People

From Mark Twain Online

People Lists

Individual Person Pages

Page template & field schema — Fear Project

Person Page — Field Summary
Identification
Full Name
Life Dates
Birth Date
Death Date
Relationship
Relationship Type 1+ of 8 controlled terms
Biography
Summary 1–2 sentence biography (if available)
External Links
Authoritative Bio Wikipedia / other reference
Data Sources
Source SNAC / UVA integration
Extracted list
Images
Image(s) If available, with source
Navigation
Alphabetical Index Complete list
Cross-referenced

Overview

Each Individual Person Page documents a single person mentioned in Fear's work, standardized into a consistent schema so that people can be searched, linked, and cross-referenced across the project. Every page is built from six core components, described below.

1. Basic Info

Full Name The person's full given name and surname, standardized where possible.
Birth Date Date of birth, if known.
Death Date Date of death, if known.
Relationship Type One or more controlled terms describing how the person relates to the records or to Fear. See below.


People Relationship Attributes for a Literary Figure

A controlled vocabulary of person-to-creator relationships, adapted for a literary figure (Samuel L. Clemens / Mark Twain), replacing the generic Creator role. Each top-level attribute carries a set of sub-attributes with a brief definition and a Twain-specific example. However, at this stage we will only be attempting to apply first level attributes.

1. Correspondent

Someone who exchanged letters or messages with Clemens. A relationship of contact that can co-occur with any other category.

  • Personal correspondent — private letters with friends and intimates (e.g., Joseph Twichell).
  • Literary correspondent — letters chiefly about writing, publishing, and criticism (e.g., W. D. Howells).
  • Business correspondent — letters about contracts, royalties, and investments (e.g., Henry H. Rogers).
  • Public / fan correspondent — unsolicited letters from readers, autograph- and favor-seekers.
  • Occasional correspondent — a single or handful of exchanges; relationship otherwise slight.

2. Business Associate (incl. Donors)

A person connected through work, finance, patronage, or the transfer of materials to a repository.

  • Publisher — issued his works (Elisha Bliss / American Publishing Co.; Chatto & Windus).
  • Editor — commissioned or edited his periodical work (R. W. Gilder, Century).
  • Agent / manager — literary or lecture representatives (J. B. Pond; Charles L. Webster).
  • Business partner — co-owners of ventures (Webster & Co.; Paige Compositor backers).
  • Financial associate / investor — advisors and money partners (Henry H. Rogers).
  • Professional advisor — lawyers, accountants, physicians acting in a business capacity.
  • Patron — provided financial support or sponsorship.
  • Donor (to repository) — gave or bequeathed the physical materials to the holding archive.

3. Literary Associates (Collaborators)

People joined to Clemens by shared creative or literary work.

  • Co-author / collaborator — jointly authored a work (Charles Dudley Warner, The Gilded Age).
  • Literary peer — fellow authors in his circle (Cable, Harte, Aldrich, Howells).
  • Illustrator — visual collaborators on his books (E. W. Kemble; Dan Beard).
  • Translator — rendered his work into other languages.
  • Dramatist / adapter — staged or adapted his works.
  • Critic / reviewer — wrote published assessments of his work.
  • Mentor / protégé — those who guided him or whom he advanced.
  • Literary executor — administered his literary estate (A. B. Paine).

4. Family

Kin by blood or marriage.

  • Spouse — Olivia Langdon Clemens.
  • Child — Langdon, Susy, Clara, Jean.
  • Parent — John Marshall Clemens; Jane Lampton Clemens.
  • Sibling — Orion, Pamela, Henry, and others.
  • In-law — the Langdon family and other relations by marriage.
  • Extended family — cousins, aunts/uncles, nieces/nephews.
  • Ancestor / descendant — earlier or later generations named in the record.

5. Personal Associates (Household Staff)

The domestic and personal circle — people around his daily life rather than his work.

  • Household staff — servants and domestics (Katy Leary; George Griffin).
  • Personal secretary / assistant — managed his affairs (Isabel Lyon; Josephine Hobby).
  • Tutor / governess — instructed the children.
  • Physician / caregiver — personal medical attendants.
  • Personal friend — close social intimates not tied to work.
  • Social acquaintance — neighbors and casual social contacts.

6. Unidentified

A person named or referenced who cannot yet be placed in a category.

  • Named but unidentified — a name appears but identity/role is unresolved.
  • Referenced only (unnamed) — designated by role or description ("the landlord," "a gentleman").
  • Pending research — flagged for further identification.
  • Ambiguous — multiple candidate identities not yet disambiguated.

Design notes

Relationships should be multi-valued: many figures occupy several categories at once — W. D. Howells is simultaneously a Correspondent, a Literary Associate (peer and editor), and a Business Associate (editor) — so the scheme should record one primary attribute plus optional secondary attributes rather than forcing a single choice.

2. Biography

A concise 1–2 sentence biography, when available, giving readers enough context to identify who the person was and why they appear in the record.

Links to authoritative outside biographies — Wikipedia or other reference sources — for readers who want more detail than the page itself provides.

4. Data Sources

SNAC / UVA Integration Biographical and relationship data drawn from the Social Networks and Archival Context (SNAC) cooperative, integrated via UVA.
Extracted List Names and mentions extracted directly from Fear's source material.

5. Images

Portrait or other images of the person, where available, each accompanied by source information (repository, collection, or rights holder).

6. Alphabetical Index

Two companion indexes support navigation across all person pages:

Complete List
Every person mentioned in Fear, listed alphabetically from A to Z, linking out to their individual page.
Cross-Referenced Index
The same list of people, cross-referenced by relationship type and by the places and events with which they are associated.

Note: A single person may carry multiple Relationship Type tags (e.g. someone who is both a Correspondent and a Family member). Biography text should be kept brief and factual; longer analysis belongs in external links or source notes, not on the page itself.


Individual Person Pages template — Fear Project. Relationship Type vocabulary: 8 terms.