I hear and behold God in every object, yet I understand God not in the least,
Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself.
—Song of Myself

Thesis

Walt Whitman was a narcissist. His narcissism began in childhood when, as an infant unable to idealize his father or detach from his mother, he became his own love-object. Whitman’s attachment to his mother and disappointment in his father lasted throughout his lifetime and complicated his role in the Whitman family. His narcissism was the cause of both his obsession with the public’s reception of his work and his determination to be the nation’s poet. It is also the root of the autoeroticism in his poetry and an explanation of the fractured self his poetry portrays. Most poignantly, Whitman’s narcissism informed his homosexual impulses and the commingled pleasure and torture Whitman experienced as a nurse in the Civil War hospitals.

Research
In terms of theoretical research, I analyzed Whitman from a Freudian standpoint and did not address later theories of narcissism (either Lacanian or post-Freudian psychoanalysis) at length. Any information on post-Freud theories was based on Lynne Layton’s article, “From Oedipus to Narcissus: Literature and the Psychology of the Self,” which explores the roots of narcissism through a modern psychoanalytic lens. Primarily, I relied on theory provided by Freud’s essay “On Narcissism” in The Freud Reader, although I found useful information in some of his other essays as well (for example, Civilization and Its Discontents). “On Narcissism” was useful in defining narcissism and providing a theoretical framework with which to establish Whitman’s narcissism and relate it to his autoeroticism, homosexuality, and relationship with his mother.
Regarding historical research, I contextualized Whitman’s sexuality and mother-son relationship using Reynolds’s Whitman biography and Myrth Jimmie Killingsworth’s article “Whitman and Motherhood: A Historical View.” Reynolds provides an excellent description of the views of same-sex relationships in Whitman’s time and Killingsworth explains Whitman’s use of the motherhood mystique in relation to the intense mother-son relationships that were typical of the nineteenth century. My analysis of Walt Whitman’s narcissism was based on both biographical information and a selection of his writing that included the poems Song of Myself, “As at Thy Portals Also Death,” and “The Wound Dresser;” and the prose work Specimen Days.

Works Cited

Bauerlein, Mark. “Whitman’s Language of the Self.” American Imago 44.2 (1987): 129-148. Print.
Cavitch, David. My Soul and I: The Inner Life of Walt Whitman. Boston: Beacon Press, 1985. Print.
Fredrickson, Robert S. “Public Onanism: Whitman’s Song of Himself.” Modern Language Quarterly 46.2 (1985): 143-60. Print.
Freud, Sigmund. The Freud Reader. Ed. Peter Gay. New York: Norton, 1989. Print.
Killingsworth, Myrth Jimmie. “Whitman and Motherhood: A Historical View.” American Literature 54.1 (1982): 28-43. Print.
Layton, Lynne. “From Oedipus to Narcissus: Literature and the Psychology of Self.” Mosaic 18.1 (1985): 97-105. Print.
Moder, Donna. “Gender Bipolarity and the Metaphorical Dimensions of Creativity in Walt Whitman’s Poetry: A Psychobiographical Study.” Literature and Psychology 34.1 (1988): 34-52. Print.
Reynolds, David S. Walt Whitman’s America: A Cultural Biography. New York: Vintage, 1996. Print.
Whitman, Walter. Walt Whitman: Poetry and Prose. Ed. Justin Kaplan. New York: Library of America, 1996. Print.
Zweig Paul. “The Wound Dresser.” Ed. Harold Bloom. Modern Critical Views: Walt Whitman. New York: Chelsea House, 1985. Print.

Final Paper Presentation

I hear and behold God in every object, yet I understand God not in the least,
Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself.
—Song of Myself

Thesis

Walt Whitman was a narcissist. His narcissism began in childhood when, as an infant unable to idealize his father or detach from his mother, he became his own love-object. Whitman’s attachment to his mother and disappointment in his father lasted throughout his lifetime and complicated his role in the Whitman family. His narcissism was the cause of both his obsession with the public’s reception of his work and his determination to be the nation’s poet. It is also the root of the autoeroticism in his poetry and an explanation of the fractured self his poetry portrays. Most poignantly, Whitman’s narcissism informed his homosexual impulses and the commingled pleasure and torture Whitman experienced as a nurse in the Civil War hospitals.

Research
In terms of theoretical research, I analyzed Whitman from a Freudian standpoint and did not address later theories of narcissism (either Lacanian or post-Freudian psychoanalysis) at length. Any information on post-Freud theories was based on Lynne Layton’s article, “From Oedipus to Narcissus: Literature and the Psychology of the Self,” which explores the roots of narcissism through a modern psychoanalytic lens. Primarily, I relied on theory provided by Freud’s essay “On Narcissism” in The Freud Reader, although I found useful information in some of his other essays as well (for example, Civilization and Its Discontents). “On Narcissism” was useful in defining narcissism and providing a theoretical framework with which to establish Whitman’s narcissism and relate it to his autoeroticism, homosexuality, and relationship with his mother.
Regarding historical research, I contextualized Whitman’s sexuality and mother-son relationship using Reynolds’s Whitman biography and Myrth Jimmie Killingsworth’s article “Whitman and Motherhood: A Historical View.” Reynolds provides an excellent description of the views of same-sex relationships in Whitman’s time and Killingsworth explains Whitman’s use of the motherhood mystique in relation to the intense mother-son relationships that were typical of the nineteenth century. My analysis of Walt Whitman’s narcissism was based on both biographical information and a selection of his writing that included the poems Song of Myself, “As at Thy Portals Also Death,” and “The Wound Dresser;” and the prose work Specimen Days.

Works Cited

Bauerlein, Mark. “Whitman’s Language of the Self.” American Imago 44.2 (1987): 129-148. Print.
Cavitch, David. My Soul and I: The Inner Life of Walt Whitman. Boston: Beacon Press, 1985. Print.
Fredrickson, Robert S. “Public Onanism: Whitman’s Song of Himself.” Modern Language Quarterly 46.2 (1985): 143-60. Print.
Freud, Sigmund. The Freud Reader. Ed. Peter Gay. New York: Norton, 1989. Print.
Killingsworth, Myrth Jimmie. “Whitman and Motherhood: A Historical View.” American Literature 54.1 (1982): 28-43. Print.
Layton, Lynne. “From Oedipus to Narcissus: Literature and the Psychology of Self.” Mosaic 18.1 (1985): 97-105. Print.
Moder, Donna. “Gender Bipolarity and the Metaphorical Dimensions of Creativity in Walt Whitman’s Poetry: A Psychobiographical Study.” Literature and Psychology 34.1 (1988): 34-52. Print.
Reynolds, David S. Walt Whitman’s America: A Cultural Biography. New York: Vintage, 1996. Print.
Whitman, Walter. Walt Whitman: Poetry and Prose. Ed. Justin Kaplan. New York: Library of America, 1996. Print.
Zweig Paul. “The Wound Dresser.” Ed. Harold Bloom. Modern Critical Views: Walt Whitman. New York: Chelsea House, 1985. Print.

Final Paper Presentation

There were two main reasons why the Tunnel was built. The first reason was for the safety of pedestrians; the street level trains were unable to brake in time and had caused the deaths of two youths. Steam trains did not begin operating in the United States until 1830. Therefore, locomotive travel was new and dangerous; both because pedestrians were unfamiliar with steam trains and because the system of braking had yet to be refined. In 1844 “C. Davis and others, and of William Cook and 170 others” brought forward petitions “requiring the Long Island Rail Road Co. to remove the cars and engines from the street to the wharf and ground near the foot of Atlantic St., and cut through, or tunnel through, the hill on said st…” (‘Common Council’, 2). The safety of Brooklynites was the most plausible reason for moving trains underground, but another source has a different reason for moving the train system underground. The second reason is stated in an article in the Brooklyn Eagle from 1911. According to the article, “The old subway was built that the beauty of Atlantic Avenue, planned to become the finest business highway of any street in any city in America, might not be destroyed”(‘Oldest Subway’, 3). For these reasons the corner stone of the two-train tunnel was laid on May 24^th, 1844 and it was open for travel seven months later on the 2^nd of December, 1844.

The Atlantic Avenue Tunnel was built by mostly Irish immigrants using the cut and cover method. Cut and cover is a method where a trench is excavated and roofed over. The street was dug up for roughly 12 blocks, a wooden frame was built, a barrel vaulted brick roof put in, and the street relayed. From start to finish the tunnel ranged from one foot to thirteen feet under the street. The entrance to the tunnel was between Boerum Place and Court Street; thus the tunnel is only a foot under Court Street. From there it quickly descends as it gets closer to the East River. Its dimensions are seventeen feet high and 21 feet wide. The terminus of the tunnel is around what was then Emmett Street but is now called Willow Place. Where the tunnel ended is where the train then came above ground and ran for another block and a half; it made a turn and ended between Columbia Street and the East River at a station. Passengers then were within walking distance of the Ferry house. The July 23^rd, 1911 edition of the Brooklyn Eagle reported that as of then, the old station still stood but was being used as a double store.

Opening day of the tunnel, December 2^nd, 1844, was seen as a day of celebration in Brooklyn. Guests were invited to ride the newly opened rail along with the president of the Long Island Railroad and other important officials. Upon “[r]eturning to the depot, a collation was spread out for their entertainment, at which His Honor the Mayor of Brooklyn presided” (‘Opening Of The Tunnel,2). One engine operated in the front to pull the train while another operated in the back to push it. Because of this dual engine process, the LIRR train was the fastest mode of transportation in the United States at that time. The Atlantic Avenue Tunnel was part of a longer route named the Brooklyn and Jamaica Railroad which ran from the village of Jamaica to the then named East River Front.

Even though one of the reasons why the Atlantic Avenue Tunnel was built was because it was a safety precaution, one should not be led to believe that just because the train was now underground it meant that there were no longer any train-related accidents. There were multiple deaths from the outset. The Brooklyn Eagle states that one man died from falling into the tunnel during construction (‘Petitions’, 2), while the Brooklyn Evening Star writes that one worker was killed during a cave-in (‘Accident’, 2) and an overseer was murdered by a disgruntled employee (‘Reported Murder In Brooklyn’, 3). Another death occurred in 1854 when a man threw himself in front of the train as it began to enter the tunnel. His body was severed into two (‘Shocking Accident’, 3).

These accidents did not decrease the popularity of the Atlantic Avenue Tunnel. Initially, Brooklynites patronized the Long Island Railroad with relish. Yet, for all its initial popularity and profit, the tunnel was closed after sixteen years. The Brooklyn Eagle sites financial trouble in more than one paper. The May 31^st, 1896 edition states that, “[i]n 1850 the Long Island road passed into the hands of the supreme court of New York on the foreclosure of a mortgage…” (‘Atlantic Avenue Tunnel’, 18), and the July 23^rd 1911 edition states that it was “sold out under foreclosure”. The second reason why it was closed was because of a group of people who organized against the use of steam power on Atlantic Avenue. Their voice was powerful because “[l]egislation went through Albany for the old tunnel from South Ferry to Boerem place to be closed. This was on June 6, 1859” (‘Oldest Subway’, 3). The Long Island Railroad Co. was paid $125,000 to relinquish their rights to the use of steam power within city limits. The tunnel finally closed in the year 1860.

After its closing, the Tunnel was mainly remembered by people who were filing lawsuits against it. Several suits were brought up by men who “were assessed for the closing Atlantic avenue tunnel in 1860…”(‘Long Litigation’, 4). Disgruntled Brooklynites who wished for faster transportation would write into the Brooklyn Eagle with suggestions of re-opening the tunnel (‘Proposition To Re-occupy’, 3). A few men tried to purchase the tunnel (‘The Atlantic Avenue Tunnel’, 3).

But it seems that only one man wrote about the tunnel with nostalgia. That man was Walt Whitman. In 1861, Whitman wrote columns for the Brooklyn Standard. He titled this collection “Brooklyniana”. One long excerpt he wrote was his thoughts about the tunnel. Whitman writes:

The old tunnel, that used to lie there under ground, a passage of Acheron-like solemnity and the darkness, now all closed and filled up, and soon to be utterly forgotten, with all its reminiscences…The tunnel: dark as the grave, cold, damp, and silent. How beautiful look earth and heaven again, as we emerge from the gloom! It might not be unprofitable, now and then, to send us mortals-the dissatisfied ones, at least, and that’s a large portion- into some tunnel of several days’ journey. We’d perhaps grumble less, afterward, at God’s handiwork (306-307).

Whitman realized that the tunnel could give people perspective on life, even if it had outlived its monetary usefulness. What was once supposed to be the seat of splendor was slowly fading out of the minds of most people. By 1902 the articles pertaining to the tunnel had dwindled to reference of dirt being taken from the tunnel to be used to fill stagnant pools of water (‘L.I.R.R.’s New Terminal’, 9). As years went by the tunnel lived on through legends and rumors. People knew or heard of its existence, but by 1911 not only was the question of who owed the tunnel unanswerable, but the entrance to the tunnel seemed to be lost entirely (‘Oldest Subway’, 3 ).

Something as large as the Atlantic Avenue Tunnel can never be forgotten entirely. The tunnel transformed through imagination into a source of literary inspiration. In 1893 a fictional story was published in The New York Times entitled Atlantic Avenue Tunnel- A Romance. This story tells of two friends who go looking for the tunnel after one hears a death-bed confession that it exists and is filled with treasure. They do not find the entrance to the tunnel, much like the 1911 reporter for the Brooklyn Eagle. In 1925 H.P. Lovercraft wrote a story titled The Horror at Red Hook. It is a story of horror and the occult involving a detective who discovers the occult activities in a tunnel underneath a cellar. The cellar collapses on top of the detective and the villains, yet the detective mysteriously lives. The folklore and legends surrounding crime and the Atlantic Avenue tunnel appears to come from the fact that the Atlantic Avenue area had fallen into hard times and developed into a slum called “Smoky Hollow”. The reality of the gangs and slum life, coupled with the mysterious presence of the hidden tunnel allowed for creative writing to flourish. A second fact that may have fed into the folklore of the tunnel being used as a denizen of crime is that a blind distillery was being operated in it at one point. A bar room in an Atlantic Avenue store had a pipe underneath it that led to the distillery (‘Oldest Subway’, 3).

The truth of the tunnel is hidden. Relative obscurity prevailed until very recently. In 1979 whispers and rumors of the forgotten Atlantic Avenue Tunnel reached the ears of a 19-year-old Brooklynite named Robert Diamond through a radio show. Diamond set out to do what so many before him had failed at; he went to find the entrance to the tunnel. Diamond found a copy of the plans in the borough president’s office. He used these plans to locate the entrance; a manhole at Atlantic Avenue and Court Street. When Diamond opened the manhole he found a wall of dirt. This did not deter him and he began using his hands to dig into the tunnel. Under the dirt was a cheap brick wall that Diamond quickly broke through with a metal pole. The other side of the wall revealed a gaping hole that was the Atlantic Avenue Tunnel. Excited with his discovery, Diamond got together a group of volunteers to aid him in hollowing out the tunnel, in order to allow entrance deeper into the tunnel. Now, 30 years after Diamond first heard of the tunnel on the radio, he still holds tours once a month so that interested people may see the tunnel that was almost completely forgotten, save for rumors and fiction writing (Diamond).

There is still some mystery surrounding the tunnel, though, as part of it is still blocked off. According to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle there is an old woodburning locomotive still buried in the depths of the tunnel; Diamond believes this train is what is buried in the yet unexcavated section of the tunnel. Diamond writes on his website, “[a] ccording to oral tradition, back in 1861, an obsolete locomotive was being used by Mr. Litchfield to haul dirt fill for sealing up the tunnel.   The crank axle broke, and without the means to repair or remove it, they just left the engine in the backfill at the western end of the tunnel.  Perhaps this explains why the tunnel was not fully filled in. Without the means of hauling in more fill, Litchfield decided to simply wall off the tunnel at both ends instead of fully filling it in” (Diamond). Until the entire tunnel is excavated, what really is hidden behind the wall will remain a mystery.

From the Atlantic Avenue Tunnel’s inception on December 2^nd, 1844 there has been a rich history that is both factual and fictional, even if for many years the tunnel was silent. Originally built for the safety and beautification of Brooklyn, it was not without its own share of accidents and tragedies including one murder. The tunnel was very popular and profitable in the beginning but was in operation only until June 6^th, 1859 because of financial trouble and public outcry against steam power. It is after the closing that the tunnel’s history becomes more of a mystery. Once boarded up, people tried for many years to find an opening and failed. Writers saw the tunnel as a source of inspiration for stories that may have had some grains of truth in them. The slums and crime that arose around the area where the tunnel exists were also a source of inspiration for these writers. It was not until 1980 that the tunnel was rediscovered by a young Brooklynite named Robert Diamond. Diamond and volunteers dug through dirt and brick in order to re-enter the tunnel and make it accessible for tours. New Yorker’s with an interest in the underground history of the Atlantic Tunnel can now come and explore, and even contemplate the ongoing mystery of what lies in the unexcavated portion of the tunnel or whether re-opening the tunnel would be profitable for Brooklyn and the Long Island Railroad.

Barrel-Vaulted Tunnel

Works Cited

Whitman, Walt. The Uncollected Poetry And Prose Of Walt Whitman: Much Of Which Has Been But Recently Discovered With Various Early Manuscripts Now First Published. Ed. Emory Holloway. 1st ed. Vol. 2. Garden City: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1921. Print.

“Common Council.” Brooklyn Daily Eagle 16 Jan. 1844, Vol. 3 ed., No. 29 sec.: 2-2. Brooklyn Daily Eagle Online. Web. 1 Dec. 2009. <http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/>.

“Brooklyn Has The Oldest Subway In The World.” The Brooklyn Eagle 23 July 1911, Vol. 71 ed.: 3-3. Print.

“Opening Of The Tunnel.” The Brooklyn Eagle 05 Dec. 1844, Vol. 3 ed., No. 294 sec.: 2-2. Brooklyn Daily Eagle Online. Web. 1 Dec. 2009. <http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/>.

“Petitions.” The Brooklyn Eagle 17 Sept. 1844, Vol. 3 ed., No. 226 sec.: 2-2. Brooklyn Daily Eagle Online. Web. 1 Dec. 2009. <http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/>.

“Accident.” Brooklyn Evening Star 11 July 1844: 2-2. Print.

“Reported Murder In Brooklyn.” Brooklyn Evening Star 29 May 1844: 3-3. Print.

“Shocking Accident On The Long Island Railroad.” The Brooklyn Eagle 27 Sept. 1854, Vol. 13 ed., No. 226 sec.: 3-3. Brooklyn Daily Eagle Online. Web. 1 Dec. 2009. <http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/>.

“Atlantic Avenue Tunnel.” The Brooklyn Eagle 31 May 1896, Vol. 56 ed., No. 151 sec.: 18-18. Brooklyn Daily Eagle Online. Web. 01 Dec. 2009. <http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/>.

“A Long Litigation Over the Matter of the Asessment for the Closing of the Tunnel.” The Brooklyn Eagle 28 Feb. 1873, Vo. 34 ed., No. 5 sec.: 4-4. Brooklyn Daily Eagle Online. Web. 1 Dec. 2009. <http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/>.

“Proposition to Re-occupy the Atlantic Avenue Tunnel- Railroad Management.” The Brooklyn Eagle 12 Aug. 1873, Vo. 34 ed., No. 190 sec.: 3-3. Brooklyn Daily Eagle Online. Web. 1 Dec. 2009. <http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/>.

“The Atlantic Avenue Tunnel.” The Brooklyn Eagle 5 July 1876, Vol. 37 ed., No. 158 sec.: 3-3. Brooklyn Daily Eagle Online. Web. 1 Dec. 2009. <http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/>.

“L.I.R.R.’s New Terminal At Rockaway Beach.” The Brooklyn Eagle 29 Dec. 1902, Vo. 62 ed., No. 359 sec.: 9-9. Brooklyn Daily Eagle Online. Web. 1 Dec. 2009. <http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/>.

“Atlantic Avenue Tunnel – A Romance.” The New York Times 23 Jan. 1893: 10-10. The New York Times. Web. 1 Dec. 2009. <http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9907EEDF1031E033A25750C2A9679C94629ED7CF>.

Lovecraft, H.P. Weird Tales: Seven Decades of Terror. New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 1997. Print.

“Interviewing Bob Diamond.” Personal interview. 6 Dec. 2009.

Image- http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/co…

There were two main reasons why the Tunnel was built. The first reason was for the safety of pedestrians; the street level trains were unable to brake in time and had caused the deaths of two youths. Steam trains did not begin operating in the United States until 1830. Therefore, locomotive travel was new and dangerous; both because pedestrians were unfamiliar with steam trains and because the system of braking had yet to be refined. In 1844 “C. Davis and others, and of William Cook and 170 others” brought forward petitions “requiring the Long Island Rail Road Co. to remove the cars and engines from the street to the wharf and ground near the foot of Atlantic St., and cut through, or tunnel through, the hill on said st…” (‘Common Council’, 2). The safety of Brooklynites was the most plausible reason for moving trains underground, but another source has a different reason for moving the train system underground. The second reason is stated in an article in the Brooklyn Eagle from 1911. According to the article, “The old subway was built that the beauty of Atlantic Avenue, planned to become the finest business highway of any street in any city in America, might not be destroyed”(‘Oldest Subway’, 3). For these reasons the corner stone of the two-train tunnel was laid on May 24^th, 1844 and it was open for travel seven months later on the 2^nd of December, 1844.

The Atlantic Avenue Tunnel was built by mostly Irish immigrants using the cut and cover method. Cut and cover is a method where a trench is excavated and roofed over. The street was dug up for roughly 12 blocks, a wooden frame was built, a barrel vaulted brick roof put in, and the street relayed. From start to finish the tunnel ranged from one foot to thirteen feet under the street. The entrance to the tunnel was between Boerum Place and Court Street; thus the tunnel is only a foot under Court Street. From there it quickly descends as it gets closer to the East River. Its dimensions are seventeen feet high and 21 feet wide. The terminus of the tunnel is around what was then Emmett Street but is now called Willow Place. Where the tunnel ended is where the train then came above ground and ran for another block and a half; it made a turn and ended between Columbia Street and the East River at a station. Passengers then were within walking distance of the Ferry house. The July 23^rd, 1911 edition of the Brooklyn Eagle reported that as of then, the old station still stood but was being used as a double store.

Opening day of the tunnel, December 2^nd, 1844, was seen as a day of celebration in Brooklyn. Guests were invited to ride the newly opened rail along with the president of the Long Island Railroad and other important officials. Upon “[r]eturning to the depot, a collation was spread out for their entertainment, at which His Honor the Mayor of Brooklyn presided” (‘Opening Of The Tunnel,2). One engine operated in the front to pull the train while another operated in the back to push it. Because of this dual engine process, the LIRR train was the fastest mode of transportation in the United States at that time. The Atlantic Avenue Tunnel was part of a longer route named the Brooklyn and Jamaica Railroad which ran from the village of Jamaica to the then named East River Front.

Even though one of the reasons why the Atlantic Avenue Tunnel was built was because it was a safety precaution, one should not be led to believe that just because the train was now underground it meant that there were no longer any train-related accidents. There were multiple deaths from the outset. The Brooklyn Eagle states that one man died from falling into the tunnel during construction (‘Petitions’, 2), while the Brooklyn Evening Star writes that one worker was killed during a cave-in (‘Accident’, 2) and an overseer was murdered by a disgruntled employee (‘Reported Murder In Brooklyn’, 3). Another death occurred in 1854 when a man threw himself in front of the train as it began to enter the tunnel. His body was severed into two (‘Shocking Accident’, 3).

These accidents did not decrease the popularity of the Atlantic Avenue Tunnel. Initially, Brooklynites patronized the Long Island Railroad with relish. Yet, for all its initial popularity and profit, the tunnel was closed after sixteen years. The Brooklyn Eagle sites financial trouble in more than one paper. The May 31^st, 1896 edition states that, “[i]n 1850 the Long Island road passed into the hands of the supreme court of New York on the foreclosure of a mortgage…” (‘Atlantic Avenue Tunnel’, 18), and the July 23^rd 1911 edition states that it was “sold out under foreclosure”. The second reason why it was closed was because of a group of people who organized against the use of steam power on Atlantic Avenue. Their voice was powerful because “[l]egislation went through Albany for the old tunnel from South Ferry to Boerem place to be closed. This was on June 6, 1859” (‘Oldest Subway’, 3). The Long Island Railroad Co. was paid $125,000 to relinquish their rights to the use of steam power within city limits. The tunnel finally closed in the year 1860.

After its closing, the Tunnel was mainly remembered by people who were filing lawsuits against it. Several suits were brought up by men who “were assessed for the closing Atlantic avenue tunnel in 1860…”(‘Long Litigation’, 4). Disgruntled Brooklynites who wished for faster transportation would write into the Brooklyn Eagle with suggestions of re-opening the tunnel (‘Proposition To Re-occupy’, 3). A few men tried to purchase the tunnel (‘The Atlantic Avenue Tunnel’, 3).

But it seems that only one man wrote about the tunnel with nostalgia. That man was Walt Whitman. In 1861, Whitman wrote columns for the Brooklyn Standard. He titled this collection “Brooklyniana”. One long excerpt he wrote was his thoughts about the tunnel. Whitman writes:

The old tunnel, that used to lie there under ground, a passage of Acheron-like solemnity and the darkness, now all closed and filled up, and soon to be utterly forgotten, with all its reminiscences…The tunnel: dark as the grave, cold, damp, and silent. How beautiful look earth and heaven again, as we emerge from the gloom! It might not be unprofitable, now and then, to send us mortals-the dissatisfied ones, at least, and that’s a large portion- into some tunnel of several days’ journey. We’d perhaps grumble less, afterward, at God’s handiwork (306-307).

