Original finding aid completed by The Walt Whitman Archive and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries. Encoded Archival Description completed with the assistance of the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, the University of Nebraska Research Council, and the Institute for Museum and Library Services.
This catalog was created, in part, from digital images of the original manuscripts obtained by The Walt Whitman Archive. The original papers are held at The Walt Whitman House in Camden.
The Walt Whitman House Collection spans the period 1848–92. The collection consists of correspondence, a poetry manuscript, personal belongings, and miscellaneous supplementary items. This catalog describes the poetry manuscript in the collection.
In 1884, Walt Whitman purchased a modest two-story frame house on Mickle Street in Camden, New Jersey. It was the only house he ever owned, and he lived there until his death in 1892 with his housekeeper and friend, Mary O. Davis. Today the Walt Whitman House, a National Historic Landmark, displays original letters, personal belongings, the bed in which Whitman died, and the death notice that was nailed to the front door, as well as a collection of rare nineteenth-century photographs, including the earliest known image of Whitman—an 1848 daguerreotype.
For additional biographical information, see "Walt Whitman", by Ed Folsom and Kenneth M. Price, and the chronology of Whitman's Life.
