This picture preserves a moment few cameras ever caught — Mark Twain Lying In His Bed At Home In 1909, He Died The Year After. Not Colorized, This Is Autochrome Lumiere. It was taken in 1909, and like the best archival images it needs almost no explanation — the frame tells its own story.
The first years of the twentieth century were an age of confident invention. Powered flight arrived with the Wright brothers in 1903, automobiles were leaving the curiosity stage, and cities were filling with electric light, elevators, and streetcars — all of it documented by a new generation of press photographers.
Most photography of the period chased celebrities and headlines, which makes surviving images of daily routine all the more precious. This is what the world actually looked like when nobody thought it was worth remembering.