Whitman realized that the tunnel could give people perspective on life, even if it had outlived its monetary usefulness. What was once supposed to be the seat of splendor was slowly fading out of the minds of most people. By 1902 the articles pertaining to the tunnel had dwindled to reference of dirt being taken from the tunnel to be used to fill stagnant pools of water (‘L.I.R.R.’s New Terminal’, 9). As years went by the tunnel lived on through legends and rumors. People knew or heard of its existence, but by 1911 not only was the question of who owed the tunnel unanswerable, but the entrance to the tunnel seemed to be lost entirely (‘Oldest Subway’, 3 ).

Something as large as the Atlantic Avenue Tunnel can never be forgotten entirely. The tunnel transformed through imagination into a source of literary inspiration. In 1893 a fictional story was published in The New York Times entitled Atlantic Avenue Tunnel- A Romance. This story tells of two friends who go looking for the tunnel after one hears a death-bed confession that it exists and is filled with treasure. They do not find the entrance to the tunnel, much like the 1911 reporter for the Brooklyn Eagle. In 1925 H.P. Lovercraft wrote a story titled The Horror at Red Hook. It is a story of horror and the occult involving a detective who discovers the occult activities in a tunnel underneath a cellar. The cellar collapses on top of the detective and the villains, yet the detective mysteriously lives. The folklore and legends surrounding crime and the Atlantic Avenue tunnel appears to come from the fact that the Atlantic Avenue area had fallen into hard times and developed into a slum called “Smoky Hollow”. The reality of the gangs and slum life, coupled with the mysterious presence of the hidden tunnel allowed for creative writing to flourish. A second fact that may have fed into the folklore of the tunnel being used as a denizen of crime is that a blind distillery was being operated in it at one point. A bar room in an Atlantic Avenue store had a pipe underneath it that led to the distillery (‘Oldest Subway’, 3).

The truth of the tunnel is hidden. Relative obscurity prevailed until very recently. In 1979 whispers and rumors of the forgotten Atlantic Avenue Tunnel reached the ears of a 19-year-old Brooklynite named Robert Diamond through a radio show. Diamond set out to do what so many before him had failed at; he went to find the entrance to the tunnel. Diamond found a copy of the plans in the borough president’s office. He used these plans to locate the entrance; a manhole at Atlantic Avenue and Court Street. When Diamond opened the manhole he found a wall of dirt. This did not deter him and he began using his hands to dig into the tunnel. Under the dirt was a cheap brick wall that Diamond quickly broke through with a metal pole. The other side of the wall revealed a gaping hole that was the Atlantic Avenue Tunnel. Excited with his discovery, Diamond got together a group of volunteers to aid him in hollowing out the tunnel, in order to allow entrance deeper into the tunnel. Now, 30 years after Diamond first heard of the tunnel on the radio, he still holds tours once a month so that interested people may see the tunnel that was almost completely forgotten, save for rumors and fiction writing (Diamond).

There is still some mystery surrounding the tunnel, though, as part of it is still blocked off. According to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle there is an old woodburning locomotive still buried in the depths of the tunnel; Diamond believes this train is what is buried in the yet unexcavated section of the tunnel. Diamond writes on his website, “[a] ccording to oral tradition, back in 1861, an obsolete locomotive was being used by Mr. Litchfield to haul dirt fill for sealing up the tunnel.   The crank axle broke, and without the means to repair or remove it, they just left the engine in the backfill at the western end of the tunnel.  Perhaps this explains why the tunnel was not fully filled in. Without the means of hauling in more fill, Litchfield decided to simply wall off the tunnel at both ends instead of fully filling it in” (Diamond). Until the entire tunnel is excavated, what really is hidden behind the wall will remain a mystery.

From the Atlantic Avenue Tunnel’s inception on December 2^nd, 1844 there has been a rich history that is both factual and fictional, even if for many years the tunnel was silent. Originally built for the safety and beautification of Brooklyn, it was not without its own share of accidents and tragedies including one murder. The tunnel was very popular and profitable in the beginning but was in operation only until June 6^th, 1859 because of financial trouble and public outcry against steam power. It is after the closing that the tunnel’s history becomes more of a mystery. Once boarded up, people tried for many years to find an opening and failed. Writers saw the tunnel as a source of inspiration for stories that may have had some grains of truth in them. The slums and crime that arose around the area where the tunnel exists were also a source of inspiration for these writers. It was not until 1980 that the tunnel was rediscovered by a young Brooklynite named Robert Diamond. Diamond and volunteers dug through dirt and brick in order to re-enter the tunnel and make it accessible for tours. New Yorker’s with an interest in the underground history of the Atlantic Tunnel can now come and explore, and even contemplate the ongoing mystery of what lies in the unexcavated portion of the tunnel or whether re-opening the tunnel would be profitable for Brooklyn and the Long Island Railroad.

Barrel-Vaulted Tunnel

Works Cited

Whitman, Walt. The Uncollected Poetry And Prose Of Walt Whitman: Much Of Which Has Been But Recently Discovered With Various Early Manuscripts Now First Published. Ed. Emory Holloway. 1st ed. Vol. 2. Garden City: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1921. Print.

“Common Council.” Brooklyn Daily Eagle 16 Jan. 1844, Vol. 3 ed., No. 29 sec.: 2-2. Brooklyn Daily Eagle Online. Web. 1 Dec. 2009. <http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/>.

“Brooklyn Has The Oldest Subway In The World.” The Brooklyn Eagle 23 July 1911, Vol. 71 ed.: 3-3. Print.

“Opening Of The Tunnel.” The Brooklyn Eagle 05 Dec. 1844, Vol. 3 ed., No. 294 sec.: 2-2. Brooklyn Daily Eagle Online. Web. 1 Dec. 2009. <http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/>.

“Petitions.” The Brooklyn Eagle 17 Sept. 1844, Vol. 3 ed., No. 226 sec.: 2-2. Brooklyn Daily Eagle Online. Web. 1 Dec. 2009. <http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/>.

“Accident.” Brooklyn Evening Star 11 July 1844: 2-2. Print.

“Reported Murder In Brooklyn.” Brooklyn Evening Star 29 May 1844: 3-3. Print.

“Shocking Accident On The Long Island Railroad.” The Brooklyn Eagle 27 Sept. 1854, Vol. 13 ed., No. 226 sec.: 3-3. Brooklyn Daily Eagle Online. Web. 1 Dec. 2009. <http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/>.

“Atlantic Avenue Tunnel.” The Brooklyn Eagle 31 May 1896, Vol. 56 ed., No. 151 sec.: 18-18. Brooklyn Daily Eagle Online. Web. 01 Dec. 2009. <http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/>.

“A Long Litigation Over the Matter of the Asessment for the Closing of the Tunnel.” The Brooklyn Eagle 28 Feb. 1873, Vo. 34 ed., No. 5 sec.: 4-4. Brooklyn Daily Eagle Online. Web. 1 Dec. 2009. <http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/>.

“Proposition to Re-occupy the Atlantic Avenue Tunnel- Railroad Management.” The Brooklyn Eagle 12 Aug. 1873, Vo. 34 ed., No. 190 sec.: 3-3. Brooklyn Daily Eagle Online. Web. 1 Dec. 2009. <http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/>.

“The Atlantic Avenue Tunnel.” The Brooklyn Eagle 5 July 1876, Vol. 37 ed., No. 158 sec.: 3-3. Brooklyn Daily Eagle Online. Web. 1 Dec. 2009. <http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/>.

“L.I.R.R.’s New Terminal At Rockaway Beach.” The Brooklyn Eagle 29 Dec. 1902, Vo. 62 ed., No. 359 sec.: 9-9. Brooklyn Daily Eagle Online. Web. 1 Dec. 2009. <http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/>.

“Atlantic Avenue Tunnel – A Romance.” The New York Times 23 Jan. 1893: 10-10. The New York Times. Web. 1 Dec. 2009. <http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9907EEDF1031E033A25750C2A9679C94629ED7CF>.

Lovecraft, H.P. Weird Tales: Seven Decades of Terror. New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 1997. Print.

“Interviewing Bob Diamond.” Personal interview. 6 Dec. 2009.

Image- http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e6/Barrel_vault_top_force.jpg

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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There were two main reasons why the Tunnel was built. The first reason was for the safety of pedestrians; the street level trains were unable to brake in time and had caused the deaths of two youths. Steam trains did not begin operating in the United States until 1830. Therefore, locomotive travel was new and dangerous; both because pedestrians were unfamiliar with steam trains and because the system of braking had yet to be refined. In 1844 “C. Davis and others, and of William Cook and 170 others” brought forward petitions “requiring the Long Island Rail Road Co. to remove the cars and engines from the street to the wharf and ground near the foot of Atlantic St., and cut through, or tunnel through, the hill on said st…” (‘Common Council’, 2). The safety of Brooklynites was the most plausible reason for moving trains underground, but another source has a different reason for moving the train system underground. The second reason is stated in an article in the Brooklyn Eagle from 1911. According to the article, “The old subway was built that the beauty of Atlantic Avenue, planned to become the finest business highway of any street in any city in America, might not be destroyed”(‘Oldest Subway’, 3). For these reasons the corner stone of the two-train tunnel was laid on May 24^th, 1844 and it was open for travel seven months later on the 2^nd of December, 1844.

The Atlantic Avenue Tunnel was built by mostly Irish immigrants using the cut and cover method. Cut and cover is a method where a trench is excavated and roofed over. The street was dug up for roughly 12 blocks, a wooden frame was built, a barrel vaulted brick roof put in, and the street relayed. From start to finish the tunnel ranged from one foot to thirteen feet under the street. The entrance to the tunnel was between Boerum Place and Court Street; thus the tunnel is only a foot under Court Street. From there it quickly descends as it gets closer to the East River. Its dimensions are seventeen feet high and 21 feet wide. The terminus of the tunnel is around what was then Emmett Street but is now called Willow Place. Where the tunnel ended is where the train then came above ground and ran for another block and a half; it made a turn and ended between Columbia Street and the East River at a station. Passengers then were within walking distance of the Ferry house. The July 23^rd, 1911 edition of the Brooklyn Eagle reported that as of then, the old station still stood but was being used as a double store.

Opening day of the tunnel, December 2^nd, 1844, was seen as a day of celebration in Brooklyn. Guests were invited to ride the newly opened rail along with the president of the Long Island Railroad and other important officials. Upon “[r]eturning to the depot, a collation was spread out for their entertainment, at which His Honor the Mayor of Brooklyn presided” (‘Opening Of The Tunnel,2). One engine operated in the front to pull the train while another operated in the back to push it. Because of this dual engine process, the LIRR train was the fastest mode of transportation in the United States at that time. The Atlantic Avenue Tunnel was part of a longer route named the Brooklyn and Jamaica Railroad which ran from the village of Jamaica to the then named East River Front.

Even though one of the reasons why the Atlantic Avenue Tunnel was built was because it was a safety precaution, one should not be led to believe that just because the train was now underground it meant that there were no longer any train-related accidents. There were multiple deaths from the outset. The Brooklyn Eagle states that one man died from falling into the tunnel during construction (‘Petitions’, 2), while the Brooklyn Evening Star writes that one worker was killed during a cave-in (‘Accident’, 2) and an overseer was murdered by a disgruntled employee (‘Reported Murder In Brooklyn’, 3). Another death occurred in 1854 when a man threw himself in front of the train as it began to enter the tunnel. His body was severed into two (‘Shocking Accident’, 3).

These accidents did not decrease the popularity of the Atlantic Avenue Tunnel. Initially, Brooklynites patronized the Long Island Railroad with relish. Yet, for all its initial popularity and profit, the tunnel was closed after sixteen years. The Brooklyn Eagle sites financial trouble in more than one paper. The May 31^st, 1896 edition states that, “[i]n 1850 the Long Island road passed into the hands of the supreme court of New York on the foreclosure of a mortgage…” (‘Atlantic Avenue Tunnel’, 18), and the July 23^rd 1911 edition states that it was “sold out under foreclosure”. The second reason why it was closed was because of a group of people who organized against the use of steam power on Atlantic Avenue. Their voice was powerful because “[l]egislation went through Albany for the old tunnel from South Ferry to Boerem place to be closed. This was on June 6, 1859” (‘Oldest Subway’, 3). The Long Island Railroad Co. was paid $125,000 to relinquish their rights to the use of steam power within city limits. The tunnel finally closed in the year 1860.

After its closing, the Tunnel was mainly remembered by people who were filing lawsuits against it. Several suits were brought up by men who “were assessed for the closing Atlantic avenue tunnel in 1860…”(‘Long Litigation’, 4). Disgruntled Brooklynites who wished for faster transportation would write into the Brooklyn Eagle with suggestions of re-opening the tunnel (‘Proposition To Re-occupy’, 3). A few men tried to purchase the tunnel (‘The Atlantic Avenue Tunnel’, 3).

But it seems that only one man wrote about the tunnel with nostalgia. That man was Walt Whitman. In 1861, Whitman wrote columns for the Brooklyn Standard. He titled this collection “Brooklyniana”. One long excerpt he wrote was his thoughts about the tunnel. Whitman writes:

The old tunnel, that used to lie there under ground, a passage of Acheron-like solemnity and the darkness, now all closed and filled up, and soon to be utterly forgotten, with all its reminiscences…The tunnel: dark as the grave, cold, damp, and silent. How beautiful look earth and heaven again, as we emerge from the gloom! It might not be unprofitable, now and then, to send us mortals-the dissatisfied ones, at least, and that’s a large portion- into some tunnel of several days’ journey. We’d perhaps grumble less, afterward, at God’s handiwork (306-307).

Whitman realized that the tunnel could give people perspective on life, even if it had outlived its monetary usefulness. What was once supposed to be the seat of splendor was slowly fading out of the minds of most people. By 1902 the articles pertaining to the tunnel had dwindled to reference of dirt being taken from the tunnel to be used to fill stagnant pools of water (‘L.I.R.R.’s New Terminal’, 9). As years went by the tunnel lived on through legends and rumors. People knew or heard of its existence, but by 1911 not only was the question of who owed the tunnel unanswerable, but the entrance to the tunnel seemed to be lost entirely (‘Oldest Subway’, 3 ).

Something as large as the Atlantic Avenue Tunnel can never be forgotten entirely. The tunnel transformed through imagination into a source of literary inspiration. In 1893 a fictional story was published in The New York Times entitled Atlantic Avenue Tunnel- A Romance. This story tells of two friends who go looking for the tunnel after one hears a death-bed confession that it exists and is filled with treasure. They do not find the entrance to the tunnel, much like the 1911 reporter for the Brooklyn Eagle. In 1925 H.P. Lovercraft wrote a story titled The Horror at Red Hook. It is a story of horror and the occult involving a detective who discovers the occult activities in a tunnel underneath a cellar. The cellar collapses on top of the detective and the villains, yet the detective mysteriously lives. The folklore and legends surrounding crime and the Atlantic Avenue tunnel appears to come from the fact that the Atlantic Avenue area had fallen into hard times and developed into a slum called “Smoky Hollow”. The reality of the gangs and slum life, coupled with the mysterious presence of the hidden tunnel allowed for creative writing to flourish. A second fact that may have fed into the folklore of the tunnel being used as a denizen of crime is that a blind distillery was being operated in it at one point. A bar room in an Atlantic Avenue store had a pipe underneath it that led to the distillery (‘Oldest Subway’, 3).

The truth of the tunnel is hidden. Relative obscurity prevailed until very recently. In 1979 whispers and rumors of the forgotten Atlantic Avenue Tunnel reached the ears of a 19-year-old Brooklynite named Robert Diamond through a radio show. Diamond set out to do what so many before him had failed at; he went to find the entrance to the tunnel. Diamond found a copy of the plans in the borough president’s office. He used these plans to locate the entrance; a manhole at Atlantic Avenue and Court Street. When Diamond opened the manhole he found a wall of dirt. This did not deter him and he began using his hands to dig into the tunnel. Under the dirt was a cheap brick wall that Diamond quickly broke through with a metal pole. The other side of the wall revealed a gaping hole that was the Atlantic Avenue Tunnel. Excited with his discovery, Diamond got together a group of volunteers to aid him in hollowing out the tunnel, in order to allow entrance deeper into the tunnel. Now, 30 years after Diamond first heard of the tunnel on the radio, he still holds tours once a month so that interested people may see the tunnel that was almost completely forgotten, save for rumors and fiction writing (Diamond).

There is still some mystery surrounding the tunnel, though, as part of it is still blocked off. According to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle there is an old woodburning locomotive still buried in the depths of the tunnel; Diamond believes this train is what is buried in the yet unexcavated section of the tunnel. Diamond writes on his website, “[a] ccording to oral tradition, back in 1861, an obsolete locomotive was being used by Mr. Litchfield to haul dirt fill for sealing up the tunnel.   The crank axle broke, and without the means to repair or remove it, they just left the engine in the backfill at the western end of the tunnel.  Perhaps this explains why the tunnel was not fully filled in. Without the means of hauling in more fill, Litchfield decided to simply wall off the tunnel at both ends instead of fully filling it in” (Diamond). Until the entire tunnel is excavated, what really is hidden behind the wall will remain a mystery.

From the Atlantic Avenue Tunnel’s inception on December 2^nd, 1844 there has been a rich history that is both factual and fictional, even if for many years the tunnel was silent. Originally built for the safety and beautification of Brooklyn, it was not without its own share of accidents and tragedies including one murder. The tunnel was very popular and profitable in the beginning but was in operation only until June 6^th, 1859 because of financial trouble and public outcry against steam power. It is after the closing that the tunnel’s history becomes more of a mystery. Once boarded up, people tried for many years to find an opening and failed. Writers saw the tunnel as a source of inspiration for stories that may have had some grains of truth in them. The slums and crime that arose around the area where the tunnel exists were also a source of inspiration for these writers. It was not until 1980 that the tunnel was rediscovered by a young Brooklynite named Robert Diamond. Diamond and volunteers dug through dirt and brick in order to re-enter the tunnel and make it accessible for tours. New Yorker’s with an interest in the underground history of the Atlantic Tunnel can now come and explore, and even contemplate the ongoing mystery of what lies in the unexcavated portion of the tunnel or whether re-opening the tunnel would be profitable for Brooklyn and the Long Island Railroad.

Barrel-Vaulted Tunnel

Works Cited

Whitman, Walt. The Uncollected Poetry And Prose Of Walt Whitman: Much Of Which Has Been But Recently Discovered With Various Early Manuscripts Now First Published. Ed. Emory Holloway. 1st ed. Vol. 2. Garden City: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1921. Print.

“Common Council.” Brooklyn Daily Eagle 16 Jan. 1844, Vol. 3 ed., No. 29 sec.: 2-2. Brooklyn Daily Eagle Online. Web. 1 Dec. 2009. <http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/>.

“Brooklyn Has The Oldest Subway In The World.” The Brooklyn Eagle 23 July 1911, Vol. 71 ed.: 3-3. Print.

“Opening Of The Tunnel.” The Brooklyn Eagle 05 Dec. 1844, Vol. 3 ed., No. 294 sec.: 2-2. Brooklyn Daily Eagle Online. Web. 1 Dec. 2009. <http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/>.

“Petitions.” The Brooklyn Eagle 17 Sept. 1844, Vol. 3 ed., No. 226 sec.: 2-2. Brooklyn Daily Eagle Online. Web. 1 Dec. 2009. <http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/>.

“Accident.” Brooklyn Evening Star 11 July 1844: 2-2. Print.

“Reported Murder In Brooklyn.” Brooklyn Evening Star 29 May 1844: 3-3. Print.

“Shocking Accident On The Long Island Railroad.” The Brooklyn Eagle 27 Sept. 1854, Vol. 13 ed., No. 226 sec.: 3-3. Brooklyn Daily Eagle Online. Web. 1 Dec. 2009. <http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/>.

“Atlantic Avenue Tunnel.” The Brooklyn Eagle 31 May 1896, Vol. 56 ed., No. 151 sec.: 18-18. Brooklyn Daily Eagle Online. Web. 01 Dec. 2009. <http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/>.

“A Long Litigation Over the Matter of the Asessment for the Closing of the Tunnel.” The Brooklyn Eagle 28 Feb. 1873, Vo. 34 ed., No. 5 sec.: 4-4. Brooklyn Daily Eagle Online. Web. 1 Dec. 2009. <http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/>.

“Proposition to Re-occupy the Atlantic Avenue Tunnel- Railroad Management.” The Brooklyn Eagle 12 Aug. 1873, Vo. 34 ed., No. 190 sec.: 3-3. Brooklyn Daily Eagle Online. Web. 1 Dec. 2009. <http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/>.

“The Atlantic Avenue Tunnel.” The Brooklyn Eagle 5 July 1876, Vol. 37 ed., No. 158 sec.: 3-3. Brooklyn Daily Eagle Online. Web. 1 Dec. 2009. <http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/>.

“L.I.R.R.’s New Terminal At Rockaway Beach.” The Brooklyn Eagle 29 Dec. 1902, Vo. 62 ed., No. 359 sec.: 9-9. Brooklyn Daily Eagle Online. Web. 1 Dec. 2009. <http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/>.

“Atlantic Avenue Tunnel – A Romance.” The New York Times 23 Jan. 1893: 10-10. The New York Times. Web. 1 Dec. 2009. <http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9907EEDF1031E033A25750C2A9679C94629ED7CF>.

Lovecraft, H.P. Weird Tales: Seven Decades of Terror. New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 1997. Print.

“Interviewing Bob Diamond.” Personal interview. 6 Dec. 2009.

Image- http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e6/Barrel_vault_top_force.jpg

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

           Field trips were so helpful that made class more fun and more informative.  The projects were interesting too, especially the address project which was my favorite. We really had done professional work on that. Being able to handle those historical documents and thinking through the history was a different enjoyable feeling for me.   Our visit to Brooklyn Historical Society and learning about maps and land conveyances became sample rewarding educational experience for me.  I didn’t know anything about Whitman when I registered for this class and I can see that now I made a perfect selection by choosing this class. Now I am able to see how great poet Whitman was. Briefly, Whitman thought me about life like how to be positive and love the life. Besides all, I also learned about blogging, posting such media and pictures.  

          Prof. Gold and Claire were very responsive and helpful.  Prof. Gold gave us great courage to create better work on exploring Whitman. Class discussions were so much fun that while we learn we developed friendships.   I would recommend this class to every student to experience unique settings of this class which is very enjoyable and especially biggest advantage of getting known of Whitman.

           Field trips were so helpful that made class more fun and more informative.  The projects were interesting too, especially the address project which was my favorite. We really had done professional work on that. Being able to handle those historical documents and thinking through the history was a different enjoyable feeling for me.   Our visit to Brooklyn Historical Society and learning about maps and land conveyances became sample rewarding educational experience for me.  I didn’t know anything about Whitman when I registered for this class and I can see that now I made a perfect selection by choosing this class. Now I am able to see how great poet Whitman was. Briefly, Whitman thought me about life like how to be positive and love the life. Besides all, I also learned about blogging, posting such media and pictures.  

          Prof. Gold and Claire were very responsive and helpful.  Prof. Gold gave us great courage to create better work on exploring Whitman. Class discussions were so much fun that while we learn we developed friendships.   I would recommend this class to every student to experience unique settings of this class which is very enjoyable and especially biggest advantage of getting known of Whitman.

            My Experience in the Looking for Whitman class was an especially complicated but beneficial one. I think that Whitman himself was a difficult person to completely understand within a short amount of time.  At the same time, I learned to keep trying at the things I want to achieve, and to look more deeply at what New York has to offer because there are a lot of ancient places that are still standing that I never knew existed before, and also all about Whitman’s life of course.

            The class was overall a good one. We had people in there that were willing to learn and explore the World of Whitman along with the rest of us, so I appreciated the people that we had in the class. Now Professor Gold is an exceptional teacher. Not only does he have a positive personality, but he is eager to learn and to get his students to understand the material, while being open to new suggestions and ideas. To have a professor who is excited about what they are teaching and is willing to help in whichever way possible is the teacher that I have found in Professor Gold and the type of teacher I need for the rest of my classes.

            The projects that we have done in this class were interesting for the most part. Some were more appealing than others, but all were somewhat fun projects. One of my favorite projects was the Material Culture project. In that project we basically had to pick a topic and explain what it’s all about while also connecting it to Walt Whitman. This was a favorite because I had to make a new blog working on the computer and show my classmates and other students within the overall project why my topic was unique. Another one of my favorite parts of the class was the walking tour. The walking tour was good not only because that was the first opportunity we had to explore Whitman’s Brooklyn from outdoors, but also because I got a chance to observe a part of New York City in a new light and began to have a new respect for it. By the way it was a nice day out that day too. The Old Brooklyn Ferry was another place we went that I did my independent blog post on. It was cool to see where and how Whitman and a lot of other people got across the water from Brooklyn to Manhattan every day, whether it be to work or school. I enjoyed seeing the different kinds of boats that day. I saw water taxis, police boats, transportation boats across the water and regular boats that were just bypassing.

            I enjoyed the class and our exploration of finding Walt Whitman. I think that this class was a beneficial one that allowed students to study and work but differently outside the classroom and using modern technology to capture our discoveries. I hope that other students will be eager to learn and understand about Whitman as well as the world outside of our mundane lives.

            My Experience in the Looking for Whitman class was an especially complicated but beneficial one. I think that Whitman himself was a difficult person to completely understand within a short amount of time.  At the same time, I learned to keep trying at the things I want to achieve, and to look more deeply at what New York has to offer because there are a lot of ancient places that are still standing that I never knew existed before, and also all about Whitman’s life of course.

            The class was overall a good one. We had people in there that were willing to learn and explore the World of Whitman along with the rest of us, so I appreciated the people that we had in the class. Now Professor Gold is an exceptional teacher. Not only does he have a positive personality, but he is eager to learn and to get his students to understand the material, while being open to new suggestions and ideas. To have a professor who is excited about what they are teaching and is willing to help in whichever way possible is the teacher that I have found in Professor Gold and the type of teacher I need for the rest of my classes.

