{"id":183,"date":"2025-08-17T19:05:51","date_gmt":"2025-08-17T19:05:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/?page_id=183"},"modified":"2025-09-09T17:46:17","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T17:46:17","slug":"walt-whitman-i-hear-america-singing-1860","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/texts\/walt-whitman-i-hear-america-singing-1860\/","title":{"rendered":"Walt Whitman, \u201cI Hear America Singing\u201d (1860)"},"content":{"rendered":"

INTRODUCTION<\/h3>\n
\n
\n
\"Whitman\"<\/a>
Walt Whitman (Britannica)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Walt Whitman<\/a> (1819\u20131892) grew up in Long Island and Brooklyn, New York, apprenticing to become a printer until he turned to teaching and then eventually to journalism.\u00a0 Regardless, Whitman was devoted to reading and writing from an early age.\u00a0 he self-published his first volume of poetry, Leaves of Grass,\u00a0<\/em>in 1855 (where \u201cSong of Myself\u201d first appeared, untitled) and then kept revising and expanding the volume over the remaining decades of his life.\u00a0 Whitman first added “I Hear America Singing” to the 1860 edition.\u00a0 During the Civil War, Whitman returned to newspaper work, writing for New York newspapers as an occasional correspondent based in Washington, where he also volunteered as a nurse in wartime hospitals.\u00a0 \u00a0In the summer of 1863, Whitman wrote a column for the New York Times<\/em><\/a>\u00a0describing Abraham Lincoln, whom he noted he saw \u201calmost every day\u201d as the president rode into the White House from his summer cottage at the Soldiers\u2019 Home, a military community on the outskirts of town (and like a 19th-century Camp David presidential retreat).\u00a0 Whitman lived in Washington for years before eventually settling in New Jersey.\u00a0 He became celebrated as an American poet even before his death and especially in the years since.\u00a0 Dubbed \u201cAmerica\u2019s world poet,\u201d by the\u00a0Poetry Foundation<\/a>, and exalted as \u201ca latter-day successor to Homer, Virgil, Dante, and Shakespeare,\u201d Whitman today is regarded by many critics as the nation\u2019s greatest poet.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

I Hear America Singing<\/strong><\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,<\/span>
\nThose of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,<\/span>
\nThe carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,<\/span>
\nThe mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,<\/span>
\nThe boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,<\/span>
\nThe shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,<\/span>
\nThe wood-cutter\u2019s song, the ploughboy\u2019s on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,<\/span>
\nThe delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing,<\/span>
\nEach singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,<\/span>
\nThe day what belongs to the day\u2014at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,<\/span>
\nSinging with open mouths their strong melodious songs.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

INTRODUCTION Walt Whitman (1819\u20131892) grew up in Long Island and Brooklyn, New York, apprenticing to become a printer until he turned to teaching and then eventually to journalism.\u00a0 Regardless, Whitman was devoted to reading and writing from an early age.\u00a0 he self-published his first volume […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":373,"featured_media":0,"parent":258,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-183","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/373"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":621,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/183\/revisions\/621"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}