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Health of Brooklyn the Coming Summer

About This Item

  • Title: Health of Brooklyn the Coming Summer
  • Date: 14 May 1857
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: per.00735
  • Source: Brooklyn Daily Times, 14 May 1857: 2. Our transcription is based on a digital image of a microfilm scan of the original issue. Microfilm of original issue held at Pennsylvania State University Libraries. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the journalism, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Editorial note: This piece is unsigned, as was the case for most of Whitman's journalism. However, this editorial is part of a series of texts that deal with a coherent theme that has been identified by the Whitman Archive journalism team as likely authored by Whitman. This decision is based on a combination of historical and (auto)biographical accounts, similarity to contemporary Whitman writings, a history of scholarly attribution, extant clippings retained by Whitman, computational stylometric analysis, and, in some cases, manuscript evidence in Whitman’s hand.
  • Contributors to digital file: Noelle Bates Thara Michaelis Cassandra Jannel Simms Stefan Schöberlein Stephanie Blalock Karie Cobb
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "Health of Brooklyn the Coming Summer." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 16 July 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: per.00735.xml (TEI)
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For the Times.

Health of Brooklyn the Coming Summer

Officially the good people of Brooklyn (or any city) have such ceremonies taken and such appointments made in their behalf, that one is quite ashamed to be either dusted, garroted, over-taxed, or suffer any other municipal suffering. For instance, at their last meeting, the Common Council appointed a Board of Health, to consist of the Mayor,1 the President of the Board of Aldermen,2 and the Committee of Public Health. The Board is to sit from the 1st of June to October.

Doubtless they will "sit," and doubtless they are very respectable good men. But will they do anything? Will the police be instructed to be on the look-out continually for all unwholesome spots, putridities, germs of spreading miasma? Will filth and mud be removed from the streets? Will there be guards against pestilence and contagion? Will disinfectants be scattered liberally along the gutters of the streets? Will a hundred things be done that ought to be done?

Officially, we say, we are attended to in the best style. But effective action is what is wanted. A determined executive officer, or officers, could keep Brooklyn as sweet as a rose, and healthy for Summer residence as the wild mountains; but we expect to wait many years before that is done.

Notes:

1. Samuel S. Powell (1815–1879) served as mayor of Brooklyn from 1857 to 1861, and then again from 1872 to 1873. In 1863, he was nominated to become water commissioner by a previous mayor of Brooklyn, Colonel Alfred M. Wood, but was denied confirmation by the Board of Aldermen. Thomas Jefferson Whitman mentioned Powell's nomination in a December 1863 letter to Walt. [back]

2. Henry Rufus Pierson (1819–1890) was an Alderman for the Third Ward of Brooklyn from 1858#8211;1860 and President of the Board of Alderman. He was also a member of the New York State Senate from 1866–1867. [back]

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