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Walt Whitman -The Poet-
Walt Whitman was born on May 31, 1819 in the West Hills, Long Island, New York. Walt was the second son of nine whos names were after american war heros. Parents were Walter Whitman, his father and his mother's name is Louisa Van Velson Whitman.Walt's father was a carpenter and moved the family to Brooklyn, New York in 1823 because his job moved. After that Walt attended public schools in Brooklyn. Walt apprenticed as a law clerk and also a printer in his younger life in Brooklyn and Manhatten. As Walt grew he moved to Huntington on Long Island in 1836 and began to teach. During his time in Huntington aside from teaching he founded the Hunington Long Islander. He also worked for the Long Island Democrat. After his four years on Long Island he moved back to New York City in 1840. As he was there he took up the jobs of being a printer and a editor. Not to long after he returned to Brooklyn in 1845 and worked as a reporter of Star. In just one years time Walt managed to take the editorship of Daily Eagle and he just took it and ran. Then it started to go down hill in 1848 as he hit a brick wall in the Daily Eagle and lost his position over his editorial support for the Free-Soil Movement. This was a movement that tried to prevent legal extention of slavery into newly astablished U.S. territories. He then tried to find new success in New Orleans and found a job at Crescent before quiting over a disagrement with the editors. Walt then returned to Brooklyn and founded a Free-Soil newspaper called the Freeman. This lasted about one year from 1848 to 1849. At the end of that he then spent his spare time writting with his father and working at several jobs. When 1855 came around he published twelve untitled poems in a volume called the Leaves of Grass. As the tension started to brew even greater and it became clear there was going to be a major conflict between the North and the South Walt came out with three more volumes of the Leaves of Grass. Walt was one of many of eyewitnesses to the American Civil War and he tried to help with his Free-Soil Movent and his Freeman newspaper. Walt also did another type of helping as a hospital volunteer where he tended to Union (north) and Confederate (south) soldiers. He was indeed a needed person in the hospitals where he dressed and undressed soldiers, assited in operations, wrote letters for the wounded, and even passed out presents and gifts. Walt then moved to Washington D.C. in late 1862 and visited sevueral wards in a search for his brother. He did not find his brother but he learned that his brother had recovered and had been ruturned to his unit in the war. Walt then stayed in Washington and was a volunteer nursing aid. Walt Whitman himself took part in the war by reporting on several Virginia millitary engagements. Soon after he pushed for two years to get a government clerkship. Then he recived an appointment with the Burzaue of Indian Affairs in early 1865. He then was sadly dismissed of the Burzaue of Indian Affairs in June of that very same year for the reputation of his poems. After that he oftan saw president Lincoln around town. When the terrible news came about Lincoln's death Walt took it as a personal tragedy as he respected and looked up to presidanet Lincoln. For this matter Walt published two poems about Lincoln's death. One titled When Lilaes Last in the Dooryor Bloom'd was added to his 1865 collection of wartime verses, Drum-Taps. The second was titled O Captin, My Captin and this title was actually taken from Herman Melville's Moby Dick. Walt had only two major people who influenced his life. One was Abraham Lincoln and the other was Rulph Waldo Emerson who wrote to Walt Whitman and said, I find the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that america has yet contributed...I greet you at the begining of a great career.One of the quots that Walt Whitman said was, I celebrate myself, and sing myself, and what i assume you shall asume, for every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. Walt Whitman proceeded with his life before passing away in 1873 with much to share of his wisdom and his peoms that he wrote his knowleg into for all to read.
All pictures were from: http://www.whitmanarchive.org/multimedia/gallery.html
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Click The Picture For Work Cited
Whitman's Civil War prose, collected in an 1875 volume called Memoranda During the War, Issued 2 years after Walt's death
And Many More
When Lilaes Last in the Dooryor Bloom'd, about Lincoln's death
O Captin, My Captin, about Lincoln's death
Drum-Taps, a series of poems
Published six editions of Leaves of Grass
