Walt Whitman
(31 Blue)
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http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/may31.html
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http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgibin/query/r?ammem/mcc:@field(DOCID+@lit(mcc/055))
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http://memory.loc.gov/cgibin/ampage?collId=whitman&fileName=wwhit080.data&rec
Num=26
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http://memory.loc.gov/cgibin/query/r?ammem/ncpsbib:@field(DOCID+@lit(ACB87270009-87_bib))
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http://memory.loc.gov/cgibin/query/r?pp/ils:@filreq(@field(NUMBER+@band(cph
+3b24247))+@field(COLLID+cph))
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The Library of Congress
Manuscript Division, Library of Congress
Click here to go to the Notebooks and Butterfly
This collection offers access to the four Walt Whitman Notebooks and a cardboard butterfly that disappeared
from the Library of Congress in 1942. They were returned on February 24, 1995.
The mission of the Library of Congress is to make its resources available and useful to Congress and the American people and to
sustain and preserve a universal collection of knowledge and creativity for future generations. The goal of the Library's National
Digital Library Program is to offer broad public access to a wide range of historical and cultural documents as a contribution to
education and lifelong learning.
The Library of Congress presents these documents as part of the record of the past. These primary historical documents reflect the
attitudes, perspectives, and beliefs of different times. The Library of Congress does not endorse the views expressed in these
collections, which may contain materials offensive to some readers.
LC's Missing Whitman Notes Found in N.Y.
Reprint from the Library of Congress Gazette, February 24, 1995
Library Scans Whitman Items; Preserves Them
Reprint from the Library of Congress Gazette, March 24, 1995
Conserving the Whitman Notebooks
(Photo Series) Reprint from the Library of Congress Gazette, March 24, 1995
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Today in History
The Library of Congress > American Memory Home
Today in History: May 31
sources | archives | yesterday
Whitman and the Butterfly
from the 1889 edition of Leaves of Grass
(Philadelphia, Ferguson Bros. & Co., Rare Book Collection, Library of Congress).
Walt Whitman Notebooks, 1847-1860s
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
Walt Whitman, opening to "Song of Myself,"
Leaves of Grass, 1855.
Walt Whitman, American poet, journalist, and essayist, was born on May 31, 1819, in West Hills,
New York. His verse collection Leaves of Grass is a landmark in the history of American literature.
Whitman grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and at age 12 began to learn the printing trade. Over
time he moved from printing to teaching to journalism, becoming the editor of the Brooklyn Daily
Eagle in 1846. He began experimenting with a new form of poetry, revolutionary at the time, free of
a regular rhythm or rhyme scheme that has come to be known as 'free verse.' In 1855, Whitman
published, anonymously and at his own expense, the first edition of Leaves of Grass. Revolutionary
too was the content of his poems celebrating the human body and the common man. Whitman would
spend the rest of his life revising and enlarging Leaves of Grass; the ninth edition appeared in 1892,
the year of his death.
Cardboard "Butterfly" in photograph of Whitman in the 1889 edition of Leaves of Grass.
Walt Whitman Notebooks, 1847-1860s
Whitman's confidence and literary career got an enormous boost from a letter from Ralph Waldo
Emerson, the most respected essayist, philosopher, and lecturer of his generation, heralding
Whitman's work as "the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet
contributed." Emerson greeted Whitman "at the beginning of a great career." Perhaps America's first
self-publicist, Whitman allowed Emerson's letter to be published without the writer's permission in
the New York Tribune.
The Library of Congress holds the world's largest Walt Whitman manuscript collection, numbering
20,000 items and including many original notebooks. In these sometimes homemade or adapted
notebooks, the poet jotted down random thoughts in prose and expressions in poetry. Four of Walt
Whitman's early notebooks are available in the American Memory collection Walt Whitman
Notebooks, 1847-1860s. The "1847" notebook contains remarkable trial flights of verse for what
later evolved into "Song of Myself"—the opening section of Leaves of Grass. On the 65th page and
the 68th through 72nd pages Whitman breaks off from prose ruminations and speaks—perhaps
for the first time—in the revolutionary verse form he created.
Notebook LC #80 "Earliest" Notebook (Holloway No.1), 1847, page 25.
Walt Whitman Notebooks, 1847-1860s
During the Civil War, Whitman worked at the paymaster's office in Washington, D.C. In his spare
time, he visited wounded soldiers in hospitals. In Whitman's "1862" notebook he recorded simple
requests from the soldiers. For example, on the third page Whitman notes during a visit to the
Patent Office Hospital that the man in bed twenty-seven "wants some figs and a book" and that beds
twenty-three and twenty-four "want some horehound candy." Whitman also recorded the stories that
the wounded men told him of their war experiences. On page 117, he relates "the fight at the
bridge" at the September 1862 Battle of Antietam.
