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Walt Whitman's Birthday! He was the second of nine children born to Louisa Van Velsor Whitman and Sir Walter Whitman. He was named Walter, after his father, but nicknamed walt to distinguish him from his father.
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Walt's Father insists they move to Brooklyn, across the east river beside New York in order to try to fix their financial crisis.
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Whitman's Father pulls Walt out of school at age 11, and forces him to get a job to help with financial crisis. He finds work as an office boy, and then apprentices as a printer for a local newspaper called the "Patriot".
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From 1836-1841 Whitman teaches school on Long Islad. He stops inbetween teaching in for two years (1838-1839) to publish a weekly newspaper called the 'Long Islander'.
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Whitman publishes his first novel, Franklin Evans; or The Inebriate. The novel is popular, though Whitman himself later describe it as "rot."
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Whitman finds an antislavery newspaper called the Weekly Freeman. The paper's offices are burned almost immediately after the first issue is published.
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Leaves Of Grass- Walt Whitmans very admired poetry book is published for the first time ever. Later, it will be recalled six times for editing.
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Whitman publishes a second edition of Leaves Of Grass
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The Civil War begins. Whitman's younger brother George joins the Union Army.
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After hearing news of his brother being wounded in the war- Whiman travels to Frederiksburg, Virgina. Georges injury is minor, but Walt is convinced to stay and tend as a nurse to other wounded veterans. While here, Whitman meets 21 year old Peter Doyle, who he later shares an intimate reelationship with.
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Whitman suffers his first stroke, leaving him partially paralyzed. This is the first of several serious health problems Walt will face in the last twenty years of his life.
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A second stroke paralyzes the right side of Walt Whitmans body.
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Whitman appears on stage in New York to give a lecture on President Lincoln. Many elebrities attend, Including writer Mark Twain, author and future secretary of state John Hay, U.S. Army commander William Tecumseh Sherman.
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Walter Whitman, who died only four days ago, was built a tomb and placed inside. The tomb remains today in the Harleigh Cemetery, in Camden, New Jersey.
