Specimen Days (Barnes & Noble Digital Library)

Walt Whitman was born in West Hills, Long Island, on May 31, 1819.  He was the son of a radical freethinking carpenter and a devout homemaker who imbued his son with a profound reverence for the American spirit.  Before embarking on his career as a poet, Whitman worked as a schoolteacher, builder, journalist, fiction writer, and printer.  In 1846, he became editor of the Brooklyn Eagle, one of the numerous positions he held in publishing during his life.  Throughout the Civil War, Whitman worked as a government clerk and also volunteered in field hospitals where he tended to both Union and Confederate soldiers.  After the war, Whitman’s standing as a poet grew continuously.  In 1873 he took up permanent residence with his brother in Camden, New Jersey, where he famously spent the rest of his days, welcoming the many pilgrims who came to see the Old Gray Poet.  He died on March 26, 1892.  Whitman’s life is a “rags to riches” story for the literary ages: a journeyman writer and editor with only an elementary-school education, he is now regarded as the godfather of American poetry.