Ford's Theater where Lincoln was shot (in rare non-rainy moment)

When we went into the actual theater (or, in some of my students’ cases, the napping room–shame on you!), I was disappointed at first that the guard ushered me upstairs since the downstairs was full.  But in the balcony I realized I was actually at eye level with Lincoln’s box, shown below.  Both Lincoln and Booth made their way through the crowded balcony that night; the door Booth entered and jammed shut is just to the right of what I captured on this photo.  The theater is very intimate, and the box is really hanging over stage left.  I had real chills when the ranger was narrating the events of April 1865.

Presidental box, Ford's Theater (image of Washington in center frame)

Afterward we toured the Peterson House where Lincoln actually died– such a small, nondescript room with a sloped ceiling and bed so short (the real one is in Chicago, but the replica) that Lincoln had to lie diagonally while they waited for his heart to stop; he was brain dead pretty much instantly after being shot.

At the Library of Congress, Barbara Bair had set out three different tickets to Whitman’s Lincoln lecture, an advertising poster for it, and the text Whitman used for the lecture, which was a novel into which he had glued written bits, parts of his published works, annotations, etc.

Tickets to W's Lincoln lectures

Advertisement with our heroes side by side

The pasted-up text of W's Lincoln lecture (wish that was my hand!)

Digital Whitman can attest that I am probably a little–well, over-invested in Lincoln.  But these artifacts, though not as personal as some others we saw, were indeed very moving to me.

]]> http://marywash.lookingforwhitman.org/2009/11/01/o-lincoln-my-lincoln/feed/ 0 http://mscanlon.lookingforwhitman.org/2009/10/28/favorite-manuscript-moment/ http://mscanlon.lookingforwhitman.org/2009/10/28/favorite-manuscript-moment/#respond Thu, 29 Oct 2009 03:46:21 +0000 http://mscanlon.lookingforwhitman.org/?p=288 I am indebted to Other Sam for drawing my attention to this very moving detail.  One of the best things I saw at the Library of Congress was Whitman’s letter of December 29, 1862 (that is, exactly 106 years before the day I was born), to his mother about finding George in Fredericksburg.  We were able to read aloud his words about the suffering of the soldiers putting other suffering into perspective.  We have read this letter in a collected of selected letters: “Dear, dear Mother, . . . I succeeded in reaching the 51st New York, and found George alive and well–in order to make sure that you would get the good news, I sent back by messenger to Washington (I dare say you did not get it for some time), a telegraphic dispatch . . .”  What is not visible in that version of the letter is the revision Whitman made, no doubt anticipating the anxiety with which his mother would scan the letter if she had not received the “telegraphic dispatch” or was desperate for information about her wounded son.  Lovely:

revision ("alive and well"), photo by MNS 10/24/09, LOC

WW notebook #94, Library of Congress American Memory site

WW notebook, photo by MNS, Library of Congress

The one on top is from a link to the Library of Congress I gave the class a few weeks ago, urging them to use these digitized images to study what OMW recorded about the soldiers.  The bottom was taken on our field trip, and is surprisingly focused given that I, Brady Earnhart, and our students were nearly all literally in tears in that weird institutional room with lockers, blackened windows, and government-issue tables.  Unless we were crying with simple gratitude for the incredible time that Barbara Bair had given us (or because we were soaked to the bloody skin  and had been standing for 10 hours with two or three to go), why were we?  Nothing was much easier to read in person, as those of us who stumbled reading aloud can attest (writing still spidery, bleeding through paper, plastic protection on many items reflected flourescent glare, etc.).  We couldn’t touch anything (though, good lord, we certainly breathed all over it), couldn’t feel the paper, the wood, the leather, the hair (the hair!).

Whitman's hair, deathbed edition, photo by MNS 10/24/09

I couldn’t even smell the leather of that haversack or of its decay, and I have one good super-sniffer.

cue to tears: the haversack, photo by MNS 10/24/09

Obviously, what I am suggesting is this: the artifacts of the Library of Congress archive were in some ways no more accessible or immediate (indeed, let’s be honest, a lot LESS accessible or even immediate if we mean time instead of proximity) than the digitized images of those artifacts online.  I saw that the inside of the haversack is brown canvas.  Brendon found a fingerprint and will NOT entertain suggestions that it belongs to anyone but Walt Whitman.  But tears?

