Literature

A candidate for the 'founding father' of American humor is Mark Twain, the man Ernest Hemingway credits with the invention of American Literature. It should be stated that humorists existed in the United States before Twain, for example Augustus Baldwin Longstreet collection of Southern humor came out when Twain was 5 years old, but Twain is seen as a founding figure in creating an "American voice" to humor. That stated, Twain remained conscious of his humor's relationship with European counterparts, commenting in "How to Tell a Story" that, "The humorous story is American, the comic story is English, the witty story is French. The humorous story depends for its effect upon the manner of the telling; the comic story and the witty story upon the matter."

This early definition puts emphasis on the performance oriention of American humor, and thereby necessarily the performer her/himself. Indeed, in his time on the lecture circuit Twain essentially 'performed' many of his works, most notably "The American Vandal Abroad" lecture he gave via the Lyceum Movement before the publication of his breakthrough work The Innocents Abroad. Thus, at the root of American humor is the very concept of stand-up comedy itself, and the shift from textual means of conveying humor to that of performance and performer.

His value notwithstanding, Twain represents only one strain of humor in the United States. Another famous American humorist of the nineteenth century was Ambrose Bierce, whose most famous work is the cynical Devil's Dictionary. Early twentieth-century American humorists included members of the Algonquin Round Table (named for the Algonquin Hotel), such as Dorothy Parker and Robert Benchley. In more recent times popular writers of American humor include P. J. O'Rourke, Erma Bombeck, and Dave Barry.