Artemus Ward

19th-century American humorist (pen name of Charles Farrar Browne) who was the most popular American comedian of his era — and a major influence on Mark Twain and Abraham Lincoln.

The American vernacular humor tradition: Ward's fictional persona (a traveling showman who wrote with intentional misspellings and malapropisms) created the template of the American populist humorist — speaking truth through comic exaggeration. Lincoln famously read from Ward before announcing the Emancipation Proclamation to his Cabinet ('Gentlemen, why don't you laugh?'). Mark Twain acknowledged Ward as a primary influence. Ward's short life (he died at 32) cut off what might have been the most significant career in 19th-century American comedy.