Presence.  Through the blog we are present to each other online even when we are physically apart during the week (or have never seen each other: hallooo out there, Brooklyn, Camden, and Novi Sad!).  Agreed.  But finally Saturday we were (good) old-fashioned groupies, we were Whitman lovers, and we were bodies (finer than prayer, but, geez, we were a bit rank by Hour Ten of the marathon).  We desired the physical–the textured, the pasted, the water-stained.  We may have cried because the broken skins of brittle pages and fragile covers, the light-sensitive [associative digression: Whitman's Camden eyeglasses: so small, and with one lens protectively glazed over after strokes] and subsequently entombed haversack, and the tickets to a lecture on Lincoln long since delivered were as close to Whitman (brittle, entombed…) as we are going to get, as present as we can be.  Unlike the wounded soldiers, we won’t get the healing presence of his 200-pound, hirsute, maroon-coated, deep-pocketed self.  But it turns out that the digitized can’t hold a gas lamp to the physically present, and even if it’s paper and not flesh, I’ll take it.  Whitmaniacs, pass the tissues.

A few notes for Saturday (check for updates!):

1. Carpool rendez-vous: Jefferson Circle behind Combs at 9:00 a.m.

2. Parking in DC: 1201 F St. NW, 20005

• Take 95 North to 395 North (follow signs from 95 for 395/495/Washington/Tysons)
• On 395, take 12th Street exit toward L’Enfant Promenade
• 12th Street (follow slight left at 11th St SW/12th street tunnel)
• Left onto Connecticut NW
• First right onto 14th St NW
• Right at F St NW
• Garage on your left
• If full,  proceed straight to next garage, 1155 F Street NW

3. Meeting place for 11:00 a.m. walking tour (1.5-2 hours): Lafayette Square, Andrew Jackson Statue (adjacent to White House, H street NW/16th St NW)

4. Tour ends in Chinatown (H and I streets between 7th and 8th)– lunch on your own

5. Meaningful afternoon activities:

• Ford’s Theater (free tix required–Scanlon): 511 10th St NW, 20004-1402
• Smithsonian Museum of American History, 19th-century and Lincoln exhibits: on National Mall, 14th and Constitution NW
• your choice

6. Library of Congress– meet out front at 5:15 p.m.

• Madison Building, 101 Independence Ave SE, 20540 (corner of Independence and 1st SE), behind Capitol Bldg. complex
• 1.5-2 miles from Ford’s/Mall if you go by foot (can follow Independence along edge of Mall)

7. Back to cars and Fredericksburg

Whitman, American Rebel Idol.

A few examples:

Walt Whitman High, Bethesda, MD

Walt Whitman High School, Huntington Station, NY

The Walt Whitman Bridge (PA-NJ)

The Walt Whitman Mall (Huntington Station, NY)

Walt Wit Beer (Philly)

LOC image, Whitman cigar box from 1898

Whitman-Walker AIDS clinic, Washington DC

Walt Whitman Hotel, Camden , NJ

Walt Whitman T from LOLA (one of many)

Walt Whitman Fence Company (NY)

Mad Magazine, 1967

Campers at Camp Walt Whitman, Piermont, NH

Jesse Merandy (CUNY) with WW impersonator (Camden)

Walt Whitman Service Area

What?

Historical marker (NY)

Walt Whitman Golf (Bethesda)

WW Park (Brooklyn)

Obvious College Football connection

Here at UMW we’ve been finding poems that mention or respond to Whitman.  This poem doesn’t do so directly, but it focuses on a love of Brooklyn that may resonate with your readings now:

“On Leaving Brooklyn”

after Psalm 137

If I forget thee

let my tongue forget the songs

it sang in this strange land

and my heart forget the secrets

only a stranger can learn.

____

Borough of churches, borough of crack,

if I forget how ailanthus trees sprout

on the rooftops, how these streets

end in water and light,

let my eyes grow nearsighted.

____

Let my blood forget

the map of its travels

and my other blood cease

its slow tug toward the sea

if I do not remember,

____

if I do not always consider thee

my Babylon, my Jerusalem.

–Julia Kasdorf, from Eve’s Striptease

Today I was in C’ville for an appointment and when it was done, my traveling companion Professor Emerson and I decided to stretch our legs on the grounds of our alma mater.  Professor Emerson has a friend who works in the new rare book facility, which I had not seen, and we stopped by to see him.  Although we missed him for the day, we paused to look in a small display on the edge of the controlled rare book area.  And (hold your slouch hats), I suddenly recognized the handwriting on two pieces of paper, each about 3×5 (one with ragged edges as though torn out): a hand-written manuscript of “When I Heard at the Close of Day,” in ink with WW’s revisions in pencil (description in the display: “autograph manuscript  with pencilled and pasted corrections in author’s hand.  1857-1859″), the final lines of the poem squeezed near the bottom of the second page.  Needless to say, I nearly shrieked, but instead read the poem aloud to Professor Emerson, who bravely offered to risk jail by using her cell phone as a camera in the controlled rare book space.  Though I was perfectly willing to risk her freedom in pursuit of Walt, we both felt the manuscript would not photograph through the specialized glass, so instead you have only this, my testimonio, and will have to trust me that it was wonderful.

“Walt Whitman is a f*g who died years ago and obviously has been worshiped to the degree that he has a school named after him.”

