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Albert Johannsen to Walt Whitman, 22 March 1890

 loc_zs.00019.jpg Mr. Whitman:— Dear Sir:—

I am collecting the autographs of famous men and I would like to have yours in my collection. If you will be so kind as to send me your autograph, you will greatly oblig.

Yours Truly Albert Johannsen.  loc_zs.00018.jpg

Correspondent:
Albert Johannsen (1871–1962) was a geologist and illustrator, and taught at the University of Chicago from 1909 until his retirement on 1937. Johannsen studied at the University of Illinois and the University of Utah and later received a PhD in petrography from Johns Hopkins University. While at Utah, Johannsen worked as an illustrator for the Salt Lake City Herald and a topographer for the Salt Lake City Engineering Department. He is the author of eight textbooks and over forty papers on mineralogy and geology. Johannsen was also a prolific collector of nickel and dime novels, with a collection of over 4,500, and is the author of The House of Beadle and Adams and Its Dime and Nickel Novels (1950) and Phiz: Illustrations from the Novels of Charles Dickens (1956) ("Geologist's Rites Today," The Tampa Tribune [January 13, 1962], 9; "Geologist Johannsen Dies at 90," The Orlando Sentinel [January 12, 1962], 30).


Notes

  • 1. Whitman has drawn a line, in ink, through Johannsen's autograph request. [back]
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