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.
Simply enter the word you wish to find and the search engine will search for every instance of the word in the journals. For example: Fight. All instances of the use of the word fight will show up on the results page.
Using an asterisk (*) will increase the odds of finding the results you are seeking. For example: Fight*. The search results will display every instance of fight, fights, fighting, etc. More than one wildcard may be used. For example: *ricar*. This search will return most references to the Aricara tribe, including Ricara, Ricares, Aricaris, Ricaries, Ricaree, Ricareis, and Ricarra. Using a question mark (?) instead of an asterisk (*) will allow you to search for a single character. For example, r?n will find all instances of ran and run, but will not find rain or ruin.
Searches are not case sensitive. For example: george will come up with the same results as George.
Searching for a specific phrase may help narrow down the results. Rather long phrases are no problem. For example: "This white pudding we all esteem".
Because of the creative spellings used by the journalists, it may be necessary to try your search multiple times. For example: P?ro*. This search brings up numerous variant spellings of the French word pirogue, "a large dugout canoe or open boat." Searching for P?*r*og?* will bring up other variant spellings. Searching for canoe or boat also may be helpful.
Entering in only one field | Searches |
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Year, Month, & Day | Single day |
Year & Month | Whole month |
Year | Whole year |
Month & Day | 1600-#-# to 2100-#-# |
Month | 1600-#-1 to 2100-#-31 |
Day | 1600-01-# to 2100-12-# |