Whitman's Southern Sojourn: Rediscovering the Poet in New Orleans, 1848 - Paperback

by Stefan Schöberlein (Author), Zachary Turpin (Author)

Walt Whitman's 1848 stint in New Orleans was a crucial moment of development for the poet. Working for The Daily Crescent, a new local newspaper, Whitman spent his days strolling through the multiracial city and turning his impressions into prose sketches, news items, and fiery editorials. While in the southern metropolis, the young journalist brushed shoulders with American soldiers returning from Mexico, cheered on European revolutions in the French Quarter, and explored raunchy performances at the St. Charles Theatre. Yet 1848 was also the year Whitman began lobbying for "Free Soil," after encountering in New Orleans, Creole citizens, enslaved Black people, and the slaveholder who would become America's next president.

Author Biography

Stefan Schöberlein is associate professor of English at Texas A&M University-Central Texas. He is author of Writing the Brain: Material Minds and Literature, 1800-1880, among others. He lives in Georgetown, Texas. Zachary Turpin is associate professor of American literature at the University of Idaho. He is coeditor of Every Hour, Every Atom: A Collection of Walt Whitman's Early Notebooks and Fragments (Iowa, 2020), among others. He lives in Moscow, Idaho.