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Walt Whitman

By nanda123
  • 1892 BCE

    Final Edition of Leaves

    Whitman prepares the final edition of Leaves of Grass, known as the "Deathbed Edition." In his author's note, he writes that he would like "this new 1892 edition to absolutely supersede all previous ones. Faulty as it is, he decides it is by far his special and entire self-chosen poetic utterance."
  • 1888 BCE

    Second Stroke

  • 1884 BCE

    Buys Home

    Thanks to his earnings from Leaves of Grass, Whitman buys a house on Camden's Mickle Street, New Jersey.
  • 1873 BCE

    Suffers Stroke

  • 1870 BCE

    New Edition of Leaves of Grass (5th)

  • 1866 BCE

    The Good Gray Poet

    Whitman and his friend William D. O'Connor publish The Good Gray Poet, a defense of Whitman in the wake of his firing from the Interior.
  • 1865 BCE

    Lincoln Assassinated

    President Abraham Lincoln is assassinated at Ford's Theater less than a week after the Confederate surrender. Whitman, now a clerk at the U.S. Department of the Interior, composes the poems "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" and "O Captain! My Captain!" in honor of the fallen president.
  • 1865 BCE

    Fired

    Whitman's boss at the Department of the Interior fires him because of the supposedly obscene content of Leaves of Grass, which Whitman works on during his downtime at the office. He immediately gets another job at the U.S. Attorney General's Office.
  • 1861 BCE

    Civil War

    The Civil War breaks out. Whitman moves to Washington D.C. and works as a nurse in the military hospitals.
  • 1857 BCE

    Newspaper Editor

    Whitman spends two years as the editor for the Brooklyn Daily Times.
  • 1856 BCE

    Second Edition

    The second edition of Leaves of Grass is published, now with 32 poems. He also reprints Emerson's congratulatory letter without permission, angering the elder poet. Whitman makes a career out of revising and updating the book, with more than half a dozen editions in his lifetime
  • 1848 BCE

    Leaves Eagle

    Whitman is forced out of his job at the Brooklyn Daily Eagle after a political dispute with his boss over Whitman's opposition to slavery. He and his brother travel to New Orleans for a few months to work at The Crescent newspaper.
  • 1848 BCE

    Return to New York

    Back in New York, Whitman founds an antislavery newspaper called the Weekly Freeman. The paper's offices are burned after the first issue is published. For the next six years, he works as a freelance journalist, while honing his poetic style.
  • 1846 BCE

    Brooklyn Daily Eagle

    Whitman starts a job as the editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle newspaper. His articles there include reviews of early novels by a young writer named Herman Melville and the poems of Ralph Waldo Emerson.
  • 1842 BCE

    First Novel Published

    Whitman publishes his first novel, Franklin Evans; or The Inebriate. The pro-temperance novel is commercially popular, even though Whitman himself later comes to describe it as "rot."
  • 1841 BCE

    Returns to the Big Apple

    Whitman moves back to New York City. He works in newspapers as both a typesetter and as a freelance writer, contributing fiction pieces and newspaper articles.
  • 1838 BCE

    Newspaper Editor

    Whitman temporarily leaves teaching to take over the editorship of The Long Islander newspaper. He sells the paper after ten months and returns to teaching.
  • 1833 BCE

    On His Own

    The Whitman family leaves Brooklyn and moves back to Long Island, leaving fourteen-year-old Walt to fend for himself in the city.
  • 1831 BCE

    Learns Printing Trade

    Whitman gets a job as an apprentice for the Long Island Patriot newspaper. He immediately takes to the profession, and is soon freelancing on his own as a printer and typesetter for local publications.
  • 1830 BCE

    Leaves School

    Eleven-year-old Walt Whitman drops out of school in order to work and earn money for his family. He works as an assistant in the offices of a doctor and a lawyer.

  • Walt Whitman Born

    Walter Whitman Jr. is born in West Hills, New York.

  • Moves to Brooklyn

    The Whitman family moves to Brooklyn, beginning Walt's love affair with New York City. They move frequently around the borough, and Walt Whitman attends public schools.

  • Fire!

    Whitman's newspaper trade comes to a halt after a fire destroys the printing district in New York. He rejoins his parents and siblings in Long Island and gets a job as a schoolteacher.

  • Leaves of Grass

    Whitman publishes the first edition of Leaves of Grass, a collection of twelve poems written in a bold new style. Readers are shocked and awed by the poems' raw subject material and striking style. Ralph Waldo Emerson sends Whitman a letter praising the book and congratulating him on "the beginning of a great career.

  • Walt Whitman Dies

    Walt Whitman dies at home in Camden at the age of 72. He is buried in Camden's Harleigh Cemetery.