Others will see the shipping of Manhattan north and west, and the heights of Brooklyn

          to the south and east;

Others will see the islands large and small;

Fifty years hence, others will see them as they cross, the sun half an hour high;

A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence, others will see them,

Will enjoy the sunset, the pouring in of the flood-tide, the falling back to the sea of the

          ebb-tide .. . .

I too lived—Brooklyn, of ample hills, was mine;

I too walk’d the streets of Manhattan Island, and bathed in the waters around it. . . .

I was Manhattanese, friendly and proud! . . .

                           ~Walt Whitman, "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry"

Right: Catherine Hall (left) and Lizzie Lowe start out across the Brooklyn Bridge (photo by Anna Hughes).

It avails not, time nor place- distance avails not,
I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations hence,
Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt,
Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd,
Just as you are refresh'd by the gladness of the river and the bright flow, I was refresh'd,
Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift current, I stood yet was hurried,
Just as you look on the numberless masts of ships and the thick-stemm'd pipes of steamboats, I look'd.

Left: Whitman scholar and tour guide Dr. Karen Karbiener (left) walks with Dr. Linda Tate across the Brooklyn Bridge (photo by Catherine Hall).

Around 1842, Whitman began keeping journals. Read his words and see some of the ideas that would later appear in "Song of Myself."

Far Left: Cover of Whitman's earliest notebook (Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Thomas Biggs Harned Walt Whitman Collection).

In 1855, Whitman self-published Leaves of Grass. He probably set the type for the volume himself. Response to this work was widely varied. In an 1855 letter, fellow Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson hailed Leaves of Grass as "the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed." The Saturday Review, however, claimed that the work was "exceedingly obscene," suggesting that "if the Leaves of Grass should come into anybody's possession, our advice is to throw them instantly behind the fire." Other contemporary reviews were also negative.

Left: Walt Whitman, 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass. Right: Emerson's 1855 letter to Whitman (Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Charles E. Feinberg Collection of Walt Whitman, DLC 5809487).

Above: Page from Whitman's notebook: "I am the poet of the slaves" (Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Thomas Biggs Harned Walt Whitman Collection).

I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise;
Regardless of others, ever regardful of others,
Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man,
Stuff’d with the stuff that is coarse, and stuff’d with the stuff that is fine;
One of the Great Nation, the nation of many nations, the smallest the same, and the largest the same;
A southerner soon as a northerner—a planter nonchalant and hospitable, down by the Oconee I live;
A Yankee, bound by my own way, ready for trade, my joints the limberest joints on earth, and the sternest joints on earth;
A Kentuckian, walking the vale of the Elkhorn, in my deer-skin leggings—a Louisianian or Georgian;
A boatman over lakes or bays, or along coasts—a Hoosier, Badger, Buckeye;
At home on Kanadian snow-shoes, or up in the bush, or with fishermen off Newfoundland;
At home in the fleet of ice-boats, sailing with the rest and tacking;
At home on the hills of Vermont, or in the woods of Maine, or the Texan ranch;
Comrade of Californians—comrade of free north-westerners, (loving their big proportions;)
Comrade of raftsmen and coalmen—comrade of all who shake hands and welcome to drink and meat;
A learner with the simplest, a teacher of the thoughtfullest;
A novice beginning, yet experient of myriads of seasons;
Of every hue and caste am I, of every rank and religion;
A farmer, mechanic, artist, gentleman, sailor, quaker;
A prisoner, fancy-man, rowdy, lawyer, physician, priest.

                                                              ~Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself"

In 1862, Whitman left New York City and moved to Washington, D.C. He later moved to Camden, New Jersey (just across the river from Philadelphia), where he died in 1892. Many of the photos in the Whitman Image Gallery come from this later period, but there are enough from the earlier years to get a sense of the whole man.

Throughout his life, Whitman truly embraced the meaning of the word "American." Read about his "Geographical Imagination." And finally, listen to Whitman read his poem "America": his voice was recorded on an original Edison cylinder!

Left: Walt Whitman in 1869 (Pearsall, Frank, photographer, "Walt Whitman, half-length portrait, seated, facing left, left hand under chin," Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Feinberg-Whitman Collection, Prints and Photographs Division).