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Western Nicknames

  • Whitman Archive Title: Western Nicknames
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.07052
  • Repository: Catalog of the Walt Whitman Literary Manuscripts in The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
  • Box: 39
  • Folder: 1847-1869, words and nicknames
  • Series: Notes and Notebooks
  • Date: about 1885
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: currently unavailable
  • Content: On one side of the manuscript leaf are notes about demonyms for the people of various places in North America. Whitman made use of this list in his essay "Slang in America," which was first published in the November 1885 issue of The North American Review and later collected in November Boughs (1888) and Complete Prose Works (1892). The other side, which has been cancelled, contains a partial draft of an article written in response to an unidentified author who had apparently found fault with American politics and newspaper literature. It is unknown whether the writing on this side led to publication. No images of this item are currently available.

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