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[The New York Mercury of]

About This Item

  • Title: [The New York Mercury of]
  • Date: 20 March 1857
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: per.01345
  • Source: Brooklyn Daily Times, 20 March 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: Thara Michaelis Kaylen Michaelis Kevin McMullen Karie Cobb
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "[The New York Mercury of]." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 16 July 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: per.01345.xml (TEI)
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☞The New York Mercury of Sunday last contained some highly complimentary allusions to the Times and to its publisher for which we beg to express our profound acknowledgements. Mr. Caldwell​ , one of the Editors and publishers of the Mercury, is a gentleman with whom we have been intimate for a number of years;1 he too has worked his way up from the compositor's case—developing aptitude as a writer, and qualifications for business, in addition to his natural virtues of industry, temperance and indomitable perseverance. The paper with which he is connected is second to none of its class, having a large circulation and extensive advertising patronage. Its various departments—Fire, Military, Field Sports, &c.—impart to it a value in these respects which scarcely another journal can boast. May it go on and prosper!

Notes:

1. William Cauldwell (1824–1907), for many years the editor and publisher of the weekly New York Mercury, was hailed by one obituary as "the father of Sunday journalism" (New York Tribune [December 3, 1907]: 8). Early in his career, Cauldwell was a typesetter at the New York Atlas, where he met and befriended Whitman, who was at that time working as an editor of the New York Aurora; the Atlas and Aurora were produced by the same publishers and occupied office space on the same floor of 162 Nassau Street in New York. Cauldwell recounted late in life of becoming "quite chummy" with Whitman, to the point that Whitman would tell Cauldwell to take a break so that Whitman could set a bit of type for the Atlas himself (William Cauldwell, "Walt Whitman as a Young Man," New York Times [January 26, 1901]: 59). [back]

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