            The projects that we have done in this class were interesting for the most part. Some were more appealing than others, but all were somewhat fun projects. One of my favorite projects was the Material Culture project. In that project we basically had to pick a topic and explain what it’s all about while also connecting it to Walt Whitman. This was a favorite because I had to make a new blog working on the computer and show my classmates and other students within the overall project why my topic was unique. Another one of my favorite parts of the class was the walking tour. The walking tour was good not only because that was the first opportunity we had to explore Whitman’s Brooklyn from outdoors, but also because I got a chance to observe a part of New York City in a new light and began to have a new respect for it. By the way it was a nice day out that day too. The Old Brooklyn Ferry was another place we went that I did my independent blog post on. It was cool to see where and how Whitman and a lot of other people got across the water from Brooklyn to Manhattan every day, whether it be to work or school. I enjoyed seeing the different kinds of boats that day. I saw water taxis, police boats, transportation boats across the water and regular boats that were just bypassing.

            I enjoyed the class and our exploration of finding Walt Whitman. I think that this class was a beneficial one that allowed students to study and work but differently outside the classroom and using modern technology to capture our discoveries. I hope that other students will be eager to learn and understand about Whitman as well as the world outside of our mundane lives.

Walt Whitman's Lecture. Death of Abraham Lincoln. Philadelphia: April 15, 1880

presentation

Arguably, Whitman loved his country more than almost anything else in his life. When Lincoln, who to Whitman “saved” the nation during the Civil War, was assassinated on April 14, 1865, Whitman was quick to respond. On April 16, 1865, he wrote, “…if one name, one man, must be picked out, he [Lincoln], most of all, is the conservator of it [the Union], to the future” (Whitman, Specimen Days 788). He added that even though Lincoln had died, the Union had not. This was perhaps the only solace Whitman found in the death of his hero.

While it is apparent that Lincoln was always an icon that Whitman admired, Lincoln’s importance to Whitman’s life was catapulted by the President’s assassination in 1865. Whitman viewed Lincoln’s death as akin to the many great and tragic deaths of history – Caesar, Napolean, etc… – and saw it as the final event that saved the Union and brought to a (tragic) close the chaos and turbulence of a nation (Whitman, Prose Works). Whitman conveyed these sentiments some nineteen times between the years1879 and 1890 in what became known as his “Lincoln lectures” (Reynolds 531).

While the elegiac poems are the most popularly recognized example of Whitman’s love for Lincoln today, Whitman’s annual Lincoln lectures defined his popular status in the late nineteenth century (Reynolds 496). Beginning in April of 1879, Whitman delivered these public lectures commemorating the President’s death (Eiselein 1). His first lecture, on April 14^th, was organized by some of his friends in the New York literary social circle (Reynolds 531). He gave the speech seated on a chair in Steck Hall to an audience of sixty to eighty people. The entire speech was recited in a “conversational tone” and he ended the lecture by reciting “O Captain” (Reynolds 531).

The “Death of Abraham Lincoln” lecture begins with a statement of purpose:

“HOW often since that dark and dripping Saturday—that chilly April day, now fifteen years bygone—my heart has entertain’d the dream, the wish, to give of Abraham Lincoln’s death, its own special thought and memorial. Yet now the sought-for opportunity offers, I find my notes incompetent, (why, for truly profound themes, is statement so idle? why does the right phrase never offer?) and the fit tribute I dream’d of, waits unprepared as ever. My talk here indeed is less because of itself or anything in it, and nearly altogether because I feel a desire, apart from any talk, to specify the day, the martyrdom.…For my own part, I hope and desire, till my own dying day, whenever the 14th or 15th of April comes, to annually gather a few friends, and hold its tragic reminiscence…” (Whitman, Prose Works) [bold is our addition].

A tribute, to Whitman, is impossible because he cannot create one that is fitting enough. Instead, he hopes to remember the day and the importance of it. After this statement of purpose, Whitman begins with a history of the tumultuous conditions in the United States leading up to Lincoln’s election (Reynolds 441). Following this brief history lesson, Whitman reminisces about the times he saw the President. After this foundation is built, Whitman launches into his enthralling and vivid eyewitness account of Lincoln’s assassination (Eiselein 1).

“Through the general hum following the stage pause, with the change of positions, came the muffled sound of a pistol-shot…and yet a moment’s hush-somehow surely, a vague startled thrill-and then, through the ornamented, draperied, starr’d and striped space-way of the President’s box, a sudden figure, a man, raises himself with hands and feet, stands a moment on the railing, leaps below the stage…and disappears…

A moment’s hush-a scream-the cry of murder…” (Whitman, Prose Works)

Not present at Ford’s Theatre on April 14, 1865, Whitman looked elsewhere for this “eyewitness” information. Peter Doyle, a friend of Whitman’s who was at Ford’s Theatre the night of the assassination, gave Whitman an intimate account of the tragedy (Reynolds 440). Still, many of Whitman’s details were sensationalized. In his speech he included much of the sensational news reportage that was characteristic of nineteenth-century America (Reynolds 442). Many of these details, however, were only distantly related to Lincoln’s murder. Whitman concluded the detailed account of Lincoln’s assassination with commentary on the effects and meaning of the murder on the Nation. For Whitman, Lincoln’s assassination was “the ultimate violent American melodrama whose villain was a caricature of bad acting, whose victim was the hero of the nation’s greatest drama, and whose effect was audience frenzy on a massive scale” (Reynolds 443). Beyond this, though, Lincoln’s murder was the final event that re-solidified the nation. Lincoln, in his life and his death, achieved what Whitman had always hoped to with Leaves of Grass: unification of the Nation.

In this lecture, Whitman does not lament Lincoln’s death as much as he presents it as a culminating event in the midst of all the conflicts of the era. In essence, Whitman’s lecture positions Lincoln’s assassination as the tragic sacrifice through which the nation was reborn (Eiselein 1). In discussing the timeless and global impact of Lincoln’s life and death, Whitman paints an American tragedy. This tragedy was often punctuated with Whitman’s most famous tribute to Lincoln, “O Captain”.

“]

Walt Whitman on Abraham Lincoln. New York: April 14, [1887

The most famous of Whitman’s Lincoln lectures was his lecture on April 14, 1887 at Madison Square Theater in New York. This lecture was arranged by two businessmen who were Whitman’s friends, John Johnston and Robert Pearsall Smith. These men arranged for Major James B. Pond to publicize the event (Reynolds 558). As a result, this April 1887 appearance became a memorable spectacle and a society event. The event drew a large society crowd including Andrew Carnegie, Mark Twain, and James Russell Lowell. The entire “performance” had a dramatic theme, including an ending in which a young girl walked on stage to hand Whitman a bouquet of lilacs (Reynolds 555). The spectacle did not end there, however, as there was a reception following the lecture that was at least as spectacular as the event itself. Even though the event netted Whitman $600.00, he had mixed feelings about it (Reynolds 555). To John Johnston, Whitman said that this lecture was the culminating hour of his life, but to Traubel he remarked, “It was too much the New York jamboree – the cosmopolitan drunk” (Reynolds 555).

If nowhere else, Whitman’s dedication to Lincoln’s memory is evident through his final lecture. In April of 1890, despite his failing health, Whitman gave his “Death of Abraham Lincoln” lecture for the final time (Reynolds 575).

Reading copy "Death of Lincoln" lecture, 1879, Bound printed and manuscript pages

Partial Transcription: “. . .the true spirit, the true development of America. Life serves, & death also-even the death of the sweetest and wisest. . . . With the first breath of a great historic triumph and in murder and horror unsurpassed Abraham Lincoln died. But not only the value he gave the New World in life survives for ever, but the value of his death survives forever” (Library of Congress, “Poet of the Nation” http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/ww0035-trans.html).

Here’s a link to the full text of Walt Whitman’s speech, “The Death of Abraham Lincoln”.

Group members: Chris Countryman, Jennica Kwak, Tara Wood

__________________________________________

Works Cited

Eiselein, Gregory. “Lincoln’s Death.” The Walt Whitman Encyclopedia.
Eds. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings. New York: Garland
Publishing, 1998. 30 November 2009
<http://www.whitmanarchive.org/criticism/current/encyclopedia/entry_30.html> .
Reynolds, David. Whitman’s America: A Cultural Biography.
Whitman, Walt. “Death of Abraham Lincoln.” Prose Works. Philadelphia: David McKay, 1892; Bartleby.com, 2000. www.bartleby.com/229/. [30 November 2009].
Whitman, Walt. “The Death of Abraham Lincoln.” Specimen Days. Whitman
Poetry and Prose. New York: The Library of America, 1996.

All Images: Library of Congress, “Poet of the Nation: Revising Himself: Walt Whitman and Leaves of Grass.” an American Treasures exhibition: http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/whitman-poetofthenation.html

Walt Whitman's Lecture. Death of Abraham Lincoln. Philadelphia: April 15, 1880

presentation

Arguably, Whitman loved his country more than almost anything else in his life. When Lincoln, who to Whitman “saved” the nation during the Civil War, was assassinated on April 14, 1865, Whitman was quick to respond. On April 16, 1865, he wrote, “…if one name, one man, must be picked out, he [Lincoln], most of all, is the conservator of it [the Union], to the future” (Whitman, Specimen Days 788). He added that even though Lincoln had died, the Union had not. This was perhaps the only solace Whitman found in the death of his hero.

While it is apparent that Lincoln was always an icon that Whitman admired, Lincoln’s importance to Whitman’s life was catapulted by the President’s assassination in 1865. Whitman viewed Lincoln’s death as akin to the many great and tragic deaths of history – Caesar, Napolean, etc… – and saw it as the final event that saved the Union and brought to a (tragic) close the chaos and turbulence of a nation (Whitman, Prose Works). Whitman conveyed these sentiments some nineteen times between the years1879 and 1890 in what became known as his “Lincoln lectures” (Reynolds 531).

While the elegiac poems are the most popularly recognized example of Whitman’s love for Lincoln today, Whitman’s annual Lincoln lectures defined his popular status in the late nineteenth century (Reynolds 496). Beginning in April of 1879, Whitman delivered these public lectures commemorating the President’s death (Eiselein 1). His first lecture, on April 14^th, was organized by some of his friends in the New York literary social circle (Reynolds 531). He gave the speech seated on a chair in Steck Hall to an audience of sixty to eighty people. The entire speech was recited in a “conversational tone” and he ended the lecture by reciting “O Captain” (Reynolds 531).

The “Death of Abraham Lincoln” lecture begins with a statement of purpose:

“HOW often since that dark and dripping Saturday—that chilly April day, now fifteen years bygone—my heart has entertain’d the dream, the wish, to give of Abraham Lincoln’s death, its own special thought and memorial. Yet now the sought-for opportunity offers, I find my notes incompetent, (why, for truly profound themes, is statement so idle? why does the right phrase never offer?) and the fit tribute I dream’d of, waits unprepared as ever. My talk here indeed is less because of itself or anything in it, and nearly altogether because I feel a desire, apart from any talk, to specify the day, the martyrdom.…For my own part, I hope and desire, till my own dying day, whenever the 14th or 15th of April comes, to annually gather a few friends, and hold its tragic reminiscence…” (Whitman, Prose Works) [bold is our addition].

A tribute, to Whitman, is impossible because he cannot create one that is fitting enough. Instead, he hopes to remember the day and the importance of it. After this statement of purpose, Whitman begins with a history of the tumultuous conditions in the United States leading up to Lincoln’s election (Reynolds 441). Following this brief history lesson, Whitman reminisces about the times he saw the President. After this foundation is built, Whitman launches into his enthralling and vivid eyewitness account of Lincoln’s assassination (Eiselein 1).

“Through the general hum following the stage pause, with the change of positions, came the muffled sound of a pistol-shot…and yet a moment’s hush-somehow surely, a vague startled thrill-and then, through the ornamented, draperied, starr’d and striped space-way of the President’s box, a sudden figure, a man, raises himself with hands and feet, stands a moment on the railing, leaps below the stage…and disappears…

A moment’s hush-a scream-the cry of murder…” (Whitman, Prose Works)

Not present at Ford’s Theatre on April 14, 1865, Whitman looked elsewhere for this “eyewitness” information. Peter Doyle, a friend of Whitman’s who was at Ford’s Theatre the night of the assassination, gave Whitman an intimate account of the tragedy (Reynolds 440). Still, many of Whitman’s details were sensationalized. In his speech he included much of the sensational news reportage that was characteristic of nineteenth-century America (Reynolds 442). Many of these details, however, were only distantly related to Lincoln’s murder. Whitman concluded the detailed account of Lincoln’s assassination with commentary on the effects and meaning of the murder on the Nation. For Whitman, Lincoln’s assassination was “the ultimate violent American melodrama whose villain was a caricature of bad acting, whose victim was the hero of the nation’s greatest drama, and whose effect was audience frenzy on a massive scale” (Reynolds 443). Beyond this, though, Lincoln’s murder was the final event that re-solidified the nation. Lincoln, in his life and his death, achieved what Whitman had always hoped to with Leaves of Grass: unification of the Nation.

In this lecture, Whitman does not lament Lincoln’s death as much as he presents it as a culminating event in the midst of all the conflicts of the era. In essence, Whitman’s lecture positions Lincoln’s assassination as the tragic sacrifice through which the nation was reborn (Eiselein 1). In discussing the timeless and global impact of Lincoln’s life and death, Whitman paints an American tragedy. This tragedy was often punctuated with Whitman’s most famous tribute to Lincoln, “O Captain”.

“]

Walt Whitman on Abraham Lincoln. New York: April 14, [1887

The most famous of Whitman’s Lincoln lectures was his lecture on April 14, 1887 at Madison Square Theater in New York. This lecture was arranged by two businessmen who were Whitman’s friends, John Johnston and Robert Pearsall Smith. These men arranged for Major James B. Pond to publicize the event (Reynolds 558). As a result, this April 1887 appearance became a memorable spectacle and a society event. The event drew a large society crowd including Andrew Carnegie, Mark Twain, and James Russell Lowell. The entire “performance” had a dramatic theme, including an ending in which a young girl walked on stage to hand Whitman a bouquet of lilacs (Reynolds 555). The spectacle did not end there, however, as there was a reception following the lecture that was at least as spectacular as the event itself. Even though the event netted Whitman $600.00, he had mixed feelings about it (Reynolds 555). To John Johnston, Whitman said that this lecture was the culminating hour of his life, but to Traubel he remarked, “It was too much the New York jamboree – the cosmopolitan drunk” (Reynolds 555).

If nowhere else, Whitman’s dedication to Lincoln’s memory is evident through his final lecture. In April of 1890, despite his failing health, Whitman gave his “Death of Abraham Lincoln” lecture for the final time (Reynolds 575).

Reading copy "Death of Lincoln" lecture, 1879, Bound printed and manuscript pages

Partial Transcription: “. . .the true spirit, the true development of America. Life serves, & death also-even the death of the sweetest and wisest. . . . With the first breath of a great historic triumph and in murder and horror unsurpassed Abraham Lincoln died. But not only the value he gave the New World in life survives for ever, but the value of his death survives forever” (Library of Congress, “Poet of the Nation” http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/ww0035-trans.html).

Here’s a link to the full text of Walt Whitman’s speech, “The Death of Abraham Lincoln”.

Group members: Chris Countryman, Jennica Kwak, Tara Wood

__________________________________________

Works Cited

Eiselein, Gregory. “Lincoln’s Death.” The Walt Whitman Encyclopedia.
Eds. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings. New York: Garland
Publishing, 1998. 30 November 2009
<http://www.whitmanarchive.org/criticism/current/encyclopedia/entry_30.html> .
Reynolds, David. Whitman’s America: A Cultural Biography.
Whitman, Walt. “Death of Abraham Lincoln.” Prose Works. Philadelphia: David McKay, 1892; Bartleby.com, 2000. www.bartleby.com/229/. [30 November 2009].
Whitman, Walt. “The Death of Abraham Lincoln.” Specimen Days. Whitman
Poetry and Prose. New York: The Library of America, 1996.

All Images: Library of Congress, “Poet of the Nation: Revising Himself: Walt Whitman and Leaves of Grass.” an American Treasures exhibition: http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/whitman-poetofthenation.html

Walt Whitman's Lecture. Death of Abraham Lincoln. Philadelphia: April 15, 1880

presentation

Arguably, Whitman loved his country more than almost anything else in his life. When Lincoln, who to Whitman “saved” the nation during the Civil War, was assassinated on April 14, 1865, Whitman was quick to respond. On April 16, 1865, he wrote, “…if one name, one man, must be picked out, he [Lincoln], most of all, is the conservator of it [the Union], to the future” (Whitman, Specimen Days 788). He added that even though Lincoln had died, the Union had not. This was perhaps the only solace Whitman found in the death of his hero.

While it is apparent that Lincoln was always an icon that Whitman admired, Lincoln’s importance to Whitman’s life was catapulted by the President’s assassination in 1865. Whitman viewed Lincoln’s death as akin to the many great and tragic deaths of history – Caesar, Napolean, etc… – and saw it as the final event that saved the Union and brought to a (tragic) close the chaos and turbulence of a nation (Whitman, Prose Works). Whitman conveyed these sentiments some nineteen times between the years1879 and 1890 in what became known as his “Lincoln lectures” (Reynolds 531).

While the elegiac poems are the most popularly recognized example of Whitman’s love for Lincoln today, Whitman’s annual Lincoln lectures defined his popular status in the late nineteenth century (Reynolds 496). Beginning in April of 1879, Whitman delivered these public lectures commemorating the President’s death (Eiselein 1). His first lecture, on April 14^th, was organized by some of his friends in the New York literary social circle (Reynolds 531). He gave the speech seated on a chair in Steck Hall to an audience of sixty to eighty people. The entire speech was recited in a “conversational tone” and he ended the lecture by reciting “O Captain” (Reynolds 531).

The “Death of Abraham Lincoln” lecture begins with a statement of purpose:

“HOW often since that dark and dripping Saturday—that chilly April day, now fifteen years bygone—my heart has entertain’d the dream, the wish, to give of Abraham Lincoln’s death, its own special thought and memorial. Yet now the sought-for opportunity offers, I find my notes incompetent, (why, for truly profound themes, is statement so idle? why does the right phrase never offer?) and the fit tribute I dream’d of, waits unprepared as ever. My talk here indeed is less because of itself or anything in it, and nearly altogether because I feel a desire, apart from any talk, to specify the day, the martyrdom.…For my own part, I hope and desire, till my own dying day, whenever the 14th or 15th of April comes, to annually gather a few friends, and hold its tragic reminiscence…” (Whitman, Prose Works) [bold is our addition].

A tribute, to Whitman, is impossible because he cannot create one that is fitting enough. Instead, he hopes to remember the day and the importance of it. After this statement of purpose, Whitman begins with a history of the tumultuous conditions in the United States leading up to Lincoln’s election (Reynolds 441). Following this brief history lesson, Whitman reminisces about the times he saw the President. After this foundation is built, Whitman launches into his enthralling and vivid eyewitness account of Lincoln’s assassination (Eiselein 1).

“Through the general hum following the stage pause, with the change of positions, came the muffled sound of a pistol-shot…and yet a moment’s hush-somehow surely, a vague startled thrill-and then, through the ornamented, draperied, starr’d and striped space-way of the President’s box, a sudden figure, a man, raises himself with hands and feet, stands a moment on the railing, leaps below the stage…and disappears…

A moment’s hush-a scream-the cry of murder…” (Whitman, Prose Works)

Not present at Ford’s Theatre on April 14, 1865, Whitman looked elsewhere for this “eyewitness” information. Peter Doyle, a friend of Whitman’s who was at Ford’s Theatre the night of the assassination, gave Whitman an intimate account of the tragedy (Reynolds 440). Still, many of Whitman’s details were sensationalized. In his speech he included much of the sensational news reportage that was characteristic of nineteenth-century America (Reynolds 442). Many of these details, however, were only distantly related to Lincoln’s murder. Whitman concluded the detailed account of Lincoln’s assassination with commentary on the effects and meaning of the murder on the Nation. For Whitman, Lincoln’s assassination was “the ultimate violent American melodrama whose villain was a caricature of bad acting, whose victim was the hero of the nation’s greatest drama, and whose effect was audience frenzy on a massive scale” (Reynolds 443). Beyond this, though, Lincoln’s murder was the final event that re-solidified the nation. Lincoln, in his life and his death, achieved what Whitman had always hoped to with Leaves of Grass: unification of the Nation.

In this lecture, Whitman does not lament Lincoln’s death as much as he presents it as a culminating event in the midst of all the conflicts of the era. In essence, Whitman’s lecture positions Lincoln’s assassination as the tragic sacrifice through which the nation was reborn (Eiselein 1). In discussing the timeless and global impact of Lincoln’s life and death, Whitman paints an American tragedy. This tragedy was often punctuated with Whitman’s most famous tribute to Lincoln, “O Captain”.

“]

Walt Whitman on Abraham Lincoln. New York: April 14, [1887

The most famous of Whitman’s Lincoln lectures was his lecture on April 14, 1887 at Madison Square Theater in New York. This lecture was arranged by two businessmen who were Whitman’s friends, John Johnston and Robert Pearsall Smith. These men arranged for Major James B. Pond to publicize the event (Reynolds 558). As a result, this April 1887 appearance became a memorable spectacle and a society event. The event drew a large society crowd including Andrew Carnegie, Mark Twain, and James Russell Lowell. The entire “performance” had a dramatic theme, including an ending in which a young girl walked on stage to hand Whitman a bouquet of lilacs (Reynolds 555). The spectacle did not end there, however, as there was a reception following the lecture that was at least as spectacular as the event itself. Even though the event netted Whitman $600.00, he had mixed feelings about it (Reynolds 555). To John Johnston, Whitman said that this lecture was the culminating hour of his life, but to Traubel he remarked, “It was too much the New York jamboree – the cosmopolitan drunk” (Reynolds 555).

If nowhere else, Whitman’s dedication to Lincoln’s memory is evident through his final lecture. In April of 1890, despite his failing health, Whitman gave his “Death of Abraham Lincoln” lecture for the final time (Reynolds 575).

Reading copy "Death of Lincoln" lecture, 1879, Bound printed and manuscript pages

Partial Transcription: “. . .the true spirit, the true development of America. Life serves, & death also-even the death of the sweetest and wisest. . . . With the first breath of a great historic triumph and in murder and horror unsurpassed Abraham Lincoln died. But not only the value he gave the New World in life survives for ever, but the value of his death survives forever” (Library of Congress, “Poet of the Nation” http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/ww0035-trans.html).

Here’s a link to the full text of Walt Whitman’s speech, “The Death of Abraham Lincoln”.

Group members: Chris Countryman, Jennica Kwak, Tara Wood

__________________________________________

Works Cited

Eiselein, Gregory. “Lincoln’s Death.” The Walt Whitman Encyclopedia.
Eds. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings. New York: Garland
Publishing, 1998. 30 November 2009
<http://www.whitmanarchive.org/criticism/current/encyclopedia/entry_30.html> .
Reynolds, David. Whitman’s America: A Cultural Biography.
Whitman, Walt. “Death of Abraham Lincoln.” Prose Works. Philadelphia: David McKay, 1892; Bartleby.com, 2000. www.bartleby.com/229/. [30 November 2009].
Whitman, Walt. “The Death of Abraham Lincoln.” Specimen Days. Whitman
Poetry and Prose. New York: The Library of America, 1996.

All Images: Library of Congress, “Poet of the Nation: Revising Himself: Walt Whitman and Leaves of Grass.” an American Treasures exhibition: http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/whitman-poetofthenation.html

Walt Whitman's Lecture. Death of Abraham Lincoln. Philadelphia: April 15, 1880

presentation

Arguably, Whitman loved his country more than almost anything else in his life. When Lincoln, who to Whitman “saved” the nation during the Civil War, was assassinated on April 14, 1865, Whitman was quick to respond. On April 16, 1865, he wrote, “…if one name, one man, must be picked out, he [Lincoln], most of all, is the conservator of it [the Union], to the future” (Whitman, Specimen Days 788). He added that even though Lincoln had died, the Union had not. This was perhaps the only solace Whitman found in the death of his hero.

While it is apparent that Lincoln was always an icon that Whitman admired, Lincoln’s importance to Whitman’s life was catapulted by the President’s assassination in 1865. Whitman viewed Lincoln’s death as akin to the many great and tragic deaths of history – Caesar, Napolean, etc… – and saw it as the final event that saved the Union and brought to a (tragic) close the chaos and turbulence of a nation (Whitman, Prose Works). Whitman conveyed these sentiments some nineteen times between the years1879 and 1890 in what became known as his “Lincoln lectures” (Reynolds 531).

While the elegiac poems are the most popularly recognized example of Whitman’s love for Lincoln today, Whitman’s annual Lincoln lectures defined his popular status in the late nineteenth century (Reynolds 496). Beginning in April of 1879, Whitman delivered these public lectures commemorating the President’s death (Eiselein 1). His first lecture, on April 14^th, was organized by some of his friends in the New York literary social circle (Reynolds 531). He gave the speech seated on a chair in Steck Hall to an audience of sixty to eighty people. The entire speech was recited in a “conversational tone” and he ended the lecture by reciting “O Captain” (Reynolds 531).

The “Death of Abraham Lincoln” lecture begins with a statement of purpose:

“HOW often since that dark and dripping Saturday—that chilly April day, now fifteen years bygone—my heart has entertain’d the dream, the wish, to give of Abraham Lincoln’s death, its own special thought and memorial. Yet now the sought-for opportunity offers, I find my notes incompetent, (why, for truly profound themes, is statement so idle? why does the right phrase never offer?) and the fit tribute I dream’d of, waits unprepared as ever. My talk here indeed is less because of itself or anything in it, and nearly altogether because I feel a desire, apart from any talk, to specify the day, the martyrdom.…For my own part, I hope and desire, till my own dying day, whenever the 14th or 15th of April comes, to annually gather a few friends, and hold its tragic reminiscence…” (Whitman, Prose Works) [bold is our addition].

