Journalist and Editor
By 1841 Whitman was in New York City, where his interests turned to journalism. His short stories and poetry of this period were highly derivative and indistinguishable from the popular sentimental claptrap of the day, as was his temperance novel, Franklin Evans, or the Inebriate (1842).
For the next few years Whitman edited several newspapers and contributed to others. He was dismissed from the Brooklyn Eagle because of political differences with the owner. In 1848 he traveled south and for three months worked for the New Orleans Crescent. The sheer physical beauty of the new nation made a vivid impression on him, and he was to draw on this experience in his later poetry. His brief stay in New Orleans also led his early biographers to suggest an early romance with a Creole woman, for which there is no evidence. In his later years, Whitman spoke of fathering six illegitimate children (one being a "living Southern grandchild"), but there is no evidence for this claim either. In 1848 he returned to Brooklyn, where he edited a "free-soil" newspaper. Between this time and 1854, he worked as a carpenter, operated a printing office, did free-lance journalism, built houses, and speculated in real estate.
This is a free page. This page contains 189 words. This
biography contains 2,195 words (approx. 7 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Biography with our Walt Whitman Access Pass.