My friends, this, too, is Whitman under our bootsoles.

This post is really a series of reminders and guidelines.  Boring (and overwhelming?  I’m trying), but read on:

• Don’t forget to log on to your own individual blog and post from there rather than posting directly on the Digital Whitman blog, which is creating problems for some folks.
• Dr. Earnhart has confirmed the start time for our first set of field trips on October 3.  We will begin at the Visitors’ Center on the Sunken Road battlefield at 1:00 that day with a movie, followed by a tour of the battlefield, after which we will carpool over to Chatham to see the mansion that served as Union headquarters/hospital/Whitman’s nursing inspiration.  We should be done by 5 that day.  Stay tuned for more details but please block out your time now.
• As announced in class, the readings for Sept. 22, when we begin work on the 1867 edition, have been focused more narrowly.  On the syllabus page, there will be an addendum document you should use for that week’s assignments.
• And speaking of readings… Let me remind everyone to budget weekly time efficiently to make sure you complete all readings thoughtfully before class (as MAY not have been the case this past Tuesday…).  We have not required written summaries of articles, but it would be a great idea as you read to use your blog to record a very brief summary, some personal notes or responses, or a few key phrases/quotations.  That will give you a better record for class, and it will benefit your classmates as well in our ongoing collaboration.
• And speaking of readings one more time, they do lighten up in most of the remaining weeks.  One exception seems to be Sept. 29, which has a heavier assignment again.  Please plan ahead to budget appropriate time that week.

a parade moves through the streets of Fredericksburg, where George Washington walked and his mother Mary lived, where George Washington Whitman would have marched uphill (determined? afraid? moving between the staggering Union survivors in retreat?) and come back down (marching? dragging? on a stretcher?–exhausted, defeated, wounded, through the blood of thousands dead in a day);

my family and others march behind an election banner for our neighbor, the Commonwealth Attorney for the city: La Bravia Jenkins, an African American woman;

the cluster of African American friends, family, and supporters for La Bravia are the only people of color I see in the parade, which is a collection of children on decorated bikes, babies in strollers and wagons, the cow from Chik-fil-a, one clown;

my son walks in the parade wearing a paper George Washington mask and a tricorn hat, above his red-and-white Obama 2008 t-shirt, calling “Happy Independence Day!” to the people on the sidewalks;

I mull over the fact that the parade is called The Heritage Parade;

at the dunking booth for the Fredericksburg street festival, my son waits nearly an hour for the editor of the local paper to get in so he can pitch the balls and dunk him in chilly water for the conservative viewpoints he spouts from the editorial page;

at Montpelier, the home of James Madison, Architect of the Constitution, which sits about 50 minutes south of Fredericksburg and was used for a winter encampment of Confederate soldiers in 1863 when Whitman was two hours north in DC, we read about Madison’s death in the words of his literate “man-servant,” who reports that just before he died, Madison told his niece it was “nothing but a change of mind”;

in the basement of the home, the cellars, storage rooms to which Dolley Madison kept the keys, and indoor kitchens, which are not on the guided tour, we see the first names of 120 slaves written in cursive letters on transparent plastic informational signs throughout the rooms, their ghostly naming floating behind facts and dates;

we read that one of Madison’s slaves accompanied him to Philadelphia, where he listened to Madison, a man always well prepared for his debates, defend freedom and basic rights for all human beings and then challenged his master about slavery; Madison admired his thinking and could not deny his point, so he wrote to his father that the slave would not be fit for plantation life again and might incite unrest among the other slaves; after the Congress he was sold in Pennsylvania, a state where he might earn his freedom after seven years of servitude;

we find that one of Madison’s oldest and longest serving slaves was named Moses; my partner says, “Ironic”;

we cross wet grass barefoot to see some headstones partially hidden by trees, and find they are for race horses because the Montpelier estate houses a stable for retired thoroughbred racers, which was established by the enormously wealthy DuPont family that purchased the house and land several years after Dolley’s death in poverty;

the slave cemetary we walk to has no headstones at all, just indentations in the earth where the soil has given way to rotting coffins– about five visible though there must be 100; the sign shows a photo of the indentations filled with snow, which increases their visibility;

we see that Dolley Madison lived long enough to be photographed, her likeness hanging next to her husband’s oil painting in a small gallery;

a fraction of a letter handwritten by Madison is also on display, having been found by historic preservationists in a mouse nest inside the walls of Montpelier in the last ten years and later authenticated by experts.

History/heritage/legacy/preservation/tradition.  Race.  Economy.  Politics.  War.  Literacy/language.  My Whitman Catalogue for Independence Day.

The threads, at a minimum:  freedom and limitation/slavery/imprisonment, inspiration, poverty,  inventive language and necessary communications, race, hope and despair, the American Dream, future of the nation, the city, war/violence. . .

This will have me thinking for a long time.

Whitman House in center