A tribute, to Whitman, is impossible because he cannot create one that is fitting enough. Instead, he hopes to remember the day and the importance of it. After this statement of purpose, Whitman begins with a history of the tumultuous conditions in the United States leading up to Lincoln’s election (Reynolds 441). Following this brief history lesson, Whitman reminisces about the times he saw the President. After this foundation is built, Whitman launches into his enthralling and vivid eyewitness account of Lincoln’s assassination (Eiselein 1).

“Through the general hum following the stage pause, with the change of positions, came the muffled sound of a pistol-shot…and yet a moment’s hush-somehow surely, a vague startled thrill-and then, through the ornamented, draperied, starr’d and striped space-way of the President’s box, a sudden figure, a man, raises himself with hands and feet, stands a moment on the railing, leaps below the stage…and disappears…

A moment’s hush-a scream-the cry of murder…” (Whitman, Prose Works)

Not present at Ford’s Theatre on April 14, 1865, Whitman looked elsewhere for this “eyewitness” information. Peter Doyle, a friend of Whitman’s who was at Ford’s Theatre the night of the assassination, gave Whitman an intimate account of the tragedy (Reynolds 440). Still, many of Whitman’s details were sensationalized. In his speech he included much of the sensational news reportage that was characteristic of nineteenth-century America (Reynolds 442). Many of these details, however, were only distantly related to Lincoln’s murder. Whitman concluded the detailed account of Lincoln’s assassination with commentary on the effects and meaning of the murder on the Nation. For Whitman, Lincoln’s assassination was “the ultimate violent American melodrama whose villain was a caricature of bad acting, whose victim was the hero of the nation’s greatest drama, and whose effect was audience frenzy on a massive scale” (Reynolds 443). Beyond this, though, Lincoln’s murder was the final event that re-solidified the nation. Lincoln, in his life and his death, achieved what Whitman had always hoped to with Leaves of Grass: unification of the Nation.

In this lecture, Whitman does not lament Lincoln’s death as much as he presents it as a culminating event in the midst of all the conflicts of the era. In essence, Whitman’s lecture positions Lincoln’s assassination as the tragic sacrifice through which the nation was reborn (Eiselein 1). In discussing the timeless and global impact of Lincoln’s life and death, Whitman paints an American tragedy. This tragedy was often punctuated with Whitman’s most famous tribute to Lincoln, “O Captain”.

“]

Walt Whitman on Abraham Lincoln. New York: April 14, [1887

The most famous of Whitman’s Lincoln lectures was his lecture on April 14, 1887 at Madison Square Theater in New York. This lecture was arranged by two businessmen who were Whitman’s friends, John Johnston and Robert Pearsall Smith. These men arranged for Major James B. Pond to publicize the event (Reynolds 558). As a result, this April 1887 appearance became a memorable spectacle and a society event. The event drew a large society crowd including Andrew Carnegie, Mark Twain, and James Russell Lowell. The entire “performance” had a dramatic theme, including an ending in which a young girl walked on stage to hand Whitman a bouquet of lilacs (Reynolds 555). The spectacle did not end there, however, as there was a reception following the lecture that was at least as spectacular as the event itself. Even though the event netted Whitman $600.00, he had mixed feelings about it (Reynolds 555). To John Johnston, Whitman said that this lecture was the culminating hour of his life, but to Traubel he remarked, “It was too much the New York jamboree – the cosmopolitan drunk” (Reynolds 555).

If nowhere else, Whitman’s dedication to Lincoln’s memory is evident through his final lecture. In April of 1890, despite his failing health, Whitman gave his “Death of Abraham Lincoln” lecture for the final time (Reynolds 575).

Reading copy "Death of Lincoln" lecture, 1879, Bound printed and manuscript pages

Partial Transcription: “. . .the true spirit, the true development of America. Life serves, & death also-even the death of the sweetest and wisest. . . . With the first breath of a great historic triumph and in murder and horror unsurpassed Abraham Lincoln died. But not only the value he gave the New World in life survives for ever, but the value of his death survives forever” (Library of Congress, “Poet of the Nation” http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/ww0035-trans.html).

Here’s a link to the full text of Walt Whitman’s speech, “The Death of Abraham Lincoln”.

Group members: Chris Countryman, Jennica Kwak, Tara Wood

__________________________________________

Works Cited

Eiselein, Gregory. “Lincoln’s Death.” The Walt Whitman Encyclopedia.
Eds. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings. New York: Garland
Publishing, 1998. 30 November 2009
<http://www.whitmanarchive.org/criticism/current/encyclopedia/entry_30.html> .
Reynolds, David. Whitman’s America: A Cultural Biography.
Whitman, Walt. “Death of Abraham Lincoln.” Prose Works. Philadelphia: David McKay, 1892; Bartleby.com, 2000. www.bartleby.com/229/. [30 November 2009].
Whitman, Walt. “The Death of Abraham Lincoln.” Specimen Days. Whitman
Poetry and Prose. New York: The Library of America, 1996.

All Images: Library of Congress, “Poet of the Nation: Revising Himself: Walt Whitman and Leaves of Grass.” an American Treasures exhibition: http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/whitman-poetofthenation.html

Walt Whitman's Lecture. Death of Abraham Lincoln. Philadelphia: April 15, 1880

presentation

Arguably, Whitman loved his country more than almost anything else in his life. When Lincoln, who to Whitman “saved” the nation during the Civil War, was assassinated on April 14, 1865, Whitman was quick to respond. On April 16, 1865, he wrote, “…if one name, one man, must be picked out, he [Lincoln], most of all, is the conservator of it [the Union], to the future” (Whitman, Specimen Days 788). He added that even though Lincoln had died, the Union had not. This was perhaps the only solace Whitman found in the death of his hero.

While it is apparent that Lincoln was always an icon that Whitman admired, Lincoln’s importance to Whitman’s life was catapulted by the President’s assassination in 1865. Whitman viewed Lincoln’s death as akin to the many great and tragic deaths of history – Caesar, Napolean, etc… – and saw it as the final event that saved the Union and brought to a (tragic) close the chaos and turbulence of a nation (Whitman, Prose Works). Whitman conveyed these sentiments some nineteen times between the years1879 and 1890 in what became known as his “Lincoln lectures” (Reynolds 531).

While the elegiac poems are the most popularly recognized example of Whitman’s love for Lincoln today, Whitman’s annual Lincoln lectures defined his popular status in the late nineteenth century (Reynolds 496). Beginning in April of 1879, Whitman delivered these public lectures commemorating the President’s death (Eiselein 1). His first lecture, on April 14^th, was organized by some of his friends in the New York literary social circle (Reynolds 531). He gave the speech seated on a chair in Steck Hall to an audience of sixty to eighty people. The entire speech was recited in a “conversational tone” and he ended the lecture by reciting “O Captain” (Reynolds 531).

The “Death of Abraham Lincoln” lecture begins with a statement of purpose:

“HOW often since that dark and dripping Saturday—that chilly April day, now fifteen years bygone—my heart has entertain’d the dream, the wish, to give of Abraham Lincoln’s death, its own special thought and memorial. Yet now the sought-for opportunity offers, I find my notes incompetent, (why, for truly profound themes, is statement so idle? why does the right phrase never offer?) and the fit tribute I dream’d of, waits unprepared as ever. My talk here indeed is less because of itself or anything in it, and nearly altogether because I feel a desire, apart from any talk, to specify the day, the martyrdom.…For my own part, I hope and desire, till my own dying day, whenever the 14th or 15th of April comes, to annually gather a few friends, and hold its tragic reminiscence…” (Whitman, Prose Works) [bold is our addition].

A tribute, to Whitman, is impossible because he cannot create one that is fitting enough. Instead, he hopes to remember the day and the importance of it. After this statement of purpose, Whitman begins with a history of the tumultuous conditions in the United States leading up to Lincoln’s election (Reynolds 441). Following this brief history lesson, Whitman reminisces about the times he saw the President. After this foundation is built, Whitman launches into his enthralling and vivid eyewitness account of Lincoln’s assassination (Eiselein 1).

“Through the general hum following the stage pause, with the change of positions, came the muffled sound of a pistol-shot…and yet a moment’s hush-somehow surely, a vague startled thrill-and then, through the ornamented, draperied, starr’d and striped space-way of the President’s box, a sudden figure, a man, raises himself with hands and feet, stands a moment on the railing, leaps below the stage…and disappears…

A moment’s hush-a scream-the cry of murder…” (Whitman, Prose Works)

Not present at Ford’s Theatre on April 14, 1865, Whitman looked elsewhere for this “eyewitness” information. Peter Doyle, a friend of Whitman’s who was at Ford’s Theatre the night of the assassination, gave Whitman an intimate account of the tragedy (Reynolds 440). Still, many of Whitman’s details were sensationalized. In his speech he included much of the sensational news reportage that was characteristic of nineteenth-century America (Reynolds 442). Many of these details, however, were only distantly related to Lincoln’s murder. Whitman concluded the detailed account of Lincoln’s assassination with commentary on the effects and meaning of the murder on the Nation. For Whitman, Lincoln’s assassination was “the ultimate violent American melodrama whose villain was a caricature of bad acting, whose victim was the hero of the nation’s greatest drama, and whose effect was audience frenzy on a massive scale” (Reynolds 443). Beyond this, though, Lincoln’s murder was the final event that re-solidified the nation. Lincoln, in his life and his death, achieved what Whitman had always hoped to with Leaves of Grass: unification of the Nation.

In this lecture, Whitman does not lament Lincoln’s death as much as he presents it as a culminating event in the midst of all the conflicts of the era. In essence, Whitman’s lecture positions Lincoln’s assassination as the tragic sacrifice through which the nation was reborn (Eiselein 1). In discussing the timeless and global impact of Lincoln’s life and death, Whitman paints an American tragedy. This tragedy was often punctuated with Whitman’s most famous tribute to Lincoln, “O Captain”.

“]

Walt Whitman on Abraham Lincoln. New York: April 14, [1887

The most famous of Whitman’s Lincoln lectures was his lecture on April 14, 1887 at Madison Square Theater in New York. This lecture was arranged by two businessmen who were Whitman’s friends, John Johnston and Robert Pearsall Smith. These men arranged for Major James B. Pond to publicize the event (Reynolds 558). As a result, this April 1887 appearance became a memorable spectacle and a society event. The event drew a large society crowd including Andrew Carnegie, Mark Twain, and James Russell Lowell. The entire “performance” had a dramatic theme, including an ending in which a young girl walked on stage to hand Whitman a bouquet of lilacs (Reynolds 555). The spectacle did not end there, however, as there was a reception following the lecture that was at least as spectacular as the event itself. Even though the event netted Whitman $600.00, he had mixed feelings about it (Reynolds 555). To John Johnston, Whitman said that this lecture was the culminating hour of his life, but to Traubel he remarked, “It was too much the New York jamboree – the cosmopolitan drunk” (Reynolds 555).

If nowhere else, Whitman’s dedication to Lincoln’s memory is evident through his final lecture. In April of 1890, despite his failing health, Whitman gave his “Death of Abraham Lincoln” lecture for the final time (Reynolds 575).

Reading copy "Death of Lincoln" lecture, 1879, Bound printed and manuscript pages

Partial Transcription: “. . .the true spirit, the true development of America. Life serves, & death also-even the death of the sweetest and wisest. . . . With the first breath of a great historic triumph and in murder and horror unsurpassed Abraham Lincoln died. But not only the value he gave the New World in life survives for ever, but the value of his death survives forever” (Library of Congress, “Poet of the Nation” http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/ww0035-trans.html).

Here’s a link to the full text of Walt Whitman’s speech, “The Death of Abraham Lincoln”.

Group members: Chris Countryman, Jennica Kwak, Tara Wood

__________________________________________

Works Cited

Eiselein, Gregory. “Lincoln’s Death.” The Walt Whitman Encyclopedia.
Eds. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings. New York: Garland
Publishing, 1998. 30 November 2009
<http://www.whitmanarchive.org/criticism/current/encyclopedia/entry_30.html> .
Reynolds, David. Whitman’s America: A Cultural Biography.
Whitman, Walt. “Death of Abraham Lincoln.” Prose Works. Philadelphia: David McKay, 1892; Bartleby.com, 2000. www.bartleby.com/229/. [30 November 2009].
Whitman, Walt. “The Death of Abraham Lincoln.” Specimen Days. Whitman
Poetry and Prose. New York: The Library of America, 1996.

All Images: Library of Congress, “Poet of the Nation: Revising Himself: Walt Whitman and Leaves of Grass.” an American Treasures exhibition: http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/whitman-poetofthenation.html

Walt Whitman's Lecture. Death of Abraham Lincoln. Philadelphia: April 15, 1880

presentation

Arguably, Whitman loved his country more than almost anything else in his life. When Lincoln, who to Whitman “saved” the nation during the Civil War, was assassinated on April 14, 1865, Whitman was quick to respond. On April 16, 1865, he wrote, “…if one name, one man, must be picked out, he [Lincoln], most of all, is the conservator of it [the Union], to the future” (Whitman, Specimen Days 788). He added that even though Lincoln had died, the Union had not. This was perhaps the only solace Whitman found in the death of his hero.

While it is apparent that Lincoln was always an icon that Whitman admired, Lincoln’s importance to Whitman’s life was catapulted by the President’s assassination in 1865. Whitman viewed Lincoln’s death as akin to the many great and tragic deaths of history – Caesar, Napolean, etc… – and saw it as the final event that saved the Union and brought to a (tragic) close the chaos and turbulence of a nation (Whitman, Prose Works). Whitman conveyed these sentiments some nineteen times between the years1879 and 1890 in what became known as his “Lincoln lectures” (Reynolds 531).

While the elegiac poems are the most popularly recognized example of Whitman’s love for Lincoln today, Whitman’s annual Lincoln lectures defined his popular status in the late nineteenth century (Reynolds 496). Beginning in April of 1879, Whitman delivered these public lectures commemorating the President’s death (Eiselein 1). His first lecture, on April 14^th, was organized by some of his friends in the New York literary social circle (Reynolds 531). He gave the speech seated on a chair in Steck Hall to an audience of sixty to eighty people. The entire speech was recited in a “conversational tone” and he ended the lecture by reciting “O Captain” (Reynolds 531).

The “Death of Abraham Lincoln” lecture begins with a statement of purpose:

“HOW often since that dark and dripping Saturday—that chilly April day, now fifteen years bygone—my heart has entertain’d the dream, the wish, to give of Abraham Lincoln’s death, its own special thought and memorial. Yet now the sought-for opportunity offers, I find my notes incompetent, (why, for truly profound themes, is statement so idle? why does the right phrase never offer?) and the fit tribute I dream’d of, waits unprepared as ever. My talk here indeed is less because of itself or anything in it, and nearly altogether because I feel a desire, apart from any talk, to specify the day, the martyrdom.…For my own part, I hope and desire, till my own dying day, whenever the 14th or 15th of April comes, to annually gather a few friends, and hold its tragic reminiscence…” (Whitman, Prose Works) [bold is our addition].

A tribute, to Whitman, is impossible because he cannot create one that is fitting enough. Instead, he hopes to remember the day and the importance of it. After this statement of purpose, Whitman begins with a history of the tumultuous conditions in the United States leading up to Lincoln’s election (Reynolds 441). Following this brief history lesson, Whitman reminisces about the times he saw the President. After this foundation is built, Whitman launches into his enthralling and vivid eyewitness account of Lincoln’s assassination (Eiselein 1).

“Through the general hum following the stage pause, with the change of positions, came the muffled sound of a pistol-shot…and yet a moment’s hush-somehow surely, a vague startled thrill-and then, through the ornamented, draperied, starr’d and striped space-way of the President’s box, a sudden figure, a man, raises himself with hands and feet, stands a moment on the railing, leaps below the stage…and disappears…

A moment’s hush-a scream-the cry of murder…” (Whitman, Prose Works)

Not present at Ford’s Theatre on April 14, 1865, Whitman looked elsewhere for this “eyewitness” information. Peter Doyle, a friend of Whitman’s who was at Ford’s Theatre the night of the assassination, gave Whitman an intimate account of the tragedy (Reynolds 440). Still, many of Whitman’s details were sensationalized. In his speech he included much of the sensational news reportage that was characteristic of nineteenth-century America (Reynolds 442). Many of these details, however, were only distantly related to Lincoln’s murder. Whitman concluded the detailed account of Lincoln’s assassination with commentary on the effects and meaning of the murder on the Nation. For Whitman, Lincoln’s assassination was “the ultimate violent American melodrama whose villain was a caricature of bad acting, whose victim was the hero of the nation’s greatest drama, and whose effect was audience frenzy on a massive scale” (Reynolds 443). Beyond this, though, Lincoln’s murder was the final event that re-solidified the nation. Lincoln, in his life and his death, achieved what Whitman had always hoped to with Leaves of Grass: unification of the Nation.

In this lecture, Whitman does not lament Lincoln’s death as much as he presents it as a culminating event in the midst of all the conflicts of the era. In essence, Whitman’s lecture positions Lincoln’s assassination as the tragic sacrifice through which the nation was reborn (Eiselein 1). In discussing the timeless and global impact of Lincoln’s life and death, Whitman paints an American tragedy. This tragedy was often punctuated with Whitman’s most famous tribute to Lincoln, “O Captain”.

“]

Walt Whitman on Abraham Lincoln. New York: April 14, [1887

The most famous of Whitman’s Lincoln lectures was his lecture on April 14, 1887 at Madison Square Theater in New York. This lecture was arranged by two businessmen who were Whitman’s friends, John Johnston and Robert Pearsall Smith. These men arranged for Major James B. Pond to publicize the event (Reynolds 558). As a result, this April 1887 appearance became a memorable spectacle and a society event. The event drew a large society crowd including Andrew Carnegie, Mark Twain, and James Russell Lowell. The entire “performance” had a dramatic theme, including an ending in which a young girl walked on stage to hand Whitman a bouquet of lilacs (Reynolds 555). The spectacle did not end there, however, as there was a reception following the lecture that was at least as spectacular as the event itself. Even though the event netted Whitman $600.00, he had mixed feelings about it (Reynolds 555). To John Johnston, Whitman said that this lecture was the culminating hour of his life, but to Traubel he remarked, “It was too much the New York jamboree – the cosmopolitan drunk” (Reynolds 555).

If nowhere else, Whitman’s dedication to Lincoln’s memory is evident through his final lecture. In April of 1890, despite his failing health, Whitman gave his “Death of Abraham Lincoln” lecture for the final time (Reynolds 575).

Reading copy "Death of Lincoln" lecture, 1879, Bound printed and manuscript pages

Partial Transcription: “. . .the true spirit, the true development of America. Life serves, & death also-even the death of the sweetest and wisest. . . . With the first breath of a great historic triumph and in murder and horror unsurpassed Abraham Lincoln died. But not only the value he gave the New World in life survives for ever, but the value of his death survives forever” (Library of Congress, “Poet of the Nation” http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/ww0035-trans.html).

Here’s a link to the full text of Walt Whitman’s speech, “The Death of Abraham Lincoln”.

Group members: Chris Countryman, Jennica Kwak, Tara Wood

__________________________________________

Works Cited

Eiselein, Gregory. “Lincoln’s Death.” The Walt Whitman Encyclopedia.
Eds. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings. New York: Garland
Publishing, 1998. 30 November 2009
<http://www.whitmanarchive.org/criticism/current/encyclopedia/entry_30.html> .
Reynolds, David. Whitman’s America: A Cultural Biography.
Whitman, Walt. “Death of Abraham Lincoln.” Prose Works. Philadelphia: David McKay, 1892; Bartleby.com, 2000. www.bartleby.com/229/. [30 November 2009].
Whitman, Walt. “The Death of Abraham Lincoln.” Specimen Days. Whitman
Poetry and Prose. New York: The Library of America, 1996.

All Images: Library of Congress, “Poet of the Nation: Revising Himself: Walt Whitman and Leaves of Grass.” an American Treasures exhibition: http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/whitman-poetofthenation.html

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I think that because I have taken the long journey to find Whitman. I figured why not find him in my house. So I did. I found Whitman in my home. This I feel was a relevant place because it was there that I did most of my work, projects, and blogs in response to Whitman’s work.

I thought that I should make it unique though. So Iset up a little scene that I thought Whitman would be proud of as  I tried to  imitate his style of dress, and what might look like the work place of a well known writer, journalist, and poet. Hopefully it captures my goal showing viewers how I view Whitman. But I think that the actual video does not capture the creativity and the background I set up.

I think that because I have taken the long journey to find Whitman. I figured why not find him in my house. So I did. I found Whitman in my home. This I feel was a relevant place because it was there that I did most of my work, projects, and blogs in response to Whitman’s work.

I thought that I should make it unique though. So Iset up a little scene that I thought Whitman would be proud of as  I tried to  imitate his style of dress, and what might look like the work place of a well known writer, journalist, and poet. Hopefully it captures my goal showing viewers how I view Whitman. But I think that the actual video does not capture the creativity and the background I set up.

I think that because I have taken the long journey to find Whitman. I figured why not find him in my house. So I did. I found Whitman in my home. This I feel was a relevant place because it was there that I did most of my work, projects, and blogs in response to Whitman’s work.

I thought that I should make it unique though. So Iset up a little scene that I thought Whitman would be proud of as  I tried to  imitate his style of dress, and what might look like the work place of a well known writer, journalist, and poet. Hopefully it captures my goal showing viewers how I view Whitman. But I think that the actual video does not capture the creativity and the background I set up.

Over one hundred years later women still had to stand up for their rights for equal pay for equal work.  Click on the first link below to see a Public Service Ad from the 1960′s.  Use the back arrow to return to blog.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5699898249406405833&ei=TMgPS_6bFI6-rALNsOwr&q=1960+tv+commercials#

Price “did not feel that the home rewarded women with the high sense of morality and spirituality that her society kept telling her it did.  She saw such claims as bogus, as ways to flatter women in order to keep them in their place.”  (63). 

Although Walt Whitman valued motherhood, he valued women as equal to men and able to do whatever they wanted.  He believed that if women pursued interests outside the home they would be more satisfied and happier with their domestic responsibilities. And he felt women should have the right to choose how they wanted to spend their time.

Once again, over one hundred years later, women are facing the same challenges.  In the next ad we hear a male voice telling working women that they need to be themselves once in a while and that is done through baking.  Again, use the back arrow to return to post.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACUxDhVxcP4

Both Whitman and the members of the feminist movement wanted women out in the real world.  In Democratic Vistas Whitman wrote, ” – but great, at any rate, as man, in all departments; or, rather, capable of being so, soon as they realize it, and can bring themselves to give up toys and fictions, and launch forth, as men do, amid real, independent, stormy life.”  He wanted women to become “robust equals and workers.”  (222). 

Women like Abby Price, Paulina Davis and Ernestine Rose devoted their lives to the liberation of women.  These women, along with Whitman, spoke and wrote for the freedom that women were entitled to.  Men of the 19th century did not take them seriously, reporting in newspapers about the fashions worn at the women’s conventions instead of the content of the speeches.  And, once again, over one hundred years later women are still being mocked.   The next link shows yet another ad that makes it clear that women can become working girls, but they are expected to fulfill their domestic duties at all times.   Once again, use the back arrow to return to post.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4X4MwbVf5OA#

Over one hundred years later women still had to stand up for their rights for equal pay for equal work.  Click on the first link below to see a Public Service Ad from the 1960′s.  Use the back arrow to return to blog.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5699898249406405833&ei=TMgPS_6bFI6-rALNsOwr&q=1960+tv+commercials#

Price “did not feel that the home rewarded women with the high sense of morality and spirituality that her society kept telling her it did.  She saw such claims as bogus, as ways to flatter women in order to keep them in their place.”  (63). 

Although Walt Whitman valued motherhood, he valued women as equal to men and able to do whatever they wanted.  He believed that if women pursued interests outside the home they would be more satisfied and happier with their domestic responsibilities. And he felt women should have the right to choose how they wanted to spend their time.

Once again, over one hundred years later, women are facing the same challenges.  In the next ad we hear a male voice telling working women that they need to be themselves once in a while and that is done through baking.  Again, use the back arrow to return to post.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACUxDhVxcP4

Both Whitman and the members of the feminist movement wanted women out in the real world.  In Democratic Vistas Whitman wrote, ” – but great, at any rate, as man, in all departments; or, rather, capable of being so, soon as they realize it, and can bring themselves to give up toys and fictions, and launch forth, as men do, amid real, independent, stormy life.”  He wanted women to become “robust equals and workers.”  (222). 

Women like Abby Price, Paulina Davis and Ernestine Rose devoted their lives to the liberation of women.  These women, along with Whitman, spoke and wrote for the freedom that women were entitled to.  Men of the 19th century did not take them seriously, reporting in newspapers about the fashions worn at the women’s conventions instead of the content of the speeches.  And, once again, over one hundred years later women are still being mocked.   The next link shows yet another ad that makes it clear that women can become working girls, but they are expected to fulfill their domestic duties at all times.   Once again, use the back arrow to return to post.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4X4MwbVf5OA#

direct youtube link (if you want to watch it “fullscreen”)

Final note:

All music chosen for this cinepoem was either of the time that “City of Ships” was written (1865) or by local musicians in either Philadelphia or New Jersey.




direct youtube link (if you want to watch it “fullscreen”)

Final note:

All music chosen for this cinepoem was either of the time that “City of Ships” was written (1865) or by local musicians in either Philadelphia or New Jersey.

direct youtube link (if you want to watch it “fullscreen”)

Final note:

All music chosen for this cinepoem was either of the time that “City of Ships” was written (1865) or by local musicians in either Philadelphia or New Jersey.

Click here to view the embedded video.

direct youtube link (if you want to watch it “fullscreen”)

Final note:

All music chosen for this cinepoem was either of the time that “City of Ships” was written (1865) or by local musicians in either Philadelphia or New Jersey.

direct youtube link (if you want to watch it “fullscreen”)

Final note:

All music chosen for this cinepoem was either of the time that “City of Ships” was written (1865) or by local musicians in either Philadelphia or New Jersey.




direct youtube link (if you want to watch it “fullscreen”)

Final note:

All music chosen for this cinepoem was either of the time that “City of Ships” was written (1865) or by local musicians in either Philadelphia or New Jersey.

