March – Harper’s Monthly printed “The First Century of the Republic,” by Edwin P. Whipple. This article described popular humorists like Artemus Ward, John Phoenix, and Mark Twain, who was said to be:

“the most widely popular of this class of humorists, is a man of wide experience, keen intellect, and literary culture. The serious portions of his writings indicate that he could win a reputation in literature even if he had not been blessed with a humorous faculty inexhaustible in resource” [Tenney 8].