warner Bros., Queens of the Air (1938), Three Kings and a Queen (1939), Public Jitterbug No. 1 (1939), and One for the Book (1940). Hutton was cast in a Broadway show, Two for the Show (1940), which ran for 124 performances. The show was produced by Buddy DeSylva, who then cast Hutton in Panama Hattie (1940–42). This was a major hit, running for 501 performances. It starred Ethel Merman; despite rumors through the years that Merman demanded from envy that Hutton's musical numbers be reduced from the show, more careful reports demonstrate that producer Buddy DeSylva chose to cut just one song of three, "They Ain't Done Right by Our Nell", due to Hutton's "always in overdrive" performance style.

In 1942, writer-director Preston Sturges cast Betty as the dopey but endearing small-town girl who gives local troops a happy send-off and wakes up married and pregnant, but with no memory of who her husband is, except that a few "z's" were in his name. This film, The Miracle of Morgan's Creek, was delayed by Hays Office objections and Sturges' prolific output, and was finally released early in 1944.The film made Hutton a major star; Sturges was nominated for a Best Writing Oscar, the film was named to the National Film Board's Top Ten films for the year, and the National Board of Review nominated the film for Best Picture of 1944, and awarded Betty Hutton the award for Best Acting for her performance. The New York Times named it as one of the 10 Best Films of 1942–1944.

Critic James Agee noted that "the Hays office must have been raped in its sleep" to allow the film to be released. And although the Hays Office received many letters of protest because of the film's subject matter, it was Paramount's highest-grossing film of 1944, playing to standing room-only audiences in some theatres.Paramount kept Hutton busy, putting her in And the Angels Sing (1944) with Fred MacMurray and Dorothy Lamour, and Here Come the Waves (1944) with Bing Crosby. Both were huge hits.

On the strength of Hutton's success, she signed a recording contract with the newly formed Capitol Records (she was one of the earliest artists to do so).

Buddy DeSylva, one of Capitol's founders, also co-produced her next hit, the musical Incendiary Blonde (1945), where she played Texas Guinan. It was directed by veteran comedy director George Marshall and Hutton had replaced Lamour as Paramount's top female box-office attraction.Hutton was one of many Paramount stars in Duffy's Tavern (1945), and was top billed in The Stork Club (1945) with Barry Fitzgerald, produced by DeSyvla. Hutton went into Cross My Heart (1946) with Sonny Tufts, which she disliked. She did however enjoy the hugely popular The Perils of Pauline (1947), directed by Marshall, where she sang a Frank Loesser song that was nominated for an Oscar: "I Wish I Didn't Love You So". Hutton's relationship with Paramount began to disintegrate when DeSylva left the studio due to illness (he died in 1950). "After he left I started doing scripts that I knew weren't good for me." Hutton made Dream Girl (1948) with MacDonald Carey, which she later said, "almost ruined me."^[10] She did Red, Hot and Blue (1949) with Victor Mature, which she also disliked.

Hutton's next screen triumph came in Annie Get Your Gun (1950) for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which hired her to replace Judy Garland in the role of Annie Oakley. The film, with the leading role retooled for Hutton, was a smash hit, with the biggest critical praise going to Hutton

She was billed above Fred Astaire in the 1950 musical Let's Dance.

Hutton in 1952

Hutton was one of several stars in The Greatest Show on Earth (1952). She made an unbilled cameo in Sailor Beware (1952) with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, a remake of The Fleet's In, in which she portrayed Dean's girlfriend, Hetty Button.

She made Somebody Loves Me (1952), a biography of singer Blossom Seeley, with Ralph Meeker.Hutton then clashed with Paramount. The New York Times reported that the dispute resulted from her insistence that her husband at the time, choreographer Charles O'Curran, direct her in a film. In April 1952, Hutton returned to Broadway, performing in Betty Hutton and Her All-Star International Show.

Hutton got work in radio, appeared in Las Vegas, where she had a great success. In 1954, TV producer Max Liebman, of comedian Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows, fashioned his first "Color Spectacular" as an original musical written especially for Hutton, Satins and Spurs. Hutton's last completed film was a small one, Spring Reunion (1957). It was a financial disappointment. She also became disillusioned with Capitol's management and moved to RCA Victor. In 1957, she appeared on a Dinah Shore show on NBC that also featured Boris Karloff; the program has been preserved on a kinescope.