Click here to view the embedded video.

direct youtube link (if you want to watch it “fullscreen”)

Final note:

All music chosen for this cinepoem was either of the time that “City of Ships” was written (1865) or by local musicians in either Philadelphia or New Jersey.

Click here to view the embedded video.

direct youtube link (if you want to watch it “fullscreen”)

Final note:

All music chosen for this cinepoem was either of the time that “City of Ships” was written (1865) or by local musicians in either Philadelphia or New Jersey.




direct youtube link (if you want to watch it “fullscreen”)

Final note:

All music chosen for this cinepoem was either of the time that “City of Ships” was written (1865) or by local musicians in either Philadelphia or New Jersey.

Click here to view the embedded video.

direct youtube link (if you want to watch it “fullscreen”)

Final note:

All music chosen for this cinepoem was either of the time that “City of Ships” was written (1865) or by local musicians in either Philadelphia or New Jersey.

direct youtube link (if you want to watch it “fullscreen”)

Final note:

All music chosen for this cinepoem was either of the time that “City of Ships” was written (1865) or by local musicians in either Philadelphia or New Jersey.

Click here to view the embedded video.

direct youtube link (if you want to watch it “fullscreen”)

Final note:

All music chosen for this cinepoem was either of the time that “City of Ships” was written (1865) or by local musicians in either Philadelphia or New Jersey.

Click here to view the embedded video.

direct youtube link (if you want to watch it “fullscreen”)

Final note:

All music chosen for this cinepoem was either of the time that “City of Ships” was written (1865) or by local musicians in either Philadelphia or New Jersey.

“The novel is of Franklin Evans who is the country mouse who comes to ruin in the wicked city. Led astray by evil companions, he takes one swig of wine in a tavern and sets himself on the downward path. As wine bibbing leads to harder stuff, the hapless Evans becomes a puppet of the demon rum. His forays into low dives and dance halls cost him his job, wreck his marriage, contribute to his saintly wife’s death, and quickly bring him to a life of petty crime.
Evans is a maddening protagonist, utterly lacking in will or initiative; he’s a sort of moral polyp afloat in a bottle. Even so, the course of his downfall isn’t completely predictable. As if to show how low drink can bring a man, Whitman has Evans move to Virginia where he falls in love with Margaret, a “creole” slave whom he marries but comes to hate. In her “swarthiness,” Margaret embodies sheer animal appetite; she personifies Evans’s own thirst for drink. Interestingly, she’s the only character who pulses with a semblance of life. Maddened by jealousy, “the wretched Creole” poisons the genteel Mrs. Conway, a luscious widow whom Evans wants to take as his mistress. These are the ugliest chapters in the novel, made more distasteful by Whitman’s shameless attempts to play on race for sensational effect. But this is, of course, a tale of redemption. Evans takes the temperance pledge. He ends up inheriting a fortune from a benefactor. Whitman’s moral is clear: Sobriety isn’t just virtuous, it can be lucrative too”. http://www.nysun.com/arts/dominion-of-the-liquor-fiend/61491/retrieved on 12-08-09

The stanza I chose has ran with me through-out this class, from the first time I read this stanza and I fell in love with it. I did most of my projects surrounding it as well as this. I did two videos in different rooms reading the same part of the poem. The reason I chose this location to read my poem is that I felt very alive and happy at this location. It reminded me of little scenes which I saw while reading Franklin Evans. The part with me in the bathroom I felt signifies me celebrating who I am and how times have changed. Whitman always spoke of “ I Am, You” which brought the reader closer to him, but after reading some of his work and biography, I felt as though in some ways he was not being true to himself and who he was. Franklin Evans seemed to be a part of him that he never spoke about, a part that never came out (unconscious part). Being in a stall was liberating, I felt a little like Franklin Evans experiencing alcohol. Just in a better way. The second scene was in a velvet dining room while having dinner and drinks, it reminded me of a reading we did of Charles Dickens when he came to NYC and spoke of it in terrible ways. The remembrance was of the ladies in their bright clothing, the red velvet room felt like that, it was like an evil room of uncertainties. Just like Franklin’s experiences in the city.
My video may be a little different due to the location, but this is where I found Whitman.

Where Nicole found Whitman! In a stall while having dinner.

nicole | MySpace Video

“The novel is of Franklin Evans who is the country mouse who comes to ruin in the wicked city. Led astray by evil companions, he takes one swig of wine in a tavern and sets himself on the downward path. As wine bibbing leads to harder stuff, the hapless Evans becomes a puppet of the demon rum. His forays into low dives and dance halls cost him his job, wreck his marriage, contribute to his saintly wife’s death, and quickly bring him to a life of petty crime.
Evans is a maddening protagonist, utterly lacking in will or initiative; he’s a sort of moral polyp afloat in a bottle. Even so, the course of his downfall isn’t completely predictable. As if to show how low drink can bring a man, Whitman has Evans move to Virginia where he falls in love with Margaret, a “creole” slave whom he marries but comes to hate. In her “swarthiness,” Margaret embodies sheer animal appetite; she personifies Evans’s own thirst for drink. Interestingly, she’s the only character who pulses with a semblance of life. Maddened by jealousy, “the wretched Creole” poisons the genteel Mrs. Conway, a luscious widow whom Evans wants to take as his mistress. These are the ugliest chapters in the novel, made more distasteful by Whitman’s shameless attempts to play on race for sensational effect. But this is, of course, a tale of redemption. Evans takes the temperance pledge. He ends up inheriting a fortune from a benefactor. Whitman’s moral is clear: Sobriety isn’t just virtuous, it can be lucrative too”. http://www.nysun.com/arts/dominion-of-the-liquor-fiend/61491/retrieved on 12-08-09

The stanza I chose has ran with me through-out this class, from the first time I read this stanza and I fell in love with it. I did most of my projects surrounding it as well as this. I did two videos in different rooms reading the same part of the poem. The reason I chose this location to read my poem is that I felt very alive and happy at this location. It reminded me of little scenes which I saw while reading Franklin Evans. The part with me in the bathroom I felt signifies me celebrating who I am and how times have changed. Whitman always spoke of “ I Am, You” which brought the reader closer to him, but after reading some of his work and biography, I felt as though in some ways he was not being true to himself and who he was. Franklin Evans seemed to be a part of him that he never spoke about, a part that never came out (unconscious part). Being in a stall was liberating, I felt a little like Franklin Evans experiencing alcohol. Just in a better way. The second scene was in a velvet dining room while having dinner and drinks, it reminded me of a reading we did of Charles Dickens when he came to NYC and spoke of it in terrible ways. The remembrance was of the ladies in their bright clothing, the red velvet room felt like that, it was like an evil room of uncertainties. Just like Franklin’s experiences in the city.
My video may be a little different due to the location, but this is where I found Whitman.

Where Nicole found Whitman! In a stall while having dinner.

nicole | MySpace Video

“The novel is of Franklin Evans who is the country mouse who comes to ruin in the wicked city. Led astray by evil companions, he takes one swig of wine in a tavern and sets himself on the downward path. As wine bibbing leads to harder stuff, the hapless Evans becomes a puppet of the demon rum. His forays into low dives and dance halls cost him his job, wreck his marriage, contribute to his saintly wife’s death, and quickly bring him to a life of petty crime.
Evans is a maddening protagonist, utterly lacking in will or initiative; he’s a sort of moral polyp afloat in a bottle. Even so, the course of his downfall isn’t completely predictable. As if to show how low drink can bring a man, Whitman has Evans move to Virginia where he falls in love with Margaret, a “creole” slave whom he marries but comes to hate. In her “swarthiness,” Margaret embodies sheer animal appetite; she personifies Evans’s own thirst for drink. Interestingly, she’s the only character who pulses with a semblance of life. Maddened by jealousy, “the wretched Creole” poisons the genteel Mrs. Conway, a luscious widow whom Evans wants to take as his mistress. These are the ugliest chapters in the novel, made more distasteful by Whitman’s shameless attempts to play on race for sensational effect. But this is, of course, a tale of redemption. Evans takes the temperance pledge. He ends up inheriting a fortune from a benefactor. Whitman’s moral is clear: Sobriety isn’t just virtuous, it can be lucrative too”. http://www.nysun.com/arts/dominion-of-the-liquor-fiend/61491/retrieved on 12-08-09

The stanza I chose has ran with me through-out this class, from the first time I read this stanza and I fell in love with it. I did most of my projects surrounding it as well as this. I did two videos in different rooms reading the same part of the poem. The reason I chose this location to read my poem is that I felt very alive and happy at this location. It reminded me of little scenes which I saw while reading Franklin Evans. The part with me in the bathroom I felt signifies me celebrating who I am and how times have changed. Whitman always spoke of “ I Am, You” which brought the reader closer to him, but after reading some of his work and biography, I felt as though in some ways he was not being true to himself and who he was. Franklin Evans seemed to be a part of him that he never spoke about, a part that never came out (unconscious part). Being in a stall was liberating, I felt a little like Franklin Evans experiencing alcohol. Just in a better way. The second scene was in a velvet dining room while having dinner and drinks, it reminded me of a reading we did of Charles Dickens when he came to NYC and spoke of it in terrible ways. The remembrance was of the ladies in their bright clothing, the red velvet room felt like that, it was like an evil room of uncertainties. Just like Franklin’s experiences in the city.
My video may be a little different due to the location, but this is where I found Whitman.

Where Nicole found Whitman! In a stall while having dinner.

nicole | MySpace Video

“The novel is of Franklin Evans who is the country mouse who comes to ruin in the wicked city. Led astray by evil companions, he takes one swig of wine in a tavern and sets himself on the downward path. As wine bibbing leads to harder stuff, the hapless Evans becomes a puppet of the demon rum. His forays into low dives and dance halls cost him his job, wreck his marriage, contribute to his saintly wife’s death, and quickly bring him to a life of petty crime.
Evans is a maddening protagonist, utterly lacking in will or initiative; he’s a sort of moral polyp afloat in a bottle. Even so, the course of his downfall isn’t completely predictable. As if to show how low drink can bring a man, Whitman has Evans move to Virginia where he falls in love with Margaret, a “creole” slave whom he marries but comes to hate. In her “swarthiness,” Margaret embodies sheer animal appetite; she personifies Evans’s own thirst for drink. Interestingly, she’s the only character who pulses with a semblance of life. Maddened by jealousy, “the wretched Creole” poisons the genteel Mrs. Conway, a luscious widow whom Evans wants to take as his mistress. These are the ugliest chapters in the novel, made more distasteful by Whitman’s shameless attempts to play on race for sensational effect. But this is, of course, a tale of redemption. Evans takes the temperance pledge. He ends up inheriting a fortune from a benefactor. Whitman’s moral is clear: Sobriety isn’t just virtuous, it can be lucrative too”. http://www.nysun.com/arts/dominion-of-th… on 12-08-09

The stanza I chose has ran with me through-out this class, from the first time I read this stanza and I fell in love with it. I did most of my projects surrounding it as well as this. I did two videos in different rooms reading the same part of the poem. The reason I chose this location to read my poem is that I felt very alive and happy at this location. It reminded me of little scenes which I saw while reading Franklin Evans. The part with me in the bathroom I felt signifies me celebrating who I am and how times have changed. Whitman always spoke of “ I Am, You” which brought the reader closer to him, but after reading some of his work and biography, I felt as though in some ways he was not being true to himself and who he was. Franklin Evans seemed to be a part of him that he never spoke about, a part that never came out (unconscious part). Being in a stall was liberating, I felt a little like Franklin Evans experiencing alcohol. Just in a better way. The second scene was in a velvet dining room while having dinner and drinks, it reminded me of a reading we did of Charles Dickens when he came to NYC and spoke of it in terrible ways. The remembrance was of the ladies in their bright clothing, the red velvet room felt like that, it was like an evil room of uncertainties. Just like Franklin’s experiences in the city.
My video may be a little different due to the location, but this is where I found Whitman.

Where Nicole found Whitman! In a stall while having dinner.

nicole | MySpace Video

“The novel is of Franklin Evans who is the country mouse who comes to ruin in the wicked city. Led astray by evil companions, he takes one swig of wine in a tavern and sets himself on the downward path. As wine bibbing leads to harder stuff, the hapless Evans becomes a puppet of the demon rum. His forays into low dives and dance halls cost him his job, wreck his marriage, contribute to his saintly wife’s death, and quickly bring him to a life of petty crime.
Evans is a maddening protagonist, utterly lacking in will or initiative; he’s a sort of moral polyp afloat in a bottle. Even so, the course of his downfall isn’t completely predictable. As if to show how low drink can bring a man, Whitman has Evans move to Virginia where he falls in love with Margaret, a “creole” slave whom he marries but comes to hate. In her “swarthiness,” Margaret embodies sheer animal appetite; she personifies Evans’s own thirst for drink. Interestingly, she’s the only character who pulses with a semblance of life. Maddened by jealousy, “the wretched Creole” poisons the genteel Mrs. Conway, a luscious widow whom Evans wants to take as his mistress. These are the ugliest chapters in the novel, made more distasteful by Whitman’s shameless attempts to play on race for sensational effect. But this is, of course, a tale of redemption. Evans takes the temperance pledge. He ends up inheriting a fortune from a benefactor. Whitman’s moral is clear: Sobriety isn’t just virtuous, it can be lucrative too”. http://www.nysun.com/arts/dominion-of-th… on 12-08-09

The stanza I chose has ran with me through-out this class, from the first time I read this stanza and I fell in love with it. I did most of my projects surrounding it as well as this. I did two videos in different rooms reading the same part of the poem. The reason I chose this location to read my poem is that I felt very alive and happy at this location. It reminded me of little scenes which I saw while reading Franklin Evans. The part with me in the bathroom I felt signifies me celebrating who I am and how times have changed. Whitman always spoke of “ I Am, You” which brought the reader closer to him, but after reading some of his work and biography, I felt as though in some ways he was not being true to himself and who he was. Franklin Evans seemed to be a part of him that he never spoke about, a part that never came out (unconscious part). Being in a stall was liberating, I felt a little like Franklin Evans experiencing alcohol. Just in a better way. The second scene was in a velvet dining room while having dinner and drinks, it reminded me of a reading we did of Charles Dickens when he came to NYC and spoke of it in terrible ways. The remembrance was of the ladies in their bright clothing, the red velvet room felt like that, it was like an evil room of uncertainties. Just like Franklin’s experiences in the city.
My video may be a little different due to the location, but this is where I found Whitman.

Where Nicole found Whitman! In a stall while having dinner.

nicole | MySpace Video

“The novel is of Franklin Evans who is the country mouse who comes to ruin in the wicked city. Led astray by evil companions, he takes one swig of wine in a tavern and sets himself on the downward path. As wine bibbing leads to harder stuff, the hapless Evans becomes a puppet of the demon rum. His forays into low dives and dance halls cost him his job, wreck his marriage, contribute to his saintly wife’s death, and quickly bring him to a life of petty crime.
Evans is a maddening protagonist, utterly lacking in will or initiative; he’s a sort of moral polyp afloat in a bottle. Even so, the course of his downfall isn’t completely predictable. As if to show how low drink can bring a man, Whitman has Evans move to Virginia where he falls in love with Margaret, a “creole” slave whom he marries but comes to hate. In her “swarthiness,” Margaret embodies sheer animal appetite; she personifies Evans’s own thirst for drink. Interestingly, she’s the only character who pulses with a semblance of life. Maddened by jealousy, “the wretched Creole” poisons the genteel Mrs. Conway, a luscious widow whom Evans wants to take as his mistress. These are the ugliest chapters in the novel, made more distasteful by Whitman’s shameless attempts to play on race for sensational effect. But this is, of course, a tale of redemption. Evans takes the temperance pledge. He ends up inheriting a fortune from a benefactor. Whitman’s moral is clear: Sobriety isn’t just virtuous, it can be lucrative too”. http://www.nysun.com/arts/dominion-of-the-liquor-fiend/61491/retrieved on 12-08-09

The stanza I chose has ran with me through-out this class, from the first time I read this stanza and I fell in love with it. I did most of my projects surrounding it as well as this. I did two videos in different rooms reading the same part of the poem. The reason I chose this location to read my poem is that I felt very alive and happy at this location. It reminded me of little scenes which I saw while reading Franklin Evans. The part with me in the bathroom I felt signifies me celebrating who I am and how times have changed. Whitman always spoke of “ I Am, You” which brought the reader closer to him, but after reading some of his work and biography, I felt as though in some ways he was not being true to himself and who he was. Franklin Evans seemed to be a part of him that he never spoke about, a part that never came out (unconscious part). Being in a stall was liberating, I felt a little like Franklin Evans experiencing alcohol. Just in a better way. The second scene was in a velvet dining room while having dinner and drinks, it reminded me of a reading we did of Charles Dickens when he came to NYC and spoke of it in terrible ways. The remembrance was of the ladies in their bright clothing, the red velvet room felt like that, it was like an evil room of uncertainties. Just like Franklin’s experiences in the city.
My video may be a little different due to the location, but this is where I found Whitman.

Where Nicole found Whitman! In a stall while having dinner.

nicole | MySpace Video

“The novel is of Franklin Evans who is the country mouse who comes to ruin in the wicked city. Led astray by evil companions, he takes one swig of wine in a tavern and sets himself on the downward path. As wine bibbing leads to harder stuff, the hapless Evans becomes a puppet of the demon rum. His forays into low dives and dance halls cost him his job, wreck his marriage, contribute to his saintly wife’s death, and quickly bring him to a life of petty crime.
Evans is a maddening protagonist, utterly lacking in will or initiative; he’s a sort of moral polyp afloat in a bottle. Even so, the course of his downfall isn’t completely predictable. As if to show how low drink can bring a man, Whitman has Evans move to Virginia where he falls in love with Margaret, a “creole” slave whom he marries but comes to hate. In her “swarthiness,” Margaret embodies sheer animal appetite; she personifies Evans’s own thirst for drink. Interestingly, she’s the only character who pulses with a semblance of life. Maddened by jealousy, “the wretched Creole” poisons the genteel Mrs. Conway, a luscious widow whom Evans wants to take as his mistress. These are the ugliest chapters in the novel, made more distasteful by Whitman’s shameless attempts to play on race for sensational effect. But this is, of course, a tale of redemption. Evans takes the temperance pledge. He ends up inheriting a fortune from a benefactor. Whitman’s moral is clear: Sobriety isn’t just virtuous, it can be lucrative too”. http://www.nysun.com/arts/dominion-of-th… on 12-08-09

The stanza I chose has ran with me through-out this class, from the first time I read this stanza and I fell in love with it. I did most of my projects surrounding it as well as this. I did two videos in different rooms reading the same part of the poem. The reason I chose this location to read my poem is that I felt very alive and happy at this location. It reminded me of little scenes which I saw while reading Franklin Evans. The part with me in the bathroom I felt signifies me celebrating who I am and how times have changed. Whitman always spoke of “ I Am, You” which brought the reader closer to him, but after reading some of his work and biography, I felt as though in some ways he was not being true to himself and who he was. Franklin Evans seemed to be a part of him that he never spoke about, a part that never came out (unconscious part). Being in a stall was liberating, I felt a little like Franklin Evans experiencing alcohol. Just in a better way. The second scene was in a velvet dining room while having dinner and drinks, it reminded me of a reading we did of Charles Dickens when he came to NYC and spoke of it in terrible ways. The remembrance was of the ladies in their bright clothing, the red velvet room felt like that, it was like an evil room of uncertainties. Just like Franklin’s experiences in the city.
My video may be a little different due to the location, but this is where I found Whitman.

Where Nicole found Whitman! In a stall while having dinner.

nicole | MySpace Video

All of these thoughts regarding Whitman’s legacy have been circling around in my skull, as I’m using the topic in my final project/paper.  Naturally, for me that is, my ipod plays a major role in my daily life, which, of course, includes my thought processes, reading, and writing.  There are very few times when I’m not working to music in the background.  So when Katatonia’s “Burn the Remembrance” came up on my ipod, I started connecting it to my thoughts on Whitman’s legacy, legacies in general, and how we remember things.  The song, in plot/story, has little to do with Whitman; it’s about a breakup and the aftermath–and how those memories remain, hence the title.  However, the band, like Whitman, tends to get philosophical in their lyrics.  They ask very deep questions about legacies and memories–and how they aren’t always what we want to live on after us, or during our lifetimes.

Here are the lyrics

Here is the song on youtube:  Burn the Remembrance

As a side note, the first 10, or so, times I’ve heard this song, I thought the chorus was “Words will replace us” instead of “What will replace us?”  That misunderstanding actually affected the way I think about writing.  Honestly, the song is great the way it is, but I think it would be even better if they replaced “What” with”Words.”

All of these thoughts regarding Whitman’s legacy have been circling around in my skull, as I’m using the topic in my final project/paper.  Naturally, for me that is, my ipod plays a major role in my daily life, which, of course, includes my thought processes, reading, and writing.  There are very few times when I’m not working to music in the background.  So when Katatonia’s “Burn the Remembrance” came up on my ipod, I started connecting it to my thoughts on Whitman’s legacy, legacies in general, and how we remember things.  The song, in plot/story, has little to do with Whitman; it’s about a breakup and the aftermath–and how those memories remain, hence the title.  However, the band, like Whitman, tends to get philosophical in their lyrics.  They ask very deep questions about legacies and memories–and how they aren’t always what we want to live on after us, or during our lifetimes.

Here are the lyrics

Here is the song on youtube:  Burn the Remembrance

As a side note, the first 10, or so, times I’ve heard this song, I thought the chorus was “Words will replace us” instead of “What will replace us?”  That misunderstanding actually affected the way I think about writing.  Honestly, the song is great the way it is, but I think it would be even better if they replaced “What” with”Words.”

My first disciple is John Burroughs.  Like Kevin explained about Maurice Bucke, Burroughs imagined himself a friend and disciple of Whitman before they had even met.  Burroughs acts as a loyal friend and defender to Whitman two years prior to meeting him:  “In 1862 he had frequently visited Pfaff’s beer cellar, a bohemian watering hole and the center of literary life in Manhattan. There Burroughs championed Whitman in literary arguments, anticipating at every moment a meeting with the poet himself” (Sarracino).  This is a behavior Burroughs would continue to exhibit toward Whitman after they became friends and throughout their friendship.

In 1864 Burroughs and Whitman met, by chance, in Washington D.C.  Whitman was heading toward the army hospital, so he invited the unemployed Burroughs along.  Burroughs got a job nursing the wounded, but he didn’t have the stomach for it and quickly left.  Even though Burroughs’s employment at the hospital didn’t last, his friendship with Whitman would last until the poet’s death—and beyond.

Burroughs held several odd jobs, none of which lasted long to the chagrin of his wife, Ursula, but he always wanted to write.  Under Whitman’s tutelage and encouragement, Burroughs developed his writing skills, sending pieces to magazines while working at his day jobs.  Eventually, with Whitman’s help, he discovered his niche in writing about nature; he had an amazing eye for the details of nature, which in turn inspired Whitman to sharpen his eye for his poetry.  Once again, Whitman’s relationship with his friend/disciple involved giving and receiving advice:  It was a true friendship, not a one-sided relationship.

Burroughs’s behavior also reveals a proto-feminist perspective in Whitman.  When Burroughs and his wife were having marital problems, Whitman sided with Ursula, always.  He chastised Burroughs for his infidelity and insisted Ursula’s lack of sexual interest in Burroughs was a result of his failings to earn her love.  This is a very interesting defense of the wife of a friend.  Naturally, Ursula was a good friend of Whitman, though not a disciple.

There is also a quasi-sexual element between Burroughs and Whitman.  I’m not claiming that they were lovers, though it is a possibility that can never be proven, but I thought it was very interesting that Burroughs referred to the love of his life (not Ursula) as “Whitmanesque.”  She could have been described as beautiful, or intelligent, or any other adjective, but Burroughs chooses to describe her in similar terms as his dead friend.  Clearly, this is an indication of the love and devotion Burroughs felt for Whitman, which persisted after the poet’s death and remained until his own death.

Like Bucke, Burroughs also wrote a biography of Whitman, Notes on Walt Whitman, which was also edited and partially written by Whitman.  It also isn’t very objective.  In his introduction, Burroughs includes inflated language about how Whitman isn’t appreciated in his own time, but will one day be absorbed by America—in the way Whitman sought to be absorbed.

Click here for Notes on Walt Whitman

My next disciple is Horace Traubel who, unlike the previous disciples, was only fourteen when he met Whitman in Camden in 1873.  Because of the vast age difference between Traubel and Whitman, there were whisperings and rumors of a sexual nature among the neighbors.  Again, there is no evidence of anything sexual in their relationship, but there is a quasi-sexual element present between them.

Traubel viewed himself as Whitman’s son, and he played the role of a devoted son—even after Whitman’s death.  He tended to Whitman as he was ailing, carefully writing a journal/book With Whitman in Camden.  In his note to readers in With Whitman in Camden, Traubel explains his motivation for writing the book and how it is designed to honor Whitman’s wishes.

Click here for the first part of With Whitman in Camden

Traubel writes about how he will tell the truth about Whitman in his final months because that is how the poet wanted to be remembered.

Growing up, Traubel was increasingly interested in reform and read Leaves of Grass as having a socialist agenda.  He received confirmation from a reluctant Whitman.  In any event, Traubel’s work was to take what he felt Whitman started in Leaves of Grass and extend it to be even more radical with a major socialist slant.  Traubel wrote his own books, but they can be read as “socialist refigurings of Whitman’s work” (Folson).  His work as a radical reformist made it difficult for him to find and keep a good job.  So, he lived a relatively impoverished life.

A few days before he died in 1919, Traubel saw a vision of Walt Whitman beckoning him to the afterlife.  Again, this is an example of Whitman having the divine meaning of a demigod for his disciples.  Traubel is buried in Harleigh Cemetery close by Whitman’s tomb—like a son would be buried nearby a father.

