Editorials and Journalistic Articles

Edited by Stephanie M. Blalock, Kevin McMullen, Stefan Schöberlein, and Jason Stacy

Widely scattered and poorly documented, Whitman's journalism has never been fully collected nor adequately edited. The Whitman Archive is attempting to compile the most complete record of his journalism to date, and as always we welcome information from our users regarding leads to lesser-known documents. It is too early in our work to estimate the total number of Whitman's journalistic contributions during the course of his life. Previous editors of Whitman's journalism identified over 1,200 pieces from the period 1842–1848 alone (see Walt Whitman, The Journalism, ed. Herbert Bergman, Douglas A. Noverr, Edward J. Recchia [New York: Peter Lang, 1998], 1:xxviii). This six-year period was probably Whitman's most prolific as a journalist, but he contributed to newspapers and other periodicals for roughly a decade before 1842 and long after 1848. The Whitman Archive's goal is to present page images and full-text transcriptions of the entirety of Whitman's journalistic output. This work will proceed gradually because of resource constraints.

Currently, we offer a selection of editorials, likely written by Whitman, that appeared in the New York Aurora during the roughly one month period that Whitman served as editor. In addition, with the support of the National Endowment for the Humanities, we have edited several of Whitman's early journalistic series as well as prose pieces Whitman contributed to various newspapers during the Civil War. This work marks the first time these pieces have been gathered and presented together and the first time that some of the pieces have been reprinted since their initial publication. Whitman's 1840–1841 series "Sun-Down Papers," a curated selection of art reviews written for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in the mid-1840s, his 1849–1850 series "Letters from a Travelling Bachelor," his 1851 series "Letters from Paumanok," his 1856 series "New York Dissected," his 1858 series "Manly Health and Training," and a selection of Whitman's Civil War journalism are available below.

Most recently, the Archive has made available nearly 800 editorials, likely authored by Whitman, that appeared in the Brooklyn Daily Times in the late 1850s. This project, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, marks the first time that most of these editorials have appeared in print since their initial publication and represents a major reconsideration of Whitman's work during this period.

Poems and pieces of fiction Whitman contributed to newspapers and magazines might also rightly be considered journalism. For now, however, we have treated poetic contributions, fiction, and prose journalism separately. Users can also browse all available periodical materials.