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Fashions for 1858

About This Item

  • Title: Fashions for 1858
  • Date: 4 March 1858
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: per.00952
  • Source: Brooklyn Daily Times, 4 March 1858: 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: Kaylen Michaelis Cassandra Jannel Simms Stefan Schöberlein Karie Cobb
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "Fashions for 1858." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 16 July 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: per.00952.xml (TEI)
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FASHIONS FOR 1858—

It is now necessary to keep the run of the Fashions to rank as a “first class Journal,” whatever that may mean. We bow with humility to the decision. So yesterday, cold and keen as it was, we took a promenade down Fourth during the gay hour on the sunny side of the street. In the course of our ramble we met many old familiar faces—but that was all was left of them. How changed their outward apparel—must be seen to be appreciated. Ventilating holes in their Boots as well as in their Hats. Coats, Vests and Pants had a seedy shabby look about them that may be fashionable but cannot be agreeable to either to them or to us. We noticed that jewelry (especially of a costly kind) is now less worn than it used to be. The ladies were charming as ever. Their sweet smiles never can be affected, even by a panic. The style for 1858 is evidently retrenchment. Be it so. An old coat paid for looks better than a new one which inflicts the visit of a tailor three times a day upon you.

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