The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: F. Townsend Southwick to Walt Whitman, [1890?]
Date: [1890?]
Whitman Archive ID: loc.07082
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.
Related item: On the back of this letter Whitman made prose notes about America's need for "broader themes" than those provided by Germany and the rest of Europe.
Contributors to digital file: Blake Bronson-Bartlett, Ian Faith, Alex Ashland, and Stephanie Blalock
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as most convenient1
If possible, kindly let me know your decision in respect to my proposal to select & edit a number of your poems for class use & recitation.
Very Respectfully
F. Townsend
Southwick
#31 W 55
th
St.
Correspondent:
F. Townsend Southwick
(1858–1903) of Rhode Island was trained as a musician, and he became an
expert organist. Later, he studied elocution in Europe and the United States,
and became an authority on the instruction of voice and speech. He published Action and Elocution, a text book on oratory, and he
participated in the founding of the New York Teachers of Oratory of the New York
City, the first society of teachers of elocution in the United States. See "In
Memoriam: F. Townsend Southwick," Philharmonic: A Magazine
Devoted to Literature Music Art (1903), 218.
Notes:
1. Whitman drew a diagonal line from the top left to the bottom right of this page of Southwick's letter. This is the last page of the letter; the previous page or pages may not survive. [back]