The Allen P. Crawford Collection on Mark Twain consists of correspondence, photographs, images, magazine articles, newspaper clippings, book excerpts and book reviews. Handwritten notes by Crawford throughout the collection were made in 2006.
Mr. Crawford pastored a church in Elmira, N.Y. during the 1940s and started collecting material about him during that time. Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens) spent many summers in Elmira and is buried there.
A focus of Crawford’s correspondence is related to his research on Mark Twain, requesting publications and images. The correspondence indicates Crawford planned to write a book about Mark Twain. Crawford corresponded with the Mark Twain Association of America, which later merged with the Mark Twain Research Foundation. There is one issue of their newsletter, The Twainian, October 1943. There is also correspondence between Crawford and Clemens’ daughter, Clara Clemens Samossoud.
Many of the photographs are copies made in 1943 of photos taken in 1903. Crawford also took photographs in 1943 of an 1895 contract with Mrs. T.K. Beecher and Mark Twain written on stones. These stones were given to Elmira College in 1962. There are photographs of Crawford with Dr. Rufus Rockwell Wilson who was a prominent Elmira newspaperman and author.
The largest amount of material is newspaper and magazine articles relating to Mark Twain that Crawford collected throughout his life.
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