The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Marion Thrasher to Walt Whitman, 6 December 1885
Date: December 6, 1885
Whitman Archive ID: loc.04269
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.
Editorial note: The annotation, "Proposal for Western Course of Readings Dec. '85 | Marion Thrasher," is in the hand of Walt Whitman.
Contributors to digital file: Alex Kinnaman, Stefan Schöberlein, Ian Faith, Kyle Barton, and Nicole Gray
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Marion Thrasher, A. M.,
SUPERINTENDENT
OF
EDGAR PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
Edgar, Neb. Dec 6th
18851
Mr Walt Whitman
My Dear Old Friend.
For years, I have known you intimately, through your poems. The people of the "Great West" would like to see you—as they cannot come to you, could we not persuade you to come to them?
Am known extensively over our State—as a lecturer before "Teachers Associations," and can arrange for you to give ten readings of your poems, in ten of our largest cities (you, East, would call them towns) at $50 for night—total $500.00—your expenses need not be more than $100, to and from your home here—netting you $400 for a fortnights work. You will confer the greatest favor on your many Western friends by accepting. If the Winter be too severe; could you come in the Spring—say, May? Trusting to hear favorably from you—I am—
Sincerely yours
Marion Thrasher
Will furnish you the highest references.
Correspondent:
As the letterhead indicates,
Marion Thrasher was superintendent of Edgar Public Schools in Edgar, a small
town in south central Nebraska.
Notes:
1. This letter is addressed: Walt Whitman | Camden | New Jersey. It is postmarked: EDGAR | 7 | [illegible]; CAMDEN, N.J. | DEC | 11 | 8 AM | 1885 | REC'D. [back]