Works Cited

Folsom, Ed. “Disciples: Biography, Horace Traubel.” The Walt Whitman Archive, 2009. Web. 28 Nov. 2009.

Sarracino, Carmine.   “Disciples: Biography, John Burroughs.” The Walt Whitman Archive, 2009. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.

My first disciple is John Burroughs.  Like Kevin explained about Maurice Bucke, Burroughs imagined himself a friend and disciple of Whitman before they had even met.  Burroughs acts as a loyal friend and defender to Whitman two years prior to meeting him:  “In 1862 he had frequently visited Pfaff’s beer cellar, a bohemian watering hole and the center of literary life in Manhattan. There Burroughs championed Whitman in literary arguments, anticipating at every moment a meeting with the poet himself” (Sarracino).  This is a behavior Burroughs would continue to exhibit toward Whitman after they became friends and throughout their friendship.

In 1864 Burroughs and Whitman met, by chance, in Washington D.C.  Whitman was heading toward the army hospital, so he invited the unemployed Burroughs along.  Burroughs got a job nursing the wounded, but he didn’t have the stomach for it and quickly left.  Even though Burroughs’s employment at the hospital didn’t last, his friendship with Whitman would last until the poet’s death—and beyond.

Burroughs held several odd jobs, none of which lasted long to the chagrin of his wife, Ursula, but he always wanted to write.  Under Whitman’s tutelage and encouragement, Burroughs developed his writing skills, sending pieces to magazines while working at his day jobs.  Eventually, with Whitman’s help, he discovered his niche in writing about nature; he had an amazing eye for the details of nature, which in turn inspired Whitman to sharpen his eye for his poetry.  Once again, Whitman’s relationship with his friend/disciple involved giving and receiving advice:  It was a true friendship, not a one-sided relationship.

Burroughs’s behavior also reveals a proto-feminist perspective in Whitman.  When Burroughs and his wife were having marital problems, Whitman sided with Ursula, always.  He chastised Burroughs for his infidelity and insisted Ursula’s lack of sexual interest in Burroughs was a result of his failings to earn her love.  This is a very interesting defense of the wife of a friend.  Naturally, Ursula was a good friend of Whitman, though not a disciple.

There is also a quasi-sexual element between Burroughs and Whitman.  I’m not claiming that they were lovers, though it is a possibility that can never be proven, but I thought it was very interesting that Burroughs referred to the love of his life (not Ursula) as “Whitmanesque.”  She could have been described as beautiful, or intelligent, or any other adjective, but Burroughs chooses to describe her in similar terms as his dead friend.  Clearly, this is an indication of the love and devotion Burroughs felt for Whitman, which persisted after the poet’s death and remained until his own death.

Like Bucke, Burroughs also wrote a biography of Whitman, Notes on Walt Whitman, which was also edited and partially written by Whitman.  It also isn’t very objective.  In his introduction, Burroughs includes inflated language about how Whitman isn’t appreciated in his own time, but will one day be absorbed by America—in the way Whitman sought to be absorbed.

Click here for Notes on Walt Whitman

My next disciple is Horace Traubel who, unlike the previous disciples, was only fourteen when he met Whitman in Camden in 1873.  Because of the vast age difference between Traubel and Whitman, there were whisperings and rumors of a sexual nature among the neighbors.  Again, there is no evidence of anything sexual in their relationship, but there is a quasi-sexual element present between them.

Traubel viewed himself as Whitman’s son, and he played the role of a devoted son—even after Whitman’s death.  He tended to Whitman as he was ailing, carefully writing a journal/book With Whitman in Camden.  In his note to readers in With Whitman in Camden, Traubel explains his motivation for writing the book and how it is designed to honor Whitman’s wishes.

Click here for the first part of With Whitman in Camden

Traubel writes about how he will tell the truth about Whitman in his final months because that is how the poet wanted to be remembered.

Growing up, Traubel was increasingly interested in reform and read Leaves of Grass as having a socialist agenda.  He received confirmation from a reluctant Whitman.  In any event, Traubel’s work was to take what he felt Whitman started in Leaves of Grass and extend it to be even more radical with a major socialist slant.  Traubel wrote his own books, but they can be read as “socialist refigurings of Whitman’s work” (Folson).  His work as a radical reformist made it difficult for him to find and keep a good job.  So, he lived a relatively impoverished life.

A few days before he died in 1919, Traubel saw a vision of Walt Whitman beckoning him to the afterlife.  Again, this is an example of Whitman having the divine meaning of a demigod for his disciples.  Traubel is buried in Harleigh Cemetery close by Whitman’s tomb—like a son would be buried nearby a father.

Works Cited

Folsom, Ed. “Disciples: Biography, Horace Traubel.” The Walt Whitman Archive, 2009. Web. 28 Nov. 2009.

Sarracino, Carmine.   “Disciples: Biography, John Burroughs.” The Walt Whitman Archive, 2009. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.

My first disciple is John Burroughs.  Like Kevin explained about Maurice Bucke, Burroughs imagined himself a friend and disciple of Whitman before they had even met.  Burroughs acts as a loyal friend and defender to Whitman two years prior to meeting him:  “In 1862 he had frequently visited Pfaff’s beer cellar, a bohemian watering hole and the center of literary life in Manhattan. There Burroughs championed Whitman in literary arguments, anticipating at every moment a meeting with the poet himself” (Sarracino).  This is a behavior Burroughs would continue to exhibit toward Whitman after they became friends and throughout their friendship.

In 1864 Burroughs and Whitman met, by chance, in Washington D.C.  Whitman was heading toward the army hospital, so he invited the unemployed Burroughs along.  Burroughs got a job nursing the wounded, but he didn’t have the stomach for it and quickly left.  Even though Burroughs’s employment at the hospital didn’t last, his friendship with Whitman would last until the poet’s death—and beyond.

Burroughs held several odd jobs, none of which lasted long to the chagrin of his wife, Ursula, but he always wanted to write.  Under Whitman’s tutelage and encouragement, Burroughs developed his writing skills, sending pieces to magazines while working at his day jobs.  Eventually, with Whitman’s help, he discovered his niche in writing about nature; he had an amazing eye for the details of nature, which in turn inspired Whitman to sharpen his eye for his poetry.  Once again, Whitman’s relationship with his friend/disciple involved giving and receiving advice:  It was a true friendship, not a one-sided relationship.

Burroughs’s behavior also reveals a proto-feminist perspective in Whitman.  When Burroughs and his wife were having marital problems, Whitman sided with Ursula, always.  He chastised Burroughs for his infidelity and insisted Ursula’s lack of sexual interest in Burroughs was a result of his failings to earn her love.  This is a very interesting defense of the wife of a friend.  Naturally, Ursula was a good friend of Whitman, though not a disciple.

There is also a quasi-sexual element between Burroughs and Whitman.  I’m not claiming that they were lovers, though it is a possibility that can never be proven, but I thought it was very interesting that Burroughs referred to the love of his life (not Ursula) as “Whitmanesque.”  She could have been described as beautiful, or intelligent, or any other adjective, but Burroughs chooses to describe her in similar terms as his dead friend.  Clearly, this is an indication of the love and devotion Burroughs felt for Whitman, which persisted after the poet’s death and remained until his own death.

Like Bucke, Burroughs also wrote a biography of Whitman, Notes on Walt Whitman, which was also edited and partially written by Whitman.  It also isn’t very objective.  In his introduction, Burroughs includes inflated language about how Whitman isn’t appreciated in his own time, but will one day be absorbed by America—in the way Whitman sought to be absorbed.

Click here for Notes on Walt Whitman

My next disciple is Horace Traubel who, unlike the previous disciples, was only fourteen when he met Whitman in Camden in 1873.  Because of the vast age difference between Traubel and Whitman, there were whisperings and rumors of a sexual nature among the neighbors.  Again, there is no evidence of anything sexual in their relationship, but there is a quasi-sexual element present between them.

Traubel viewed himself as Whitman’s son, and he played the role of a devoted son—even after Whitman’s death.  He tended to Whitman as he was ailing, carefully writing a journal/book With Whitman in Camden.  In his note to readers in With Whitman in Camden, Traubel explains his motivation for writing the book and how it is designed to honor Whitman’s wishes.

Click here for the first part of With Whitman in Camden

Traubel writes about how he will tell the truth about Whitman in his final months because that is how the poet wanted to be remembered.

Growing up, Traubel was increasingly interested in reform and read Leaves of Grass as having a socialist agenda.  He received confirmation from a reluctant Whitman.  In any event, Traubel’s work was to take what he felt Whitman started in Leaves of Grass and extend it to be even more radical with a major socialist slant.  Traubel wrote his own books, but they can be read as “socialist refigurings of Whitman’s work” (Folson).  His work as a radical reformist made it difficult for him to find and keep a good job.  So, he lived a relatively impoverished life.

A few days before he died in 1919, Traubel saw a vision of Walt Whitman beckoning him to the afterlife.  Again, this is an example of Whitman having the divine meaning of a demigod for his disciples.  Traubel is buried in Harleigh Cemetery close by Whitman’s tomb—like a son would be buried nearby a father.

Works Cited

Folsom, Ed. “Disciples: Biography, Horace Traubel.” The Walt Whitman Archive, 2009. Web. 28 Nov. 2009.

Sarracino, Carmine.   “Disciples: Biography, John Burroughs.” The Walt Whitman Archive, 2009. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.

My first disciple is John Burroughs.  Like Kevin explained about Maurice Bucke, Burroughs imagined himself a friend and disciple of Whitman before they had even met.  Burroughs acts as a loyal friend and defender to Whitman two years prior to meeting him:  “In 1862 he had frequently visited Pfaff’s beer cellar, a bohemian watering hole and the center of literary life in Manhattan. There Burroughs championed Whitman in literary arguments, anticipating at every moment a meeting with the poet himself” (Sarracino).  This is a behavior Burroughs would continue to exhibit toward Whitman after they became friends and throughout their friendship.

In 1864 Burroughs and Whitman met, by chance, in Washington D.C.  Whitman was heading toward the army hospital, so he invited the unemployed Burroughs along.  Burroughs got a job nursing the wounded, but he didn’t have the stomach for it and quickly left.  Even though Burroughs’s employment at the hospital didn’t last, his friendship with Whitman would last until the poet’s death—and beyond.

Burroughs held several odd jobs, none of which lasted long to the chagrin of his wife, Ursula, but he always wanted to write.  Under Whitman’s tutelage and encouragement, Burroughs developed his writing skills, sending pieces to magazines while working at his day jobs.  Eventually, with Whitman’s help, he discovered his niche in writing about nature; he had an amazing eye for the details of nature, which in turn inspired Whitman to sharpen his eye for his poetry.  Once again, Whitman’s relationship with his friend/disciple involved giving and receiving advice:  It was a true friendship, not a one-sided relationship.

Burroughs’s behavior also reveals a proto-feminist perspective in Whitman.  When Burroughs and his wife were having marital problems, Whitman sided with Ursula, always.  He chastised Burroughs for his infidelity and insisted Ursula’s lack of sexual interest in Burroughs was a result of his failings to earn her love.  This is a very interesting defense of the wife of a friend.  Naturally, Ursula was a good friend of Whitman, though not a disciple.

There is also a quasi-sexual element between Burroughs and Whitman.  I’m not claiming that they were lovers, though it is a possibility that can never be proven, but I thought it was very interesting that Burroughs referred to the love of his life (not Ursula) as “Whitmanesque.”  She could have been described as beautiful, or intelligent, or any other adjective, but Burroughs chooses to describe her in similar terms as his dead friend.  Clearly, this is an indication of the love and devotion Burroughs felt for Whitman, which persisted after the poet’s death and remained until his own death.

Like Bucke, Burroughs also wrote a biography of Whitman, Notes on Walt Whitman, which was also edited and partially written by Whitman.  It also isn’t very objective.  In his introduction, Burroughs includes inflated language about how Whitman isn’t appreciated in his own time, but will one day be absorbed by America—in the way Whitman sought to be absorbed.

Click here for Notes on Walt Whitman

My next disciple is Horace Traubel who, unlike the previous disciples, was only fourteen when he met Whitman in Camden in 1873.  Because of the vast age difference between Traubel and Whitman, there were whisperings and rumors of a sexual nature among the neighbors.  Again, there is no evidence of anything sexual in their relationship, but there is a quasi-sexual element present between them.

Traubel viewed himself as Whitman’s son, and he played the role of a devoted son—even after Whitman’s death.  He tended to Whitman as he was ailing, carefully writing a journal/book With Whitman in Camden.  In his note to readers in With Whitman in Camden, Traubel explains his motivation for writing the book and how it is designed to honor Whitman’s wishes.

Click here for the first part of With Whitman in Camden

Traubel writes about how he will tell the truth about Whitman in his final months because that is how the poet wanted to be remembered.

Growing up, Traubel was increasingly interested in reform and read Leaves of Grass as having a socialist agenda.  He received confirmation from a reluctant Whitman.  In any event, Traubel’s work was to take what he felt Whitman started in Leaves of Grass and extend it to be even more radical with a major socialist slant.  Traubel wrote his own books, but they can be read as “socialist refigurings of Whitman’s work” (Folson).  His work as a radical reformist made it difficult for him to find and keep a good job.  So, he lived a relatively impoverished life.

A few days before he died in 1919, Traubel saw a vision of Walt Whitman beckoning him to the afterlife.  Again, this is an example of Whitman having the divine meaning of a demigod for his disciples.  Traubel is buried in Harleigh Cemetery close by Whitman’s tomb—like a son would be buried nearby a father.

Works Cited

Folsom, Ed. “Disciples: Biography, Horace Traubel.” The Walt Whitman Archive, 2009. Web. 28 Nov. 2009.

Sarracino, Carmine.   “Disciples: Biography, John Burroughs.” The Walt Whitman Archive, 2009. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.

My first disciple is John Burroughs.  Like Kevin explained about Maurice Bucke, Burroughs imagined himself a friend and disciple of Whitman before they had even met.  Burroughs acts as a loyal friend and defender to Whitman two years prior to meeting him:  “In 1862 he had frequently visited Pfaff’s beer cellar, a bohemian watering hole and the center of literary life in Manhattan. There Burroughs championed Whitman in literary arguments, anticipating at every moment a meeting with the poet himself” (Sarracino).  This is a behavior Burroughs would continue to exhibit toward Whitman after they became friends and throughout their friendship.

In 1864 Burroughs and Whitman met, by chance, in Washington D.C.  Whitman was heading toward the army hospital, so he invited the unemployed Burroughs along.  Burroughs got a job nursing the wounded, but he didn’t have the stomach for it and quickly left.  Even though Burroughs’s employment at the hospital didn’t last, his friendship with Whitman would last until the poet’s death—and beyond.

Burroughs held several odd jobs, none of which lasted long to the chagrin of his wife, Ursula, but he always wanted to write.  Under Whitman’s tutelage and encouragement, Burroughs developed his writing skills, sending pieces to magazines while working at his day jobs.  Eventually, with Whitman’s help, he discovered his niche in writing about nature; he had an amazing eye for the details of nature, which in turn inspired Whitman to sharpen his eye for his poetry.  Once again, Whitman’s relationship with his friend/disciple involved giving and receiving advice:  It was a true friendship, not a one-sided relationship.

Burroughs’s behavior also reveals a proto-feminist perspective in Whitman.  When Burroughs and his wife were having marital problems, Whitman sided with Ursula, always.  He chastised Burroughs for his infidelity and insisted Ursula’s lack of sexual interest in Burroughs was a result of his failings to earn her love.  This is a very interesting defense of the wife of a friend.  Naturally, Ursula was a good friend of Whitman, though not a disciple.

There is also a quasi-sexual element between Burroughs and Whitman.  I’m not claiming that they were lovers, though it is a possibility that can never be proven, but I thought it was very interesting that Burroughs referred to the love of his life (not Ursula) as “Whitmanesque.”  She could have been described as beautiful, or intelligent, or any other adjective, but Burroughs chooses to describe her in similar terms as his dead friend.  Clearly, this is an indication of the love and devotion Burroughs felt for Whitman, which persisted after the poet’s death and remained until his own death.

Like Bucke, Burroughs also wrote a biography of Whitman, Notes on Walt Whitman, which was also edited and partially written by Whitman.  It also isn’t very objective.  In his introduction, Burroughs includes inflated language about how Whitman isn’t appreciated in his own time, but will one day be absorbed by America—in the way Whitman sought to be absorbed.

Click here for Notes on Walt Whitman

My next disciple is Horace Traubel who, unlike the previous disciples, was only fourteen when he met Whitman in Camden in 1873.  Because of the vast age difference between Traubel and Whitman, there were whisperings and rumors of a sexual nature among the neighbors.  Again, there is no evidence of anything sexual in their relationship, but there is a quasi-sexual element present between them.

Traubel viewed himself as Whitman’s son, and he played the role of a devoted son—even after Whitman’s death.  He tended to Whitman as he was ailing, carefully writing a journal/book With Whitman in Camden.  In his note to readers in With Whitman in Camden, Traubel explains his motivation for writing the book and how it is designed to honor Whitman’s wishes.

Click here for the first part of With Whitman in Camden

Traubel writes about how he will tell the truth about Whitman in his final months because that is how the poet wanted to be remembered.

Growing up, Traubel was increasingly interested in reform and read Leaves of Grass as having a socialist agenda.  He received confirmation from a reluctant Whitman.  In any event, Traubel’s work was to take what he felt Whitman started in Leaves of Grass and extend it to be even more radical with a major socialist slant.  Traubel wrote his own books, but they can be read as “socialist refigurings of Whitman’s work” (Folson).  His work as a radical reformist made it difficult for him to find and keep a good job.  So, he lived a relatively impoverished life.

A few days before he died in 1919, Traubel saw a vision of Walt Whitman beckoning him to the afterlife.  Again, this is an example of Whitman having the divine meaning of a demigod for his disciples.  Traubel is buried in Harleigh Cemetery close by Whitman’s tomb—like a son would be buried nearby a father.

Works Cited

Folsom, Ed. “Disciples: Biography, Horace Traubel.” The Walt Whitman Archive, 2009. Web. 28 Nov. 2009.

Sarracino, Carmine.   “Disciples: Biography, John Burroughs.” The Walt Whitman Archive, 2009. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.

My first disciple is John Burroughs.  Like Kevin explained about Maurice Bucke, Burroughs imagined himself a friend and disciple of Whitman before they had even met.  Burroughs acts as a loyal friend and defender to Whitman two years prior to meeting him:  “In 1862 he had frequently visited Pfaff’s beer cellar, a bohemian watering hole and the center of literary life in Manhattan. There Burroughs championed Whitman in literary arguments, anticipating at every moment a meeting with the poet himself” (Sarracino).  This is a behavior Burroughs would continue to exhibit toward Whitman after they became friends and throughout their friendship.

In 1864 Burroughs and Whitman met, by chance, in Washington D.C.  Whitman was heading toward the army hospital, so he invited the unemployed Burroughs along.  Burroughs got a job nursing the wounded, but he didn’t have the stomach for it and quickly left.  Even though Burroughs’s employment at the hospital didn’t last, his friendship with Whitman would last until the poet’s death—and beyond.

Burroughs held several odd jobs, none of which lasted long to the chagrin of his wife, Ursula, but he always wanted to write.  Under Whitman’s tutelage and encouragement, Burroughs developed his writing skills, sending pieces to magazines while working at his day jobs.  Eventually, with Whitman’s help, he discovered his niche in writing about nature; he had an amazing eye for the details of nature, which in turn inspired Whitman to sharpen his eye for his poetry.  Once again, Whitman’s relationship with his friend/disciple involved giving and receiving advice:  It was a true friendship, not a one-sided relationship.

Burroughs’s behavior also reveals a proto-feminist perspective in Whitman.  When Burroughs and his wife were having marital problems, Whitman sided with Ursula, always.  He chastised Burroughs for his infidelity and insisted Ursula’s lack of sexual interest in Burroughs was a result of his failings to earn her love.  This is a very interesting defense of the wife of a friend.  Naturally, Ursula was a good friend of Whitman, though not a disciple.

There is also a quasi-sexual element between Burroughs and Whitman.  I’m not claiming that they were lovers, though it is a possibility that can never be proven, but I thought it was very interesting that Burroughs referred to the love of his life (not Ursula) as “Whitmanesque.”  She could have been described as beautiful, or intelligent, or any other adjective, but Burroughs chooses to describe her in similar terms as his dead friend.  Clearly, this is an indication of the love and devotion Burroughs felt for Whitman, which persisted after the poet’s death and remained until his own death.

Like Bucke, Burroughs also wrote a biography of Whitman, Notes on Walt Whitman, which was also edited and partially written by Whitman.  It also isn’t very objective.  In his introduction, Burroughs includes inflated language about how Whitman isn’t appreciated in his own time, but will one day be absorbed by America—in the way Whitman sought to be absorbed.

Click here for Notes on Walt Whitman

My next disciple is Horace Traubel who, unlike the previous disciples, was only fourteen when he met Whitman in Camden in 1873.  Because of the vast age difference between Traubel and Whitman, there were whisperings and rumors of a sexual nature among the neighbors.  Again, there is no evidence of anything sexual in their relationship, but there is a quasi-sexual element present between them.

Traubel viewed himself as Whitman’s son, and he played the role of a devoted son—even after Whitman’s death.  He tended to Whitman as he was ailing, carefully writing a journal/book With Whitman in Camden.  In his note to readers in With Whitman in Camden, Traubel explains his motivation for writing the book and how it is designed to honor Whitman’s wishes.

Click here for the first part of With Whitman in Camden

Traubel writes about how he will tell the truth about Whitman in his final months because that is how the poet wanted to be remembered.

Growing up, Traubel was increasingly interested in reform and read Leaves of Grass as having a socialist agenda.  He received confirmation from a reluctant Whitman.  In any event, Traubel’s work was to take what he felt Whitman started in Leaves of Grass and extend it to be even more radical with a major socialist slant.  Traubel wrote his own books, but they can be read as “socialist refigurings of Whitman’s work” (Folson).  His work as a radical reformist made it difficult for him to find and keep a good job.  So, he lived a relatively impoverished life.

A few days before he died in 1919, Traubel saw a vision of Walt Whitman beckoning him to the afterlife.  Again, this is an example of Whitman having the divine meaning of a demigod for his disciples.  Traubel is buried in Harleigh Cemetery close by Whitman’s tomb—like a son would be buried nearby a father.

Works Cited

Folsom, Ed. “Disciples: Biography, Horace Traubel.” The Walt Whitman Archive, 2009. Web. 28 Nov. 2009.

Sarracino, Carmine.   “Disciples: Biography, John Burroughs.” The Walt Whitman Archive, 2009. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.

“The drum-corps’ rattle is ever to me sweet music”

Whitman’s Drum Taps & Civil War Music

final presentation notes

“The drum-corps’ rattle is ever to me sweet music”

Whitman’s Drum Taps & Civil War Music

final presentation notes

“The drum-corps’ rattle is ever to me sweet music”

Whitman’s Drum Taps & Civil War Music

final presentation notes

“The drum-corps’ rattle is ever to me sweet music”

Whitman’s Drum Taps & Civil War Music

final presentation notes

Walt Whitman described William Douglas O’Connor as his “dear, dear friend, and stanch (probably stanchest) literary believer and champion. . .” (Loving, 1)

O’Connor was born in Boston in 1833. He was a firebrand abolitionist and passionate supporter of  liberal causes.  At the age of 20, he became the associate editor of The Commonwealth, a daily paper of the anti-slavery Free-Soil movement. He was an editor of the original Saturday Evening Post in Philadelphia from 1854-1860.

He had literary ambitions of his own, writing two unremarkable novels “Harrington” and “The Ghost” in the 1860s.  Seeking financial security, he moved to Washington and took on several  federal government jobs in the 1860s and 1870s, including a stint as the librarian of the Treasury Department.

Whitman and O’Connor became friends in 1860 when the two were working together at the firm of Thayer and Eldridge in Boston. They met again in Washington during the Civil War, when Whitman rushed down from Brooklyn to look for his brother (who was wounded at the Battle of Fredericksburg). Whitman decided to stay in Washington to help the wounded and lived with O’Connor and his family for his first five months in the capital.

O’Connor used his connections to get Whitman a clerkship at the Bureau of Indian Affairs, an undemanding position that gave him plenty of time to write. Whitman was soon fired when the puritanical Secretary of the Interior James Harlan read a copy of Leaves of Grass he found on Whitman’s desk (Reynolds, 455).

Outraged by his friend’s treatment, Douglas wrote The Good Gray Poet in 1866.  The self-published 46-page pamphlet passionately defended Whitman’s controversial poetry, argued for literary freedom, and lambasted Harlan for his dismissal of Whitman (Loving, 1).  His admiration for the poet is difficult to overstate.

Who, knowing him, does not regard him as a man of the highest spiritual culture? I have never know one of greater and deeper religious feeling. To call one like him good, seems an impertinence. In our sweet country phrase, he is one of the God’s men. And as I write these hurried and broken memoranda—as his strength and sweetness of nature, his moral health, his richness, his courage, his deep and varied knowledge of life and men, his calm wisdom, his singular and beautiful boy-innocence, his personal majesty, his rough scorn of mean actions, his magnetic and exterminating anger on due occasions—all that I have seen and heard of him, the testimony of associates, the anecdotes of friends, the remembrance of hours with him that should be immortal, the traits, lineaments, incidents of his life and being—as they come crowding into memory—his seems to me a character which only the heroic pen of Plutarch could record, and which Socrates himself might emulate of envy (Loving, 167).

Two years later, O’Connor would take his admiration a step further when published “The Carpenter,” a short story in which he compared Whitman to Christ (Reynolds, 463). O’Connor’s wife, Nelly shared in her husband’s devotion to the poet–she even wrote Whitman a letter professing her love for him in 1870.

