The Golden Era
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The Golden Era was a 19th-century San Francisco newspaper. The publication featured the writing of Mark Twain, Bret Harte, Charles Warren Stoddard (writing at first as "Pip Pepperpod"), Fitz Hugh Ludlow, Adah Isaacs Menken, Ada Clare, Prentice Mulford, Dan De Quille,<ref>The Routledge Encyclopedia of Mark Twain</ref> J. S. Hittell and some women such as Frances Fuller Victor.<ref>Companion to California</ref> Stoddard recalled the newspaper as "the chief literary organ west of the Rocky Mountains".<ref name=":0">Tarnoff, Ben. The Bohemians: Mark Twain and the San Francisco Writers Who Reinvented American Literature. New York: The Penguin Press, 2014: 40. Template:ISBN</ref>
History
The Golden Era began in 1852 as a weekly founded by Rollin M. Daggett and J. Macdonough Foard.<ref>Twainquotes.com. "Mark Twain in The Golden Era, 1863–1866". Retrieved on July 26, 2009.</ref> In 1860 it was sold to James Brooks and Joseph E. Lawrence. In the spring of 1860, they hired Bret Harte as editor and he focused on making it a more literary publication.<ref>Tarnoff, Ben. The Bohemians: Mark Twain and the San Francisco Writers Who Reinvented American Literature. New York: The Penguin Press, 2014: 26–27. Template:ISBN</ref> He had previously published his first poem in the Golden Era in 1857<ref>Scarnhorst, Gary. Bret Harte: Opening the American Literary West. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000: 6; Template:ISBN</ref> and, in October of that same year, his first prose piece on "A Trip Up the Coast".<ref>Nissen, Axel. Bret Harte: Prince and Pauper. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2000: 48–49. Template:ISBN</ref> Twain later recalled that, as an editor, Harte struck "a new and fresh and spirited note" which "rose above that orchestra's mumbling confusion and was recognizable as music".<ref>Tarnoff, Ben. The Bohemians: Mark Twain and the San Francisco Writers Who Reinvented American Literature. New York: The Penguin Press, 2014: 28. Template:ISBN</ref>
In the 1860s, New Yorker Charles Henry Webb became the highest paid contributor to the magazine.<ref>Nissen, Axel. Bret Harte: Prince and Pauper. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2000: 76. Template:ISBN</ref> In his regular column at the end of 1863, he announced that he and Harte "determined to start a paper" of their own.<ref>Tarnoff, Ben. The Bohemians: Mark Twain and the San Francisco Writers Who Reinvented American Literature. New York: The Penguin Press, 2014: 65. Template:ISBN</ref> The result was the Californian, a weekly begun in May 1864, with Webb as publisher and Harte as star contributor and occasional editor.<ref>Nissen, Axel. Bret Harte: Prince and Pauper. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2000: 25. Template:ISBN</ref> For the rest of the decade, The Golden Era and The Californian were significant rivals <ref>Caron, James E. Mark Twain: Unsanctified Newspaper Reporter. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2008: 217. Template:ISBN</ref> until Harte became the editor of the Overland Monthly in 1868.<ref>Stoddard, Charles Warren. Early Recollections of Bret Harte. The Atlantic, November 1896.</ref>
Harr Wagner bought the weekly in 1882. In January 1886, Wagner changed to monthly publication, and hired Joaquin Miller as editor. Wagner married poet Madge Morris who was already a contributor, and her contributions became more numerous. From 1885 to 1895, Madge served as editor,<ref>{{#invoke:template wrapper|{{#if:|list|wrap}}|_template=cite Appletons'
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The office for The Golden Era was located initially in the Golden Era Building on 742 Montgomery Street from 1852 until 1854;<ref name=":02">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and later on Clay Street.<ref name=":0" />
References
- Gleen E. Humpreys, The Golden Era, American Literary Magazines, 1986
External links
- Links to articles and quotes by Mark Twain published in the Golden Era.
- Short radio episode of Twain's "Earthquake Almanac" published in the Golden Era magazine in 1865 from California Legacy Project.
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