The Betty Hutton Show

Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz took a chance on Hutton in 1959, with their company Desilu Productions giving her a CBS sitcom, The Betty Hutton Show. Hutton hired the still-blacklisted and future film composer Jerry Fielding to direct her series. They had met over the years in Las Vegas when he was blacklisted from TV and radio and could get no other work, and her Hollywood career was also fading. It was Fielding's first network job since losing his post as musical director of Groucho Marx's You Bet Your Life in 1953 after hostile questioning by HUAC. The Betty Hutton Show ended after 30 episodes.

Hutton continued headlining in Las Vegas and touring across the country. She returned to Broadway briefly in 1964 when she temporarily replaced a hospitalized Carol Burnett in the show Fade Out – Fade In. She guest-starred on shows such as The Greatest Show on Earth, Burke's Law, and Gunsmoke.

After the 1962 death of her mother in a house fire, and the collapse of her last marriage, Hutton's depression and pill addictions escalated. She divorced her fourth husband, jazz trumpeter Pete Candoli, when she discovered he had fallen in love with Edie Adams (who would become Candoli's second wife). She declared bankruptcy the same year.

After losing her singing voice in 1970, Hutton had a nervous breakdown and later attempted suicide. She regained control of her life through rehabilitation, and the mentorship of a Roman Catholic priest, Father Peter Maguire. Hutton converted to Roman Catholicism, and took a job as a cook at a rectory in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. She made national headlines when it was revealed she was practically penniless and working in a rectory. After an aborted comeback in 1974, she was hospitalized with emotional exhaustion. Later that year, a well-publicized "Love-In for Betty Hutton" was held at New York City's Riverboat Restaurant, emceed by comedian Joey Adams, with several old Hollywood pals on hand. The event raised $10,000 for Hutton and gave her spirits a big boost, but steady work still eluded her. 

Hutton appeared in an interview with Mike Douglas and a brief guest appearance in 1975 on Baretta. In 1977, Hutton was featured on The Phil Donahue Show. She was then happily employed as hostess at a Newport, Rhode Island, jai alai arena.She also appeared on Good Morning America, which led to a 1978 televised reunion with her two daughters. Hutton began living in a shared home with her divorced daughter and grandchildren in California, but returned to the East Coast for a three-week return to the stage.

Annie

In 1980, she took over the role of Miss Hannigan during the original Broadway production of Annie while Alice Ghostley was on vacation. Ghostley replaced the original Miss Hannigan actress, Dorothy Loudon (who won a Tony Award for the role). Hutton's rehearsal of the song "Little Girls" was featured on Good Morning America. Hutton's Broadway comeback was also included in a profile on CBS News Sunday Morning about her life, her struggle with pills, and her recovery.

A ninth-grade drop-out, Hutton went back to school and earned a master's degree in psychology from Salve Regina University in Newport in 1986. During her time at college, Hutton became friends with singer-songwriter Kristin Hersh and attended several early concerts of Hersh's band, Throwing Muses.^[24] Hersh later wrote the song "Elizabeth June" as a tribute to her friend, and wrote about their relationship in further detail in her memoir, Rat Girl.

Hutton's last known performance, in any medium, was on Jukebox Saturday Night, which aired on PBS in 1983. Hutton stayed in New England and began teaching comedic acting at Boston's Emerson College. She became estranged again from her daughters.

Final years

After the death of her ally, Father Maguire, Hutton returned to California, moving to Palm Springs in 1999, after decades in New England. Hutton hoped to grow closer to her daughters and grandchildren, as she told Robert Osborne on TCM's Private Screenings in April 2000, though her children remained distant. She told Osborne that she understood their hesitancy to accept a now elderly mother. The TCM interview first aired on July 18, 2000. The program was rerun as a memorial on the evening of her death in 2007, and again on July 11, 2008, April 14, 2009, January 26, 2010, and as recently as March 18, 2017. as part of TCM's memorial tribute for Robert Osborne.

Hutton lived in Palm Springs until her death March 12, 2007, at 86, from colon cancer complications. She is buried at Desert Memorial Park in Cathedral City, California.