In 1872, Whitman and O’Connor had a falling out that lasted ten years. Some scholars speculate the two men were having a homosexual quarrel, though there is no evidence to prove they were lovers. Reynolds proposes that the reason for the separation was an intense fight over black voting rights. O’Connor believed passionately in civil rights for freed slaves, Whitman was opposed (Reynolds, 493).

During his quarrel with Whitman, O’Connor also separated from his wife. He continued to defend Whitman’s works. O’Connor reconciled with both his wife and Whitman before his death in 1888, three weeks before Whitman’s seventieth birthday (Reynolds, 543).

Works Cited

Loving, Jerome. Walt Whitman’s Champion. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1978. Print.

Reynolds, David S. Walt Whitman’s America: A Cultural Biography. New York: Vintage

Books, 1996. Print.

Walt Whitman described William Douglas O’Connor as his “dear, dear friend, and stanch (probably stanchest) literary believer and champion. . .” (Loving, 1)

O’Connor was born in Boston in 1833. He was a firebrand abolitionist and passionate supporter of  liberal causes.  At the age of 20, he became the associate editor of The Commonwealth, a daily paper of the anti-slavery Free-Soil movement. He was an editor of the original Saturday Evening Post in Philadelphia from 1854-1860.

He had literary ambitions of his own, writing two unremarkable novels “Harrington” and “The Ghost” in the 1860s.  Seeking financial security, he moved to Washington and took on several  federal government jobs in the 1860s and 1870s, including a stint as the librarian of the Treasury Department.

Whitman and O’Connor became friends in 1860 when the two were working together at the firm of Thayer and Eldridge in Boston. They met again in Washington during the Civil War, when Whitman rushed down from Brooklyn to look for his brother (who was wounded at the Battle of Fredericksburg). Whitman decided to stay in Washington to help the wounded and lived with O’Connor and his family for his first five months in the capital.

O’Connor used his connections to get Whitman a clerkship at the Bureau of Indian Affairs, an undemanding position that gave him plenty of time to write. Whitman was soon fired when the puritanical Secretary of the Interior James Harlan read a copy of Leaves of Grass he found on Whitman’s desk (Reynolds, 455).

Outraged by his friend’s treatment, Douglas wrote The Good Gray Poet in 1866.  The self-published 46-page pamphlet passionately defended Whitman’s controversial poetry, argued for literary freedom, and lambasted Harlan for his dismissal of Whitman (Loving, 1).  His admiration for the poet is difficult to overstate.

Who, knowing him, does not regard him as a man of the highest spiritual culture? I have never know one of greater and deeper religious feeling. To call one like him good, seems an impertinence. In our sweet country phrase, he is one of the God’s men. And as I write these hurried and broken memoranda—as his strength and sweetness of nature, his moral health, his richness, his courage, his deep and varied knowledge of life and men, his calm wisdom, his singular and beautiful boy-innocence, his personal majesty, his rough scorn of mean actions, his magnetic and exterminating anger on due occasions—all that I have seen and heard of him, the testimony of associates, the anecdotes of friends, the remembrance of hours with him that should be immortal, the traits, lineaments, incidents of his life and being—as they come crowding into memory—his seems to me a character which only the heroic pen of Plutarch could record, and which Socrates himself might emulate of envy (Loving, 167).

Two years later, O’Connor would take his admiration a step further when published “The Carpenter,” a short story in which he compared Whitman to Christ (Reynolds, 463). O’Connor’s wife, Nelly shared in her husband’s devotion to the poet–she even wrote Whitman a letter professing her love for him in 1870.

In 1872, Whitman and O’Connor had a falling out that lasted ten years. Some scholars speculate the two men were having a homosexual quarrel, though there is no evidence to prove they were lovers. Reynolds proposes that the reason for the separation was an intense fight over black voting rights. O’Connor believed passionately in civil rights for freed slaves, Whitman was opposed (Reynolds, 493).

During his quarrel with Whitman, O’Connor also separated from his wife. He continued to defend Whitman’s works. O’Connor reconciled with both his wife and Whitman before his death in 1888, three weeks before Whitman’s seventieth birthday (Reynolds, 543).

Works Cited

Loving, Jerome. Walt Whitman’s Champion. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1978. Print.

Reynolds, David S. Walt Whitman’s America: A Cultural Biography. New York: Vintage

Books, 1996. Print.

Walt Whitman described William Douglas O’Connor as his “dear, dear friend, and stanch (probably stanchest) literary believer and champion. . .” (Loving, 1)

O’Connor was born in Boston in 1833. He was a firebrand abolitionist and passionate supporter of  liberal causes.  At the age of 20, he became the associate editor of The Commonwealth, a daily paper of the anti-slavery Free-Soil movement. He was an editor of the original Saturday Evening Post in Philadelphia from 1854-1860.

He had literary ambitions of his own, writing two unremarkable novels “Harrington” and “The Ghost” in the 1860s.  Seeking financial security, he moved to Washington and took on several  federal government jobs in the 1860s and 1870s, including a stint as the librarian of the Treasury Department.

Whitman and O’Connor became friends in 1860 when the two were working together at the firm of Thayer and Eldridge in Boston. They met again in Washington during the Civil War, when Whitman rushed down from Brooklyn to look for his brother (who was wounded at the Battle of Fredericksburg). Whitman decided to stay in Washington to help the wounded and lived with O’Connor and his family for his first five months in the capital.

O’Connor used his connections to get Whitman a clerkship at the Bureau of Indian Affairs, an undemanding position that gave him plenty of time to write. Whitman was soon fired when the puritanical Secretary of the Interior James Harlan read a copy of Leaves of Grass he found on Whitman’s desk (Reynolds, 455).

Outraged by his friend’s treatment, Douglas wrote The Good Gray Poet in 1866.  The self-published 46-page pamphlet passionately defended Whitman’s controversial poetry, argued for literary freedom, and lambasted Harlan for his dismissal of Whitman (Loving, 1).  His admiration for the poet is difficult to overstate.

Who, knowing him, does not regard him as a man of the highest spiritual culture? I have never know one of greater and deeper religious feeling. To call one like him good, seems an impertinence. In our sweet country phrase, he is one of the God’s men. And as I write these hurried and broken memoranda—as his strength and sweetness of nature, his moral health, his richness, his courage, his deep and varied knowledge of life and men, his calm wisdom, his singular and beautiful boy-innocence, his personal majesty, his rough scorn of mean actions, his magnetic and exterminating anger on due occasions—all that I have seen and heard of him, the testimony of associates, the anecdotes of friends, the remembrance of hours with him that should be immortal, the traits, lineaments, incidents of his life and being—as they come crowding into memory—his seems to me a character which only the heroic pen of Plutarch could record, and which Socrates himself might emulate of envy (Loving, 167).

Two years later, O’Connor would take his admiration a step further when published “The Carpenter,” a short story in which he compared Whitman to Christ (Reynolds, 463). O’Connor’s wife, Nelly shared in her husband’s devotion to the poet–she even wrote Whitman a letter professing her love for him in 1870.

In 1872, Whitman and O’Connor had a falling out that lasted ten years. Some scholars speculate the two men were having a homosexual quarrel, though there is no evidence to prove they were lovers. Reynolds proposes that the reason for the separation was an intense fight over black voting rights. O’Connor believed passionately in civil rights for freed slaves, Whitman was opposed (Reynolds, 493).

During his quarrel with Whitman, O’Connor also separated from his wife. He continued to defend Whitman’s works. O’Connor reconciled with both his wife and Whitman before his death in 1888, three weeks before Whitman’s seventieth birthday (Reynolds, 543).

Works Cited

Loving, Jerome. Walt Whitman’s Champion. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1978. Print.

Reynolds, David S. Walt Whitman’s America: A Cultural Biography. New York: Vintage

Books, 1996. Print.

Walt Whitman described William Douglas O’Connor as his “dear, dear friend, and stanch (probably stanchest) literary believer and champion. . .” (Loving, 1)

O’Connor was born in Boston in 1833. He was a firebrand abolitionist and passionate supporter of  liberal causes.  At the age of 20, he became the associate editor of The Commonwealth, a daily paper of the anti-slavery Free-Soil movement. He was an editor of the original Saturday Evening Post in Philadelphia from 1854-1860.

He had literary ambitions of his own, writing two unremarkable novels “Harrington” and “The Ghost” in the 1860s.  Seeking financial security, he moved to Washington and took on several  federal government jobs in the 1860s and 1870s, including a stint as the librarian of the Treasury Department.

Whitman and O’Connor became friends in 1860 when the two were working together at the firm of Thayer and Eldridge in Boston. They met again in Washington during the Civil War, when Whitman rushed down from Brooklyn to look for his brother (who was wounded at the Battle of Fredericksburg). Whitman decided to stay in Washington to help the wounded and lived with O’Connor and his family for his first five months in the capital.

O’Connor used his connections to get Whitman a clerkship at the Bureau of Indian Affairs, an undemanding position that gave him plenty of time to write. Whitman was soon fired when the puritanical Secretary of the Interior James Harlan read a copy of Leaves of Grass he found on Whitman’s desk (Reynolds, 455).

Outraged by his friend’s treatment, Douglas wrote The Good Gray Poet in 1866.  The self-published 46-page pamphlet passionately defended Whitman’s controversial poetry, argued for literary freedom, and lambasted Harlan for his dismissal of Whitman (Loving, 1).  His admiration for the poet is difficult to overstate.

Who, knowing him, does not regard him as a man of the highest spiritual culture? I have never know one of greater and deeper religious feeling. To call one like him good, seems an impertinence. In our sweet country phrase, he is one of the God’s men. And as I write these hurried and broken memoranda—as his strength and sweetness of nature, his moral health, his richness, his courage, his deep and varied knowledge of life and men, his calm wisdom, his singular and beautiful boy-innocence, his personal majesty, his rough scorn of mean actions, his magnetic and exterminating anger on due occasions—all that I have seen and heard of him, the testimony of associates, the anecdotes of friends, the remembrance of hours with him that should be immortal, the traits, lineaments, incidents of his life and being—as they come crowding into memory—his seems to me a character which only the heroic pen of Plutarch could record, and which Socrates himself might emulate of envy (Loving, 167).

Two years later, O’Connor would take his admiration a step further when published “The Carpenter,” a short story in which he compared Whitman to Christ (Reynolds, 463). O’Connor’s wife, Nelly shared in her husband’s devotion to the poet–she even wrote Whitman a letter professing her love for him in 1870.

In 1872, Whitman and O’Connor had a falling out that lasted ten years. Some scholars speculate the two men were having a homosexual quarrel, though there is no evidence to prove they were lovers. Reynolds proposes that the reason for the separation was an intense fight over black voting rights. O’Connor believed passionately in civil rights for freed slaves, Whitman was opposed (Reynolds, 493).

During his quarrel with Whitman, O’Connor also separated from his wife. He continued to defend Whitman’s works. O’Connor reconciled with both his wife and Whitman before his death in 1888, three weeks before Whitman’s seventieth birthday (Reynolds, 543).

Works Cited

Loving, Jerome. Walt Whitman’s Champion. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1978. Print.

Reynolds, David S. Walt Whitman’s America: A Cultural Biography. New York: Vintage

Books, 1996. Print.

This was such a great day for learning being inspired. The music and the lyrics added more adventure to my day in Brooklyn.

Untitled

nicole | MySpace Video
Untitled

nicole | MySpace Video

The song “Freedom” by Nicole J. Mitchell

This was such a great day for learning being inspired. The music and the lyrics added more adventure to my day in Brooklyn.

Untitled

nicole | MySpace Video
Untitled

nicole | MySpace Video

The song “Freedom” by Nicole J. Mitchell

This was such a great day for learning being inspired. The music and the lyrics added more adventure to my day in Brooklyn.

Untitled

nicole | MySpace Video
Untitled

nicole | MySpace Video

The song “Freedom” by Nicole J. Mitchell

This was such a great day for learning being inspired. The music and the lyrics added more adventure to my day in Brooklyn.

Untitled

nicole | MySpace Video
Untitled

nicole | MySpace Video

The song “Freedom” by Nicole J. Mitchell

This was such a great day for learning being inspired. The music and the lyrics added more adventure to my day in Brooklyn.

Untitled

nicole | MySpace Video
Untitled

nicole | MySpace Video

The song “Freedom” by Nicole J. Mitchell

Whitman napping

Where was I?

at Starbucks, in Macy’s in Center City, Philadelphia

Whitman napping

Where was I?

at Starbucks, in Macy’s in Center City, Philadelphia

Whitman napping

Where was I?

at Starbucks, in Macy’s in Center City, Philadelphia

Whitman napping

Where was I?

at Starbucks, in Macy’s in Center City, Philadelphia

            The story Walt Whitman presents his audience with this dramatic tale of a country boy that ultimately is heading on a road of destruction. Franklin, the country boy travels to the city and gets caught up in drinking alcohol. As time proceeds everything begins to crumble. Franklin eventually loses his wife, his job and his freedom, as a consequence of getting involved with a gang of thieves. Franklin after his release from prison turned to alcohol which leads him into a regrettable marriage to a Creole slave. Franklin’s wife Margaret ends up killing herself because her husband has an affair with a widow from the North, whom Margaret poisons out of a jealous rage. 

            Whitman tells people when asked about the novel, that he wrote the novel while he was intoxicated, drinking cocktails. That may be true because he is an exceptional writer. He told people not to take this novel seriously. Whitman preached and practiced the ability of temperance throughout his life. Walt Whitman was known to participate in a number of temperance movements such as the meetings and parades of the Washingtonians, who made up the older American Temperance Society. Although he denounced this novel, this was not the only Temperance tales Walt Whitman wrote.

            The story Walt Whitman presents his audience with this dramatic tale of a country boy that ultimately is heading on a road of destruction. Franklin, the country boy travels to the city and gets caught up in drinking alcohol. As time proceeds everything begins to crumble. Franklin eventually loses his wife, his job and his freedom, as a consequence of getting involved with a gang of thieves. Franklin after his release from prison turned to alcohol which leads him into a regrettable marriage to a Creole slave. Franklin’s wife Margaret ends up killing herself because her husband has an affair with a widow from the North, whom Margaret poisons out of a jealous rage. 

            Whitman tells people when asked about the novel, that he wrote the novel while he was intoxicated, drinking cocktails. That may be true because he is an exceptional writer. He told people not to take this novel seriously. Whitman preached and practiced the ability of temperance throughout his life. Walt Whitman was known to participate in a number of temperance movements such as the meetings and parades of the Washingtonians, who made up the older American Temperance Society. Although he denounced this novel, this was not the only Temperance tales Walt Whitman wrote.

First, I will reproduce the poem for easy access.  Please disregard the different font colors for now; I will explain what the colors mean, eventually.

Election Day, November, 1884

If I should need to name, O Western World, your powerfulest scene and show,

‘Twould not be you, Niagara–nor you, ye limitless prairies–nor your huge rifts of canyons, Colorado,

Nor you, Yosemite–nor Yellowstone, with all its spasmic geyser-loops ascending to the skies, appearing and disappearing,

Nor Oregon’s white cones–nor Huron’s belt of mighty lakes–nor Mississippi’s stream:

–This seething hemisphere’s humanity, as now, I’d name–the still small voice vibrating–America’s choosing day,

(The heart of it not in the chosen–the act itself the main, the quadrennial choosing,)

The stretch of North and South arous’d–sea-board and inland–Texas to Maine–the Prairie States–Vermont, Virginia, California,

The final ballot-shower from East to West–the paradox and conflict,

The countless snow-flakes falling–(a swordless conflict,

Yet more than all Rome’s wars of old, or modern Napoleon’s:) the peaceful choice of all,

Or good or ill humanity–welcoming the darker odds, the dross:

–Foams and ferments the wine?  it serves to purify–while the heart pants, life glows:

These stormy gusts and winds waft precious ships,

Swell’d Washington’s, Jefferson’s, Lincoln’s sails.

The next logical step is to look at the title “Election Day, November, 1884.”  As a few of my classmates pointed out in their posts last week, this election was very close and intense.  The candidates James Blaine (Rep) and Grover Cleveland (Dem) slung mud at each other throughout their campaign.  Grover Cleveland narrowly defeated his opponent by winning New York state, and the election.  Blaine probably would have won New York state, but something happened during his campaign that pushed enough people to vote for Cleveland, allowing him to win the election.  During a campaign meeting with several hundred pro-Blaine Protestants,

Reverend Samuel D. Burchard delivered a warm welcoming address which ended with the words: “We are Republicans, and don’t propose to leave our party and identify ourselves with the party whose antecedents have been Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion.”

Pasted from <http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/presidents_and_first_ladies/34661/2>

Blaine didn’t catch the slur directed towards Irish Catholics, but a reporter hired by the Democrats to cover the meeting did.  Blaine didn’t give himself enough distance from Dr. Burchard, and it cost him the election.

Whitman is in part reacting to the tumultuous, intense election, but, primarily, he is writing in awe of the electoral process, “America’s choosing day.”  Because he is both in awe of the act of voting, and reacting to the intensely heated campaign, Whitman combines positive and negative images–sometimes in the same line.  Now, I think my highlighting will make more sense.  I have highlighted the positive images and words in green, and the negative ones in red.

The poem begins straightforward enough.  Line 1 reveals that the speaker wants to name the best illustration of America’s power.  Lines 2-4 list in typical Whitman fashion all of the things the speaker doesn’t want to talk in his poem.  However, at second glance, these lines are doing more than listing:  They are describing, briefly, various images of strength, but also instability and turmoil.  As you can see, there are both green and red colored words in the first four lines.  Whitman describes the prairies as “limitless” and the canyons as “huge rifts.”  The limitlessness of America’ s potential is something Whitman awes, but he also recognizes the divisions.  I would argue Whitman chose these various images to coincide with his feelings about the election of 1884, and the electoral process.  The words, “rifts,” “spasmic,” and “seething” mean, respectively, divisions, convulsive, and tumultuous or intensely heated.  All of these words could be used to describe the campaign of 1884.

In Line 5, the speaker reveals his intended topic of discussion:  “America’s choosing day.”  Now, there are some absent things I should mention.  Nowhere in this poem, does the speaker mention Cleveland’s victory or even hint at it.  He is, as far as I can tell, non-partisan, a neutral voice reacting to a particularly heated political battle, and the resounding voice of Democracy making a choice, which has potential for good or ill.  The speaker doesn’t seem to care much about the winner:  “The heart of it not in the chosen,” (6) but he does care about the process of voting:  “the act itself the main, the quadrennial choosing” (6).  Quadrennial simply means every four years, as in America’s presidential elections taking place every four years.

The next line (7), simply takes note that the entire country was involved in the election.

Line 8 threw me the first wrench when initially dealing with the poem.  “The final ballot-shower from East to West” was simple enough to understand.  The votes were coming in from across the country.   It’s the “paradox and conflict” that threw me.  First of all, I expected to see the word conflict, especially after reading about the history of the election itself.  But, “paradox” didn’t seem to make sense to me.  At first I thought he meant “paradoxical conflict” as in “swordless conflict,” (9) or the idea of a peaceful revolution every four or eight years—sometimes longer, like, in the case of FDR.  Only he didn’t seem to be using “paradox” as an adjective but as a noun, indicating the election itself was a paradox.  This compelled me to look “paradox” up in the OED to see if there was another meaning I was unaware of, and there was.  Paradox can, rarely, mean an outcome that doesn’t seem logical, or doesn’t make sense, but when evidence is accounted for, it does prove true.  With this possibility in mind, I looked further into the history of the event.  This is when I learned about the “Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion” debacle, which cost Blaine the election.  Using the new definition of paradox, the word could be a description of Cleveland’s victory.  This didn’t seem to fit in with the phrase, “the heart of it not in the chosen,” (6) at first.  But, after I looked at the entire poem again, and again, and again, I noticed the language of conflict throughout.  Plus, if all he wanted to do was glorify voting, Whitman could have called the poem “America’s Choosing Day” rather than the event itself.  Whitman wasn’t writing in a vacuum; he was inspired by the events surrounding the election and wrote about them.

“The countless snow-flakes falling” (9) seems to be modifying “The final ballot-shower” (8), and would imply that each vote was like a snow flake, cleansing, purifying, rejuvenating the country, allowing a fresh start—a new president.

The conflict between the candidates was “swordless;” however, it was very intense:  “Yet more than all Rome’s wars of old, or modern Napoleon’s” (10).  With this line, I had to answer the question:  more what?  More peaceful? More intense? More paradoxical?  In the end, I decided I don’t think Whitman meant more peaceful than Rome’s wars or Napoleon’s because that wouldn’t make much sense.  Of course our elections are more peaceful than their wars were; nobody is killed during our elections, typically.  Plus “swordless conflict” already covers the peaceful angle, so I’d guess Whitman was referring to the intense mudslinging between the candidates and comparing that intensity to that of warfare and claiming war doesn’t always have to involve violence and death and swords.

The phrase “the peaceful choice of all” (10) seems to say, the choice of all Americans, the ones permitted to vote, create the peace.  Voters end the “swordless conflict” by choosing a candidate to become America’s president.  This is the most important part of election day for Whitman, “The act itself” (6).

The next line seems to present the possible consequences of “America’s choosing day.”  The “chosen” could work for the “good or ill [of] humanity.” (11). Voters are potentially “welcoming the darker odds, the dross” (11).  I take “odds” to be part of the phrase “odds and ends,” which means bits and pieces.  This meaning, with the word “darker,” fits best with “dross,” which means impure matter, or rubbish.  These darker items working for the ill of humanity would “foam or forment the wine” (12) making it impure, in other words, ruining the purity of America.  There is a question mark at the end of the phrase, obviously, implying there is a question somewhere.  After rereading the poem a number of times, I came to the conclusion it questions the role of “America’s choosing day.”  This question doesn’t mean the speaker has a negative view of the role of voting in America.  It is a rhetorical question for him to answer:  “it serves to purify,” (12) like “the countless snow-flakes falling” (9).

The concluding lines explain how “America’s choosing day”(5) “serves to purify.”  He gives examples of positive outcomes from negative situations.  “While the heart pants,” (12) has a negative connotation.  Usually when I think of panting, I think of dogs, or my breathing after running.  So I looked it up in the OED and discovered there is a rare use for pant, mostly for poetry that means the heart is pulsating, throbbing, due to powerful negative emotion.  But, when the “heart pants,” (12) “life glows” (12) or shines bright.  From a negative situation comes a positive outcome.

The final two lines provide the ultimate example of hope for America.  “These stormy gusts and winds” (13) refers to the intense battle of elections.  In the phrase “waft precious ships,” (13) waft means to guide, convoy, or propel like the wind.  In the next line, the “precious ships” are revealed:  Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln, Whitman’s heroes.  Literally, Whitman is saying each of the great presidents of America’s history arose from turbulent times.

Bottom line:  Whitman doesn’t know what the outcomes of Cleveland’s presidency will be.  He seems to be pretty non-partisan.  The poet is reacting to the turbulent conflict, though swordless, between the candidates, and to the way “America’s choosing day” ended the conflict.  He ends by saying the president—without revealing his identity—has the possibility of rising to greatness out of the turbulent, stormy conflict of the election and other storms of America—“rifts,” “spasmic” situations, and examples of “seething humanity.”  Whitman ends his poem on a hopeful note.

First, I will reproduce the poem for easy access.  Please disregard the different font colors for now; I will explain what the colors mean, eventually.

Election Day, November, 1884

If I should need to name, O Western World, your powerfulest scene and show,

‘Twould not be you, Niagara–nor you, ye limitless prairies–nor your huge rifts of canyons, Colorado,

Nor you, Yosemite–nor Yellowstone, with all its spasmic geyser-loops ascending to the skies, appearing and disappearing,

Nor Oregon’s white cones–nor Huron’s belt of mighty lakes–nor Mississippi’s stream:

–This seething hemisphere’s humanity, as now, I’d name–the still small voice vibrating–America’s choosing day,

(The heart of it not in the chosen–the act itself the main, the quadrennial choosing,)

The stretch of North and South arous’d–sea-board and inland–Texas to Maine–the Prairie States–Vermont, Virginia, California,

The final ballot-shower from East to West–the paradox and conflict,

The countless snow-flakes falling–(a swordless conflict,

Yet more than all Rome’s wars of old, or modern Napoleon’s:) the peaceful choice of all,

Or good or ill humanity–welcoming the darker odds, the dross:

–Foams and ferments the wine?  it serves to purify–while the heart pants, life glows:

These stormy gusts and winds waft precious ships,

Swell’d Washington’s, Jefferson’s, Lincoln’s sails.

The next logical step is to look at the title “Election Day, November, 1884.”  As a few of my classmates pointed out in their posts last week, this election was very close and intense.  The candidates James Blaine (Rep) and Grover Cleveland (Dem) slung mud at each other throughout their campaign.  Grover Cleveland narrowly defeated his opponent by winning New York state, and the election.  Blaine probably would have won New York state, but something happened during his campaign that pushed enough people to vote for Cleveland, allowing him to win the election.  During a campaign meeting with several hundred pro-Blaine Protestants,

Reverend Samuel D. Burchard delivered a warm welcoming address which ended with the words: “We are Republicans, and don’t propose to leave our party and identify ourselves with the party whose antecedents have been Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion.”

Pasted from <http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/presidents_and_first_ladies/34661/2>

Blaine didn’t catch the slur directed towards Irish Catholics, but a reporter hired by the Democrats to cover the meeting did.  Blaine didn’t give himself enough distance from Dr. Burchard, and it cost him the election.

Whitman is in part reacting to the tumultuous, intense election, but, primarily, he is writing in awe of the electoral process, “America’s choosing day.”  Because he is both in awe of the act of voting, and reacting to the intensely heated campaign, Whitman combines positive and negative images–sometimes in the same line.  Now, I think my highlighting will make more sense.  I have highlighted the positive images and words in green, and the negative ones in red.

