Walt Whitman, Sexuality, and Intimacy: 1819-1892
This is a stub article started by Jonathan Ned Katz on June 29, 2008 -- gay pride day in New York City -- I think Whitman would appreciate that!
I hope that users will help to collectively create this entry, making it the most comprehensive existing timeline and list of primary and secondary sources on Whitman, sexuality, and intimacy.
After that work is done we can collectively add a narrative history on the subject of Whitman, sexuality, and intimacy.
If you collaborate on creating this entry, please list your name in alphabetical order in the list of entry creators at the end of this section.
Timeline on Walt Whitman, Sexuality and Intimacy
December 1840. While a teacher in a Southold, Long Island school, Whitman is reputedly run out of town when a parent becomes irate over what he considered Whitman's undue familiarity with his son, one of Whitman's students. See Katherine Molinoff, Walt Whitman at Southold (Smithtown, n.p., 1966), privately printed; also David S. Reynolds Walt Whitman's America (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995), pp. 70-73.
1855, month, day: Whitman publishes first edition of Leaves of Grass. Citation
May 1856 to May 1859. Sometime during this period, Walt Whitman is believed to have lived with his first known lover, Fred Vaughan, in Whitman's family home on Classon Avenue in Brooklyn. See Charley Shively, editor, Calamus Lovers: Walt Whitman's Working Class Camerados (San Francisco: Gay Sunshine Press, 1987), pp. 36-50.
1856, month, day: Whitman publishes second edition of Leaves of Grass. Citation?
1860, month, day: Whitman publishes third edition of Leaves of Grass. Citation?
September 18, 1862. Whitman learns the news of the battlefield death of Union soldier Bill Giggee, as relayed by his surviving comrade, Arthur Giggee. Whitman uses the circumstances of Bill's death & Arthur's response in the Drum Taps poem, "Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night." See Martin G. Murray, "Responding Kisses: New Evidence about the Origins of 'Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night,'" Walt Whitman Quarterly Review (Spring 2008, 25:4), 192-197.
January to March 1865. Whitman meets his second known lover, Pete Doyle, a former Confederate soldier who is working as a streetcar conductor in Washington, DC. See Martin G. Murray, "'Pete the Great: A Biography of Peter Doyle," Walt Whitman Quarterly Review (Summer 1994, 12:1), 13.
year, month, day: Whitman meets Harry Stafford. Citation?
July 12, 1874. Edward Carpenter, who would gain prominence as a British Fabian Socialist, sends his first letter to Walt Whitman. See Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, edited by Edwin Haviland Miller (New York: New York University Press, 1964), 3: 41n.
February 14, 1876. Bram Stoker sends a letter to Whitman that he had written two years prior, on February 18, 1872. See Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, edited by Edwin Haviland Miller (New York: New York University Press, 1964), 3: 28.
May 1, 1877. Carpenter pays his first visit to Walt Whtman, and remains through the end of June. Carpenter later recalled that he and Whitman were sexually intimate during this visit. See Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, edited by Edwin Haviland Miller (New York: New York University Press, 1964), 3: 82n, 89n, 95n. See also Edward Carpenter, Days with Walt Whitman, With Some Notes on His Life and Work (London: George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., 1921 (reprint of 2nd editition, December 1906; first edtion published May 1906)), 3-4, 32. See also, Martin G. Murray, "Walt Whitman, Edward Carpenter, Gavin Arthur, and The Circle of Sex," Walt Whitman Quarterly Review (Spring 2005, 22:4), 194-198.
January 1882. Oscar Wilde visits Walt Whitman in Camden. See Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, edited by Edwin Haviland Miller (New York: New York University Press, 1964), 3: 263.
June 1884. Edward Carpenter made his second visit to Walt Whitman in Camden. See Walt Whitman, Daybooks, 1876-1891, p. 337.
year, month, day: Whitman meets Oscar Wilde for the second time. Citation?
April 1884. Bram Stoker in the company of British actor Henry Irving meets Walt Whitman in Camden. See Gay Wilson Allen, The Solitary Singer, p. 516.
December 22, 1887. Bram Stoker pays a second visit to Walt Whitman in Camden. See Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, edited by Edwin Haviland Miller (New York: New York University Press, 1964), 4: 41n.
year, month, day: Mrs. Gilchrist first writes to Whitman. (what's her name?) year, month, day: Mrs. Gilchrist first visits Whitman.
Primary Sources on Whitman, Sexuality, and Intimacy
Whitman, Walt. [sex manifesto in Leaves of Grass 1856]
Secondary Sources on Whitman, Sexuality, and Intimacy
Katz, Jonathan Ned. Love Stories: Sex Between Men Before Homosexuality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001).
Charley Shively, editor, Calamus Lovers: Walt Whitman's Working Class Camerados (San Francisco: Gay Sunshine Press, 1987).
Martin G. Murray, "'Pete the Great: A Biography of Peter Doyle," Walt Whitman Quarterly Review (Summer 1994, 12:1), 1-51.
Martin G. Murray, "Walt Whitman, Edward Carpenter, Gavin Arthur, and The Circle of Sex," Walt Whitman Quarterly Review (Spring 2005, 22:4), 194-198.
Martin G. Murray, "Responding Kisses: New Evidence about the Origins of 'Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night,'" Walt Whitman Quarterly Review (Spring 2008, 25:4), 192-197.
Narrative History Focusing on Walt Whitman, Sexuality, and Intimacy
To be written after Timeline and Bibliographies are filled out a bit.
Creators of this Entry Listed Alphabetically by Last Name
Katz, Jonathan Ned
Murray, Martin G.
