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Birth
Walt Whitman was born on May 31, 1819 in West Hills, Long Island, New York. The second of Walter and Louisa Whitman's eight surviving children. -
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The Life of Walt Whitman
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Moving to Brooklyn
At the age of three, the young Walt Whitman moved with his family to Brooklyn, where his father hoped to take advantage of the economic opportunities in New York City. But his bad investments prevented him from achieving this success. -
Education
As the second of nine children, he received little education. But he soon absorbed an education through many visits to museums and his nonstop reading. -
The Printing Business
When Walt was 11, his father, unable to support his family on his own, pulled him out of school so he could work. To help put food on the table, Walt found employment in the printing business. -
Teaching
At the age of 17, Whitman began teaching at various one-room schoolhouses in Long Island. He continued teaching for another 5 years. -
First Novel
Franklin Evans, or the Inebriate Published in the New World. A temperance novel. -
Journalism
After teaching, in 1841 he set his sights on journalism. He first started a weekly paper called the Long-Islander and then went to New York City to be a printer for New World and a reporter for the Democratic Review. Besides reporting, he also edited several Brooklyn newspapers, including the "Daily Eagle", the "Freeman", and the "Times". -
Travel and Education
After being fired from the "Eagle", Whitman travled to New Orleans where he became editor of the "Cresent". It was a short stay, only three months. He then came back to Brooklyn where he served as a delegate for the Buffalo Free-Soil convention. Around this time he began to write poetry. -
First Edition of Leaves of Grass
In May 1855 Walt self-published a collection of 12 unamed poems titled "Leaves of Grass". He could only afford to print 795 copies of the book. -
Second Edition of Leaves of Grass
In 1856, Whitman published a second version of Leaves of Grass that included 33 poems. -
Civil War
In the year 1862, Walt moved to Washington D.C. His brother. George Washington Whitman who fought for the Union, was in a hospital for a wound he suffered in the war.There Whitman also visited the wounded. He later published a new collection of poems called "Drum-Taps" in 1865. -
Lincoln's Assassination
After President Lincoln's assassination, Whitman wrote "O Captain! My Captain!" and "Where Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" in his honor and was included in a later edition of "Drum-Taps" -
Peter Doyle
In the years after the Civil War, Whitman continued to visit injured veterans. Also during this time he met Peter Doyle, a young Confederate soldier and train car conducter. As Walt began to become sick, Peter nursed him back to health. -
Getting Better
He continued to find work and continued on his writing. In 1870 he published two new collections, "Democratic Vistas" and "Passage to India". -
Commencement Address
He spent most of this year caring for his mother who was nearly 80 years old and suffering from arthritis. He also traveled and was invited to Dartmouth College to give the commencement address on June 26, 1872. -
Suffers Stroke
Whitman suffers his first stroke, which leaves him partially paralyzed. It is the first of several serious health problems that happens to Whitman in the last twenty years of his life -
Mother Dies
Exactly four months after his stroke, Whitman's mother Louisa dies. Walt moves in with his brother George in Camden, New Jersey. -
Second Stroke
Whitman suffers another stroke that causes paralysis. -
Final Edition of "Leaves of Grass"
Whitman writes the last edition of "Leaves of Grass". 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." -
Walt Whitman Dies
Walt Whitman dies at home in Camden at the age of 72. He is buried in Camden's Harleigh Cemetery.