Walt Whitman to Amos Bronson Alcott, 26 April 1868

About This Item

Title: Walt Whitman to Amos Bronson Alcott, 26 April 1868
Date: April 26, 1868
Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Whitman Archive ID: loc.01572
Source: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Transcribed from digital images or a microfilm reproduction of the original item. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.

Notes for this letter were created by Whitman Archive staff and/or were derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller, 6 vols. (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), and supplemented or updated by Whitman Archive staff.
Contributors to digital file: Alex Kinnaman Kenneth M. Price Elizabeth Lorang Zachary King Eric Conrad Paige Wilkinson Amanda J. Axley Stephanie Blalock
Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "Walt Whitman to Amos Bronson Alcott, 26 April 1868." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 17 November 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
Source File: loc.01572.xml (TEI)

loc_tb.00376.jpg To Mr. Alcott April 26 '681

Your kind & welcome letter come to hand.2 Pardon me for not responding sooner. I esteem your friendly appreciation of "Democracy." I have just sent you "Personalism"3—which is to be followed, in perhaps a couple of months or so, by another article, addressing itself mainly to the question of what kind of Literature we must seek, for our coming America. &c. In the three articles (to be gathered probably in book4) I put forth, to germinate if they may, what I would fain hope might prove little seeds & roots.

I am still living here in Washington.5—employed in a post in the Attorney General's office, very pleasantly, with sufficient leisure, & almost entirely without those peculiar belongings, that make the Treasury & Interior Dep't &c. clerkships disagreeable. I am, as ever, working on Leaves of Grass—hoping to bring it yet into fitter & fuller proportions. I am well as usual. My dear mother6 is living & well; we speak of you. I wish you to give my best respects & love to Mr. Emerson7

loc_tb.00377.jpg

Correspondent:
Amos Bronson Alcott (1799–1888) was an American educator and abolitionist and the father of Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888), whose 1868 novel Little Women (loosely based on the Alcott home) secured the financial stability that her father had been unable to achieve through his own work as a teacher and transcendentalist. See Odell Shepard, ed., The Journals of Bronson Alcott (Boston: Little, Brown, 1938), 286–90.

Notes

1. This is a draft letter that Whitman has endorsed, "To Mr. Alcott | April 26 '68." [back]
2. This letter is a reply to Alcott's of January 7, 1868, in which he praised Whitman's "Democracy," and added: "I talked last evening with [Ralph Waldo] Emerson about your strong strokes at the thoughtless literature and Godless faith of this East." Alcott noted receipt of Whitman's letter on April 28, 1868: "Say what men may, this man is a power in thought, and likely to make his mark on times and institutions. I shall have to try a head of him presently for my American Gallery: Emerson, Thoreau, and Walt" (The Journals of Bronson Alcott, ed. Shepard [Boston: Little, Brown, 1938], 391). On the same day, Alcott wrote to Whitman: "Yet think of the progress out of the twilight since your star dawned upon our hazy horizon!" Alcott was so fond of the term "personalism" that he adopted it. [back]
3. Whitman's essays "Democracy" and "Personalism" were published in the Galaxy in December 1867 and May 1868. The poet also planned to publish a third essay, "Orbic Literature," in this journal, but the piece was rejected. These three essays were later combined in Democratic Vistas, which was first published in 1871 in New York by J.S. Redfield. [back]
4. Whitman's Democratic Vistas was first published in 1871 in New York by J.S. Redfield. The volume was an eighty-four-page pamphlet based on three essays, "Democracy," "Personalism," and "Orbic Literature," all of which Whitman intended to publish in the Galaxy magazine. Only "Democracy" and "Personalism" appeared in the magazine. For more information on Democratic Vistas, see Arthur Wrobel, "Democratic Vistas [1871]," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
5. Whitman arrived in Washington, D.C., in late December 1862 after searching for his brother, George W. Whitman (1829–1901), a Union soldier in the American Civil War, who had been wounded in the Battle of Fredericksburg. Walt Whitman would remain in Washington, D.C. for a decade, volunteering in the Civil War Hospitals and, later, performing clerical tasks for several government offices. For more information on Whitman's time in Washington, see Martin G. Murray, "Washington, D.C. (1863–1873)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
6. Louisa Van Velsor Whitman (1795–1873) married Walter Whitman, Sr., in 1816; together they had nine children, of whom Walt was the second. The close relationship between Louisa and her son Walt contributed to his liberal view of gender representation and his sense of comradeship. For more information on Louisa Van Velsor Whitman, see Sherry Ceniza, "Whitman, Louisa Van Velsor (1795–1873)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
7. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) was an American poet and essayist who began the Transcendentalist movement with his 1836 essay Nature. For more on Emerson, see Jerome Loving, "Emerson, Ralph Waldo [1809–1882]," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]