Inspired by the death of President Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman wrote his famous dirge "O
Captain! My Captain!" in 1865. A rare example of his rhymed, rhythmically regular verse, the
poem was published in the Saturday Press to immediate acclaim and was included in the poet's
Sequel to Drum-Taps also published that year. Whitman revised the poem in 1866 and again in
1871. It quickly became his single most popular poem, much to his consternation, and it was the
only one of his poems in his compendium Leaves of Grass to be widely reprinted and anthologized
during his lifetime.
Whitman's reputation has grown steadily since his death. Today, he is widely recognized as one of
the greatest American poets.
•
Read more in Walt Whitman Notebooks, 1847-1860s about the story of how Whitman's
notebooks disappeared from the Library of Congress in 1942, and how they were found in New
York and returned to the Library on February 24, 1995. The collection also includes background
information about the notebooks and the process of scanning and preserving them.
•
Words and Deeds in American History showcases the letters and drafts of several American
poets and writers. Search the collection on poet to find documents by or about literary figures
such as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Langston Hughes.
•
Read more Today in History features related to poetry. Search the Today in History Archive on
the term poet to read, for example, about Robert Penn Warren, or Phillis Wheatley.
•
Teach more about Walt Whitman and the writing of poetry by using the Collection Connections
features of the Learning Page. The feature that concerns the Walt Whitman Notebooks, 18471860s provides a variety of activity ideas for using the collection to develop critical thinking skills.
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TITLE:
[Walt Whitman, half-length portrait, seated, facing left, wearing hat and sweater, holding butterfly]
CALL NUMBER: LOT 12038 [item] [P&P]
Find any corresponding online LOT(group) record
REPRODUCTION NUMBER:
LC-USZ62-77082 (b&w film copy neg.)
1 photographic print on card mount : albumen.
MEDIUM:
CREATED/PUBLISHED:
[1873]
NOTES:
Photograph by Phillips & Taylor, Philadelphia.
Forms part of: Feinberg-Whitman Collection (Library of Congress).
Saunders, no. 48
SUBJECTS:
Whitman, Walt, 1819-1892.
Butterflies--1870-1880.
Studio props--1870-1880.
FORMAT:
Portrait photographs 1870-1880.
Albumen prints 1870-1880.
REPOSITORY:
DIGITAL ID:
CARD #:
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA
(b&w film copy neg.) cph 3b24247 http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3b24247
00650593
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Words and Deeds in American History: Selected Documents Celebrating the Manuscript Division's First
100 Years
Letter and corrected reprint of Walt Whitman's "O Captain, My Captain" with comments by author, 9
February 1888.
(Walt Whitman Collection)
Inspired by the death of President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), Walt Whitman (1819-1892) wrote his famous
dirge "O Captain! My Captain!" in 1865. A rare example of his rhymed, rhythmically
regular verse, the poem was published in the Saturday Press to immediate acclaim and was
included in the poet's Sequel to Drum-Taps also published that year. Whitman revised the
poem in 1866 and again in 1871. It quickly became his single most popular poem, much to
his consternation, and it was the only one of his poems in his compendium Leaves of Grass
to be widely reprinted and anthologized during his lifetime.
In one such anthology, Riverside Literature Series No. 32, Whitman spotted some errors,
and sent the publishers this corrected sheet with the following note written on the verso,
dated 9 February 1888, from Camden, New Jersey. "Thank you for the little books, No. 32
"Riverside Literature Series"--Somehow you have got a couple of bad perversions in "O Captain," & I send you
a corrected sheet." The editors apparently erred by picking up earlier versions of punctuation and whole lines,
which the poet had revised in 1871 and now repudiated: "Leave you not the little spot" in the first stanza was
supposed to be "O the bleeding drops of red." In the second stanza, Whitman corrects "This arm I push beneath
you" to "This arm beneath your head." In the final stanza, the editors quoted, "But the ship, the ship is anchored
safe, its voyage safe and done" whereas it should have read, "The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage
closed and done."
Whitman's lecture on Lincoln was much in demand during the poet's old age, and in the 1880s he usually
included a recitation of "O Captain." He gave the lecture and recitation almost annually in the 1880s--four times
in 1886. He once told his friend Horace Traubel (1858-1919), "Damn My Captain . . . I'm almost sorry I ever
wrote the poem" though it did have "certain emotional immediate reasons for being." One of these was the
centrality of the Civil War to Whitman's personal and poetic life and his perception of the war as a reflection of
the nation on trial. Whitman also once envisioned Lincoln as an archangel captain and reportedly dreamed the
night before the assassination about a ship entering a harbor under full sail.
Alice L. Birney, Manuscript Division
For Additional Information
For additional information on the Walt Whitman Collection, you can leave this site and read a summary catalog
record for the collection.
Reproduction Number:
A83 (color slide of letter); A84 (color slide of poem reprint); LC-MSS-77909-1 (B&W negative of poem
reprint)
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The Nineteenth Century in Print: Periodicals
A Warble for Lilac-Time. [The Galaxy. / Volume 9, Issue 5, May 1870]
AUTHOR
Walt Whitman
Page(s) 686-687
View the page images (at Cornell University)
View text (generated by OCR without correction) [More about text]
Browse this issue
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