The poem begins straightforward enough.  Line 1 reveals that the speaker wants to name the best illustration of America’s power.  Lines 2-4 list in typical Whitman fashion all of the things the speaker doesn’t want to talk in his poem.  However, at second glance, these lines are doing more than listing:  They are describing, briefly, various images of strength, but also instability and turmoil.  As you can see, there are both green and red colored words in the first four lines.  Whitman describes the prairies as “limitless” and the canyons as “huge rifts.”  The limitlessness of America’ s potential is something Whitman awes, but he also recognizes the divisions.  I would argue Whitman chose these various images to coincide with his feelings about the election of 1884, and the electoral process.  The words, “rifts,” “spasmic,” and “seething” mean, respectively, divisions, convulsive, and tumultuous or intensely heated.  All of these words could be used to describe the campaign of 1884.

In Line 5, the speaker reveals his intended topic of discussion:  “America’s choosing day.”  Now, there are some absent things I should mention.  Nowhere in this poem, does the speaker mention Cleveland’s victory or even hint at it.  He is, as far as I can tell, non-partisan, a neutral voice reacting to a particularly heated political battle, and the resounding voice of Democracy making a choice, which has potential for good or ill.  The speaker doesn’t seem to care much about the winner:  “The heart of it not in the chosen,” (6) but he does care about the process of voting:  “the act itself the main, the quadrennial choosing” (6).  Quadrennial simply means every four years, as in America’s presidential elections taking place every four years.

The next line (7), simply takes note that the entire country was involved in the election.

Line 8 threw me the first wrench when initially dealing with the poem.  “The final ballot-shower from East to West” was simple enough to understand.  The votes were coming in from across the country.   It’s the “paradox and conflict” that threw me.  First of all, I expected to see the word conflict, especially after reading about the history of the election itself.  But, “paradox” didn’t seem to make sense to me.  At first I thought he meant “paradoxical conflict” as in “swordless conflict,” (9) or the idea of a peaceful revolution every four or eight years—sometimes longer, like, in the case of FDR.  Only he didn’t seem to be using “paradox” as an adjective but as a noun, indicating the election itself was a paradox.  This compelled me to look “paradox” up in the OED to see if there was another meaning I was unaware of, and there was.  Paradox can, rarely, mean an outcome that doesn’t seem logical, or doesn’t make sense, but when evidence is accounted for, it does prove true.  With this possibility in mind, I looked further into the history of the event.  This is when I learned about the “Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion” debacle, which cost Blaine the election.  Using the new definition of paradox, the word could be a description of Cleveland’s victory.  This didn’t seem to fit in with the phrase, “the heart of it not in the chosen,” (6) at first.  But, after I looked at the entire poem again, and again, and again, I noticed the language of conflict throughout.  Plus, if all he wanted to do was glorify voting, Whitman could have called the poem “America’s Choosing Day” rather than the event itself.  Whitman wasn’t writing in a vacuum; he was inspired by the events surrounding the election and wrote about them.

“The countless snow-flakes falling” (9) seems to be modifying “The final ballot-shower” (8), and would imply that each vote was like a snow flake, cleansing, purifying, rejuvenating the country, allowing a fresh start—a new president.

The conflict between the candidates was “swordless;” however, it was very intense:  “Yet more than all Rome’s wars of old, or modern Napoleon’s” (10).  With this line, I had to answer the question:  more what?  More peaceful? More intense? More paradoxical?  In the end, I decided I don’t think Whitman meant more peaceful than Rome’s wars or Napoleon’s because that wouldn’t make much sense.  Of course our elections are more peaceful than their wars were; nobody is killed during our elections, typically.  Plus “swordless conflict” already covers the peaceful angle, so I’d guess Whitman was referring to the intense mudslinging between the candidates and comparing that intensity to that of warfare and claiming war doesn’t always have to involve violence and death and swords.

The phrase “the peaceful choice of all” (10) seems to say, the choice of all Americans, the ones permitted to vote, create the peace.  Voters end the “swordless conflict” by choosing a candidate to become America’s president.  This is the most important part of election day for Whitman, “The act itself” (6).

The next line seems to present the possible consequences of “America’s choosing day.”  The “chosen” could work for the “good or ill [of] humanity.” (11). Voters are potentially “welcoming the darker odds, the dross” (11).  I take “odds” to be part of the phrase “odds and ends,” which means bits and pieces.  This meaning, with the word “darker,” fits best with “dross,” which means impure matter, or rubbish.  These darker items working for the ill of humanity would “foam or forment the wine” (12) making it impure, in other words, ruining the purity of America.  There is a question mark at the end of the phrase, obviously, implying there is a question somewhere.  After rereading the poem a number of times, I came to the conclusion it questions the role of “America’s choosing day.”  This question doesn’t mean the speaker has a negative view of the role of voting in America.  It is a rhetorical question for him to answer:  “it serves to purify,” (12) like “the countless snow-flakes falling” (9).

The concluding lines explain how “America’s choosing day”(5) “serves to purify.”  He gives examples of positive outcomes from negative situations.  “While the heart pants,” (12) has a negative connotation.  Usually when I think of panting, I think of dogs, or my breathing after running.  So I looked it up in the OED and discovered there is a rare use for pant, mostly for poetry that means the heart is pulsating, throbbing, due to powerful negative emotion.  But, when the “heart pants,” (12) “life glows” (12) or shines bright.  From a negative situation comes a positive outcome.

The final two lines provide the ultimate example of hope for America.  “These stormy gusts and winds” (13) refers to the intense battle of elections.  In the phrase “waft precious ships,” (13) waft means to guide, convoy, or propel like the wind.  In the next line, the “precious ships” are revealed:  Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln, Whitman’s heroes.  Literally, Whitman is saying each of the great presidents of America’s history arose from turbulent times.

Bottom line:  Whitman doesn’t know what the outcomes of Cleveland’s presidency will be.  He seems to be pretty non-partisan.  The poet is reacting to the turbulent conflict, though swordless, between the candidates, and to the way “America’s choosing day” ended the conflict.  He ends by saying the president—without revealing his identity—has the possibility of rising to greatness out of the turbulent, stormy conflict of the election and other storms of America—“rifts,” “spasmic” situations, and examples of “seething humanity.”  Whitman ends his poem on a hopeful note.

If Whitman ever had fears about dying, it does not show in his poetry. Even with his debilitating ailments, he only writes about the appreciation of life, never about his struggles with sickness or the fight from day to day. The diminishment of energy is evident in these later works; many of his poems consist only of a few lines, where earlier Whitman could have expanded them into grand poems with scores of lines.

The metaphors that Whitman uses are also far more commonplace. Old age is the night of a long day, or the winter of the seasons of life. His poetry, once full of direct detail and on-the-scene footage now resorts to imagery, metaphor and symbolism in order to catch its effect. It is no surprise that Whitman has turned introspective–the forces he is dealing with now, most of all death, are intangible and largely unknown.

If Whitman ever had fears about dying, it does not show in his poetry. Even with his debilitating ailments, he only writes about the appreciation of life, never about his struggles with sickness or the fight from day to day. The diminishment of energy is evident in these later works; many of his poems consist only of a few lines, where earlier Whitman could have expanded them into grand poems with scores of lines.

The metaphors that Whitman uses are also far more commonplace. Old age is the night of a long day, or the winter of the seasons of life. His poetry, once full of direct detail and on-the-scene footage now resorts to imagery, metaphor and symbolism in order to catch its effect. It is no surprise that Whitman has turned introspective–the forces he is dealing with now, most of all death, are intangible and largely unknown.

EVER the undiscouraged, resolute, struggling soul of man;

(Have former armies fail’d then we send fresh armies—and fresh again;)

Ever the grappled mystery of all earth’s ages old or new;

Ever the eager eyes, hurrahs, the welcome-clapping hands, the loud applause;

Ever the soul dissatisfied, curious, unconvinced at last;

Struggling to-day the same—battling the same.

Just keep going!

EVER the undiscouraged, resolute, struggling soul of man;

(Have former armies fail’d then we send fresh armies—and fresh again;)

Ever the grappled mystery of all earth’s ages old or new;

Ever the eager eyes, hurrahs, the welcome-clapping hands, the loud applause;

Ever the soul dissatisfied, curious, unconvinced at last;

Struggling to-day the same—battling the same.

Just keep going!

Close-up of Raw Wool

Pre-Civil War, cotton was the primary material used to create clothing. The product was relatively cheap (labor cost, obviously, was not an issue) and there were not tariffs on the material, keeping production overhead relatively low. With the onset of the Civil War, however, wartime activity cut numerous supply lines to the North, which dealt primarily with manufacturing. One of these supply lines happened to be the supply of raw cotton that Northern manufacturers relied upon to produce clothing.

With these limitations in place, Civil-War America had “a textile industry which could not get a fraction of all the cotton it wanted, [so it] turned increasingly to the production of woolen fabrics (here likewise government requirements had skyrocketed), and the market for raw wool was never livelier” (Catton 159). The changes in manufacturing also brought on changes in clothing styles during the early-to-mid 1860s. The standardization of men’s clothing became a movement in the clothing industry in the 1860s, whereas in the 1850s men had a certain amount of latitude with the way they dressed.

Walt Whitman himself participated in this change in fashion: “Whitman dressed differently from before. That was the first thing John Townsend Trowbridge noticed when he visited Whitman in Washington late in 1863” (Reynolds 432). What Trowbridge noted was the transformation in Whitman’s style of clothing from the rebellious, colorful “loafer” of the 1850s, to the more somber, reserved Whitman of the 1960s. Whitman’s transformation in fashion also led to a conflict in the perception of the poet by his friends and admirers: “As for Burroughs’s claim that Whitman was no rough but instead clean and wholesome, it had some validity with regard to the public, postbellum Whitman, with his simple woolen suits and sparkling white linen shirts” (460). This transformation in Whitman’s style, and the fashion of the period in general, was not a coincidence or the whim of fashion, “changing clothing styles signified larger changes in society and culture” (432). The weak government of the antebellum period transformed itself into a powerful agent in America’s culture and Whitman became a part of the “war machine” during the decade he spent in Washington, D.C.. He was now the good grey bard.

However, this was not the only connection that wool had to Whitman’s life. Even years after the initial effects of the Civil War (roughly twenty years, to be exact) wool was still having an impact on Whitman’s life because of where he lived—Camden. Right across the river from Philadelphia, a major industrial hub, Camden itself benefited from the increased need for wool.

The Camden Woolen Mills, which shared a building with a dying factory, were located at 611 Cooper Street and were just one example of the numerous businesses dealing with worsted wool in Camden, NJ in the 1880s and 1890s, towards the end of Walt Whitman’s life. With the increased popularity and demand for woolen goods, however, came the “threat” of foreign competition. During the 1880s and 1890s, one of the most hotly contested actions of government interacting with industry was the debate over tariffs on wool. American wool was considered expensive and of a poorer quality than that which could be obtained through trade with foreign producers of wool. The “average rate of duty on manufactures of woolens in 1887 was 67.21 per cent” (New York Times Sep 24, 1888), whereas under the proposed bill it would be lowered to a uniform rate of 40 percent. Opinions varied greatly as to the effects of this lowered tariff, arguing that it would destroy domestic industry (New York Times Mar 7 1883), or that it would prove beneficial to consumers because of the lowered cost of production (New York Times Sep 24, 188) and prove to cause little harm to domestic industry (Town Topics July 26 1888). By January of 1890, two years before the death of Whitman, the issue was finally being weighed by the Committee of Ways and Means in the House of Representatives. The decision of the Ways and Means Committee lead to the creation of the McKinley Tariff Act.

Works Cited

Catton, Bruce. The Civil War. New York, NY: The American Heritage Library, 1988.

Cohen, Phil. “611 Cooper Street, 1920s.” DVRBS.com. <http://www.dvrbs.com/camden-streets/CamdenStreets/Cooper-605-1920s-1b.jpg>

cyphs-stockup. “Cotton Bowl.” Deviantart.com. 17 Oct 2003. <http://cyphs-stockup.deviantart.com/art/Cotton-Bowl-3475420>

“Free Wool Demanded.” New York Times 3 Jan 1890: 5. Print.

Gardner, Alexander. “Walt Whitman.” Alderman Library, University of Virginia, 1863. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org/multimedia/images/large/012.jpg>

gatagataa-no. “Wool.” Deviantart.com. 25 Sep 2005. <http://gatagataa-no.deviantart.com/art/Wool-22953533>

“Opinions on the Tariff.” New York Times 7 Mar 1883: 2. Print.

Reynolds, David S.. Walt Whitman’s America: A Cultural Biography. New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1996.

“Saunterings.” Town Topics 26 July 1888: 12. Print.

“Woolen Goods and Their Consumers.” New York Times 24 Sep 1888: 5. Print.

Close-up of Raw Wool

Pre-Civil War, cotton was the primary material used to create clothing. The product was relatively cheap (labor cost, obviously, was not an issue) and there were not tariffs on the material, keeping production overhead relatively low. With the onset of the Civil War, however, wartime activity cut numerous supply lines to the North, which dealt primarily with manufacturing. One of these supply lines happened to be the supply of raw cotton that Northern manufacturers relied upon to produce clothing.

With these limitations in place, Civil-War America had “a textile industry which could not get a fraction of all the cotton it wanted, [so it] turned increasingly to the production of woolen fabrics (here likewise government requirements had skyrocketed), and the market for raw wool was never livelier” (Catton 159). The changes in manufacturing also brought on changes in clothing styles during the early-to-mid 1860s. The standardization of men’s clothing became a movement in the clothing industry in the 1860s, whereas in the 1850s men had a certain amount of latitude with the way they dressed.

Walt Whitman himself participated in this change in fashion: “Whitman dressed differently from before. That was the first thing John Townsend Trowbridge noticed when he visited Whitman in Washington late in 1863” (Reynolds 432). What Trowbridge noted was the transformation in Whitman’s style of clothing from the rebellious, colorful “loafer” of the 1850s, to the more somber, reserved Whitman of the 1960s. Whitman’s transformation in fashion also led to a conflict in the perception of the poet by his friends and admirers: “As for Burroughs’s claim that Whitman was no rough but instead clean and wholesome, it had some validity with regard to the public, postbellum Whitman, with his simple woolen suits and sparkling white linen shirts” (460). This transformation in Whitman’s style, and the fashion of the period in general, was not a coincidence or the whim of fashion, “changing clothing styles signified larger changes in society and culture” (432). The weak government of the antebellum period transformed itself into a powerful agent in America’s culture and Whitman became a part of the “war machine” during the decade he spent in Washington, D.C.. He was now the good grey bard.

However, this was not the only connection that wool had to Whitman’s life. Even years after the initial effects of the Civil War (roughly twenty years, to be exact) wool was still having an impact on Whitman’s life because of where he lived—Camden. Right across the river from Philadelphia, a major industrial hub, Camden itself benefited from the increased need for wool.

The Camden Woolen Mills, which shared a building with a dying factory, were located at 611 Cooper Street and were just one example of the numerous businesses dealing with worsted wool in Camden, NJ in the 1880s and 1890s, towards the end of Walt Whitman’s life. With the increased popularity and demand for woolen goods, however, came the “threat” of foreign competition. During the 1880s and 1890s, one of the most hotly contested actions of government interacting with industry was the debate over tariffs on wool. American wool was considered expensive and of a poorer quality than that which could be obtained through trade with foreign producers of wool. The “average rate of duty on manufactures of woolens in 1887 was 67.21 per cent” (New York Times Sep 24, 1888), whereas under the proposed bill it would be lowered to a uniform rate of 40 percent. Opinions varied greatly as to the effects of this lowered tariff, arguing that it would destroy domestic industry (New York Times Mar 7 1883), or that it would prove beneficial to consumers because of the lowered cost of production (New York Times Sep 24, 188) and prove to cause little harm to domestic industry (Town Topics July 26 1888). By January of 1890, two years before the death of Whitman, the issue was finally being weighed by the Committee of Ways and Means in the House of Representatives. The decision of the Ways and Means Committee lead to the creation of the McKinley Tariff Act.

Works Cited

Catton, Bruce. The Civil War. New York, NY: The American Heritage Library, 1988.

Cohen, Phil. “611 Cooper Street, 1920s.” DVRBS.com. <http://www.dvrbs.com/camden-streets/CamdenStreets/Cooper-605-1920s-1b.jpg>

cyphs-stockup. “Cotton Bowl.” Deviantart.com. 17 Oct 2003. <http://cyphs-stockup.deviantart.com/art/Cotton-Bowl-3475420>

“Free Wool Demanded.” New York Times 3 Jan 1890: 5. Print.

Gardner, Alexander. “Walt Whitman.” Alderman Library, University of Virginia, 1863. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org/multimedia/images/large/012.jpg>

gatagataa-no. “Wool.” Deviantart.com. 25 Sep 2005. <http://gatagataa-no.deviantart.com/art/Wool-22953533>

“Opinions on the Tariff.” New York Times 7 Mar 1883: 2. Print.

Reynolds, David S.. Walt Whitman’s America: A Cultural Biography. New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1996.

“Saunterings.” Town Topics 26 July 1888: 12. Print.

“Woolen Goods and Their Consumers.” New York Times 24 Sep 1888: 5. Print.

Close-up of Raw Wool

Pre-Civil War, cotton was the primary material used to create clothing. The product was relatively cheap (labor cost, obviously, was not an issue) and there were not tariffs on the material, keeping production overhead relatively low. With the onset of the Civil War, however, wartime activity cut numerous supply lines to the North, which dealt primarily with manufacturing. One of these supply lines happened to be the supply of raw cotton that Northern manufacturers relied upon to produce clothing.

With these limitations in place, Civil-War America had “a textile industry which could not get a fraction of all the cotton it wanted, [so it] turned increasingly to the production of woolen fabrics (here likewise government requirements had skyrocketed), and the market for raw wool was never livelier” (Catton 159). The changes in manufacturing also brought on changes in clothing styles during the early-to-mid 1860s. The standardization of men’s clothing became a movement in the clothing industry in the 1860s, whereas in the 1850s men had a certain amount of latitude with the way they dressed.

Walt Whitman himself participated in this change in fashion: “Whitman dressed differently from before. That was the first thing John Townsend Trowbridge noticed when he visited Whitman in Washington late in 1863” (Reynolds 432). What Trowbridge noted was the transformation in Whitman’s style of clothing from the rebellious, colorful “loafer” of the 1850s, to the more somber, reserved Whitman of the 1960s. Whitman’s transformation in fashion also led to a conflict in the perception of the poet by his friends and admirers: “As for Burroughs’s claim that Whitman was no rough but instead clean and wholesome, it had some validity with regard to the public, postbellum Whitman, with his simple woolen suits and sparkling white linen shirts” (460). This transformation in Whitman’s style, and the fashion of the period in general, was not a coincidence or the whim of fashion, “changing clothing styles signified larger changes in society and culture” (432). The weak government of the antebellum period transformed itself into a powerful agent in America’s culture and Whitman became a part of the “war machine” during the decade he spent in Washington, D.C.. He was now the good grey bard.

However, this was not the only connection that wool had to Whitman’s life. Even years after the initial effects of the Civil War (roughly twenty years, to be exact) wool was still having an impact on Whitman’s life because of where he lived—Camden. Right across the river from Philadelphia, a major industrial hub, Camden itself benefited from the increased need for wool.

The Camden Woolen Mills, which shared a building with a dying factory, were located at 611 Cooper Street and were just one example of the numerous businesses dealing with worsted wool in Camden, NJ in the 1880s and 1890s, towards the end of Walt Whitman’s life. With the increased popularity and demand for woolen goods, however, came the “threat” of foreign competition. During the 1880s and 1890s, one of the most hotly contested actions of government interacting with industry was the debate over tariffs on wool. American wool was considered expensive and of a poorer quality than that which could be obtained through trade with foreign producers of wool. The “average rate of duty on manufactures of woolens in 1887 was 67.21 per cent” (New York Times Sep 24, 1888), whereas under the proposed bill it would be lowered to a uniform rate of 40 percent. Opinions varied greatly as to the effects of this lowered tariff, arguing that it would destroy domestic industry (New York Times Mar 7 1883), or that it would prove beneficial to consumers because of the lowered cost of production (New York Times Sep 24, 188) and prove to cause little harm to domestic industry (Town Topics July 26 1888). By January of 1890, two years before the death of Whitman, the issue was finally being weighed by the Committee of Ways and Means in the House of Representatives. The decision of the Ways and Means Committee lead to the creation of the McKinley Tariff Act.

Works Cited

Catton, Bruce. The Civil War. New York, NY: The American Heritage Library, 1988.

Cohen, Phil. “611 Cooper Street, 1920s.” DVRBS.com. <http://www.dvrbs.com/camden-streets/CamdenStreets/Cooper-605-1920s-1b.jpg>

cyphs-stockup. “Cotton Bowl.” Deviantart.com. 17 Oct 2003. <http://cyphs-stockup.deviantart.com/art/Cotton-Bowl-3475420>

“Free Wool Demanded.” New York Times 3 Jan 1890: 5. Print.

Gardner, Alexander. “Walt Whitman.” Alderman Library, University of Virginia, 1863. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org/multimedia/images/large/012.jpg>

gatagataa-no. “Wool.” Deviantart.com. 25 Sep 2005. <http://gatagataa-no.deviantart.com/art/Wool-22953533>

“Opinions on the Tariff.” New York Times 7 Mar 1883: 2. Print.

Reynolds, David S.. Walt Whitman’s America: A Cultural Biography. New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1996.

“Saunterings.” Town Topics 26 July 1888: 12. Print.

“Woolen Goods and Their Consumers.” New York Times 24 Sep 1888: 5. Print.

Close-up of Raw Wool

Pre-Civil War, cotton was the primary material used to create clothing. The product was relatively cheap (labor cost, obviously, was not an issue) and there were not tariffs on the material, keeping production overhead relatively low. With the onset of the Civil War, however, wartime activity cut numerous supply lines to the North, which dealt primarily with manufacturing. One of these supply lines happened to be the supply of raw cotton that Northern manufacturers relied upon to produce clothing.

With these limitations in place, Civil-War America had “a textile industry which could not get a fraction of all the cotton it wanted, [so it] turned increasingly to the production of woolen fabrics (here likewise government requirements had skyrocketed), and the market for raw wool was never livelier” (Catton 159). The changes in manufacturing also brought on changes in clothing styles during the early-to-mid 1860s. The standardization of men’s clothing became a movement in the clothing industry in the 1860s, whereas in the 1850s men had a certain amount of latitude with the way they dressed.

Walt Whitman himself participated in this change in fashion: “Whitman dressed differently from before. That was the first thing John Townsend Trowbridge noticed when he visited Whitman in Washington late in 1863” (Reynolds 432). What Trowbridge noted was the transformation in Whitman’s style of clothing from the rebellious, colorful “loafer” of the 1850s, to the more somber, reserved Whitman of the 1960s. Whitman’s transformation in fashion also led to a conflict in the perception of the poet by his friends and admirers: “As for Burroughs’s claim that Whitman was no rough but instead clean and wholesome, it had some validity with regard to the public, postbellum Whitman, with his simple woolen suits and sparkling white linen shirts” (460). This transformation in Whitman’s style, and the fashion of the period in general, was not a coincidence or the whim of fashion, “changing clothing styles signified larger changes in society and culture” (432). The weak government of the antebellum period transformed itself into a powerful agent in America’s culture and Whitman became a part of the “war machine” during the decade he spent in Washington, D.C.. He was now the good grey bard.

However, this was not the only connection that wool had to Whitman’s life. Even years after the initial effects of the Civil War (roughly twenty years, to be exact) wool was still having an impact on Whitman’s life because of where he lived—Camden. Right across the river from Philadelphia, a major industrial hub, Camden itself benefited from the increased need for wool.

The Camden Woolen Mills, which shared a building with a dying factory, were located at 611 Cooper Street and were just one example of the numerous businesses dealing with worsted wool in Camden, NJ in the 1880s and 1890s, towards the end of Walt Whitman’s life. With the increased popularity and demand for woolen goods, however, came the “threat” of foreign competition. During the 1880s and 1890s, one of the most hotly contested actions of government interacting with industry was the debate over tariffs on wool. American wool was considered expensive and of a poorer quality than that which could be obtained through trade with foreign producers of wool. The “average rate of duty on manufactures of woolens in 1887 was 67.21 per cent” (New York Times Sep 24, 1888), whereas under the proposed bill it would be lowered to a uniform rate of 40 percent. Opinions varied greatly as to the effects of this lowered tariff, arguing that it would destroy domestic industry (New York Times Mar 7 1883), or that it would prove beneficial to consumers because of the lowered cost of production (New York Times Sep 24, 188) and prove to cause little harm to domestic industry (Town Topics July 26 1888). By January of 1890, two years before the death of Whitman, the issue was finally being weighed by the Committee of Ways and Means in the House of Representatives. The decision of the Ways and Means Committee lead to the creation of the McKinley Tariff Act.

Works Cited

Catton, Bruce. The Civil War. New York, NY: The American Heritage Library, 1988.

Cohen, Phil. “611 Cooper Street, 1920s.” DVRBS.com. <http://www.dvrbs.com/camden-streets/CamdenStreets/Cooper-605-1920s-1b.jpg>

cyphs-stockup. “Cotton Bowl.” Deviantart.com. 17 Oct 2003. <http://cyphs-stockup.deviantart.com/art/Cotton-Bowl-3475420>

“Free Wool Demanded.” New York Times 3 Jan 1890: 5. Print.

Gardner, Alexander. “Walt Whitman.” Alderman Library, University of Virginia, 1863. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org/multimedia/images/large/012.jpg>

gatagataa-no. “Wool.” Deviantart.com. 25 Sep 2005. <http://gatagataa-no.deviantart.com/art/Wool-22953533>

“Opinions on the Tariff.” New York Times 7 Mar 1883: 2. Print.

Reynolds, David S.. Walt Whitman’s America: A Cultural Biography. New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1996.

“Saunterings.” Town Topics 26 July 1888: 12. Print.

“Woolen Goods and Their Consumers.” New York Times 24 Sep 1888: 5. Print.