 

 

 

Olivia Iona Louise Langdon "faithful, judicious, and painstaking editor"

 

Olivia Langdon was born in 1845 in Elmira, New York, to Jervis Langdon and Olivia Lewis Langdon. Her childhood home from 1847 to 1862 was the building at what is now 413 Lake Street. Jervis was a very wealthy coal businessman. The family was religious, reformist, and abolitionist. Olivia, called Livy, was educated by a combination of home tutoring and classes at Thurston's Female Seminary and Elmira Female College. Her health was poor. She was an invalid for part of her teenage years (about six years), and she suffered from what was probably tuberculosis myelitis or Pott's disease. She continued to have health problems throughout her life. 

Langdon met Samuel Clemens in December 1867, through her brother Charles. On their first date they attended a reading by Charles Dickens, in New York City. Clemens, ten years older than Olivia, courted her throughout 1868, mainly by letter. She rejected his first proposal of marriage, but they became engaged two months later, in November 1868. Clemens was quoted later as saying, "I do believe that young filly has broken my heart. That only leaves me with one option, for her to mend it." The engagement was announced in February 1869, and in February 1870, they were married. The wedding was in Elmira, and the ceremony was performed by the Congregational ministers Joseph Twichell and Thomas K. Beecher.

Olivia and Samuel moved to Buffalo, New York, where they lived in a house purchased for them by Olivia's father, Jervis Langdon. Life was difficult for them at first. Jervis died of cancer in August, followed a month later by Olivia's friend Emma Nye, who died in the Clemens' home. Their first child, Langdon Clemens, was born in November but was premature. Olivia contracted typhoid fever and became very ill. The Clemens family then moved to Elmira, so that Olivia's family could watch over her and Langdon.

In 1871, the family moved again, to Hartford, Connecticut, where they rented a large house in the Nook Farm^[2] neighborhood and quickly became important members of the social and literary scene there. They were well off due to Samuel Clemens' earnings from his books and lectures, and Olivia's inheritance, and they lived lavishly. In 1874, they moved into a distinctive house they had had built on land they had purchased until 1891.

Langdon, their son, died in 1872, a year and a half after his birth. Three daughters were born: Olivia Susan (called "Susy") in 1872, Clara in 1874, and Jean (called "Jane") in 1880.^[1]: 652

The family left for Europe in 1891 and lived there for four years. This was mainly prompted by financial need—Samuel's investments in a publishing company and the Paige Compositor lost money, and the family's expenses were catching up with them. They permanently closed up the Hartford house and spent the four years in various temporary accommodations. In 1894, Samuel was forced to declare bankruptcy. Olivia was given "preferred creditor" status, and all Samuel's copyrights were assigned to her. These measures saved the family's financial future.

Olivia helped her husband with the editing of his books, articles, and lectures. She was a "faithful, judicious, and painstaking editor", Clemens wrote. This was one of the things that Livy had on her list of things to do, and she prided herself in helping her husband to edit these works. However, she could be critical of him at times. She continued to help her husband to edit works up until a few months before her death.^[1]: 359

Olivia was also a proponent of women's rights, and surrounded herself with influential women including Julia Beecher and Isabella Beecher Hooker.^[3]

In 1895 and 1896, Olivia and her daughter, Clara, accompanied Samuel on his around-the-world lecture tour, which he undertook to pay off his debts. In 1896, their daughter Susy, who had remained at home in the US, died of spinal meningitis at age 24, a devastating blow to both Olivia and her husband. The family lived in Switzerland, Austria, and England until 1902. Other places the Clemenses lived included Sweden, Germany, France, and Italy. They then returned to the United States, lived in Riverdale, New York, and arranged to move into a house in Tarrytown, New York. Olivia's health began worsening and, advised to keep a distance from her husband in order to keep from getting overexcited, went months without seeing him. However, Twain frequently broke the rule and secretly saw her in order to exchange love letters and kisses. By the end of 1903, doctors' advice led the Clemens family to move to Italy for the warm climate where they resided in a rented villa outside of Florence.

But scarcely six months later, on June 5 1904, Olivia died in Florence from heart failure. She was cremated, and her ashes are interred at Woodlawn Cemetery in Elmira. Twain, who was devastated by her death, died in 1910; he is interred beside her.