Famous Americans

1. Famous Americans Walt Whitman Journalist, Poet 1819 – 1892

2. Table of Contents • Synopsis • Early Years • Move to NYC • Educator & Journalist • Volatile Personality • Introduction to Slavery • “Leaves of Grass” • Recognition • Home Life • “Leaves,” Editions 2 & 3 • Civil War Hardships • “Drum Taps” • Post Civil War • Later Years • Final Years • Death • Legacy • End of Presentation

3. Synopsis • Considered one of America's most influential poets, Walt Whitman aimed to transcend traditional epics and avoided aesthetic form to mirror the potential freedoms to be found in America. • In 1855, he self-published the collection Leaves of Grass; the book is now a landmark in American literature, though at the time of its publication it was considered highly controversial. • Whitman later worked as a volunteer nurse during the Civil War, writing the collection Drum Taps (1865) in connection to the experiences of war-torn soldiers.

4. Early Years • Called the "Bard of Democracy“Walt Whitman was born on May 31, 1819 in, Long Island, NY. The second of Louisa Van Velsor'sand Walter Whitman's 8 surviving children, he grew up in a family of modest means. • The Whitmans had owned a large parcel of farmland, much of it had been sold off by the time Walt was born. As a result, his father struggled through a series of attempts to recoup some of that earlier wealth as a farmer, carpenter and real estate speculator.

5. Move to NYC • At the age of 3, the young Walt moved with his family to Brooklyn, where his father hoped to take advantage of the economic opportunities in NYC. But his bad investments prevented him from achieving the success he craved.  • At 11, Walt Whitman was taken out of school by his father to help out with household income. He started to work as an office boy for a Brooklyn-based attorney team and eventually found employment in the printing business.

6. Educator & Journalist • When he was 17, Whitman worked as an educator for 5 years in various parts of Long Island. He loathed the work, especially considering the rough circumstances he was forced to teach under, and by 1841 he again set his sights on journalism. • In 1838, he had started a weekly called the Long Islander that quickly folded. He returned to NYC, where he worked on fiction and continued his newspaper career. • In 1846, he became editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle,a prominent newspaper, serving in that capacity for almost 2 years.

7. Volatile Personality • Whitman proved to be a volatile journalist, with a sharp pen and a set of opinions that didn't always align with his bosses or his readers. • He backed what some considered radical positions on women's property rights, immigration and labor issues. • He lambasted the infatuation he saw among his fellow New Yorkers with certain European ways and wasn't afraid to go after the editors of other newspapers. • Not surprisingly, his job tenure was often short and had a tarnished reputation with several different newspapers.

8. Introduction to Slavery • In 1848 Whitman left NY for New Orleans, where he became editor of the Crescent. It was a relatively short stay for Whitman—just three months—but it was where he saw for the first time the wickedness of slavery. • Whitman returned to Brooklyn in the autumn of 1848 and started a new "free soil" newspaper called the Brooklyn Freeman, which eventually became a daily despite initial challenges.  • As the nation's temperature over the slavery question continued to rise, Whitman's own anger over the issue elevated as well. It was during this time that he recorded his observations and shaping what would eventually be viewed as trailblazing poetic works.

9. “Leaves of Grass” • In the spring of 1855, Whitman, self-published a slim collection of 12 unnamed poems with a preface titled Leaves of Grass. Leaves of Grassmarked a radical departure from established poetic norms. • “Tradition was discarded in favor of a voice that came at the reader directly, in the first person, in lines that didn't rely on rigid meter and instead exhibited an openness to playing with form while approaching prose.”

10. Recognition • Leaves of Grassreceived little attention at first, though it did catch the eye of fellow poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, who wrote Whitman to praise the collection as "the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom" to come from an American pen. • The following year, Whitman published a revised edition of Leaves of Grass that featured 32 poems, including a new piece, "Sun-Down Poem" (later renamed "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry"), as well as Emerson's letter to Whitman and the poet's long response to him.

11. Home Life • Fascinated by this newcomer to the poetry scene, writers Henry David Thoreau and Bronson Alcott ventured to Brooklyn to meet Whitman. Whitman,now living at home resided in the attic of the family house. • Whitman's family was marked by dysfunction, inspiring a fervent need to escape home life. His heavy-drinking older brother Jesse would eventually be committed to a lunatic asylum in 1864 while his brother Andrew was also an alcoholic. • His sister Hannah was emotionally unwell and Whitman himself had to share his bed with his mentally handicapped brother.

12. “Leaves,” Editions 2 & 3 • His second version of Leaves of Grass failed to gain much commercial traction. In 1860, a Boston publisher issued a 3rd edition of Leaves of Grass. • The revised book was noted for a sensual grouping of poems—the "Children of Adam" series and the "Calamus" series. • But the start of the Civil War drove the publishing company out of business, furthering Whitman's financial struggles as a pirated copy of Leaves came to be available for some time.

13. Civil War Hardships • In later 1862, Whitman traveled to Fredericksburg to search for his brother George, who was being treated there for a wound he suffered. Whitman moved to WDC the next year and found part-time work in the paymaster's office, spending much of the rest of his time visiting wounded soldiers. • This volunteer work proved to be both life-changing and exhausting. By his own rough estimates, Whitman made 600 hospital visits and saw anywhere from 80,000 to 100,000 patients. • The work took a toll physically, but also propelled him to return to poetry. 

14. “Drum Taps” • In 1865 he published a new collection called Drum-Taps, which represented a more solemn realization of what the Civil War meant for those in the thick of it as seen with poems like: • "Beat! Beat! Drums!" • "Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night."  • A follow up edition,Sequel, was published the same year and featured 18 new poems, including his elegy on President Abraham Lincoln, • "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd.

15. Post Civil War • In the mid-1860s, Whitman had found steady work in WDC as a clerk at the Indian Bureau of the Department of the Interior. • He continued to pursue literary projects, and in 1870 he published 2 new collections, Democratic Vistas and Passage to India, along with a 5th edition of Leaves of Grass.

16. Later Years • In January 1873, he suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed. In May he traveled to Camden, NJ, to see his ailing mother, who died just 3 days after his arrival. • Frail himself, Whitman found it impossible to continue with his job in WDC and relocated to Camden to live with his brother George and sister-in-law Lou. • Over the next 2 decades, Whitman continued to tinker with Leaves of Grass. An 1882 edition of the collection earned the poet some fresh newspaper coverage after a Boston district attorney objected to and blocked its publication. That in turn resulted in robust sales, enough so that Whitman was able to buy a modest house of his own in Camden.

17. Final Years • These final years proved to be both fruitful and frustrating for Whitman. • His life's work received much needed validation in terms of recognition, especially overseas, as over the course of his career many of his contemporaries had viewed his output as sexually orientated, distasteful and unsophisticated. • Even as Whitman felt new appreciation, the America he saw emerge from the Civil War disappointed him. His health, too, continued to deteriorate.

18. Death • Whitman's final book, Good-Bye, My Fancy, was published the year before his death. Right up until the end of his life, he'd continued to work with Leaves of Grass, which during his lifetime had gone through many editions and expanded to some 300 poems. • On March 26, 1892, Walt Whitman died in Camden. He was buried in a large mausoleum he had built in Camden's Harleigh Cemetery.

19. Legacy • Despite the previous outcry surrounding his work, Whitman is considered one of America's most groundbreaking poets, having inspired an array of dedicated scholarship and media that continues to grow. • Books on the writer include: • The award-winning Walt Whitman's America: A Cultural Biography (1995), by David S. Reynolds. • Walt Whitman: The Song of Himself (1999), by Jerome Loving. 

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