Editing Walt Whitman (section)

===Career===
[[File:Walt Whitman, age 28, 1848.png|thumb|upright=1|Whitman at the age of 28 in 1848]]
The following summer Whitman worked for another printer, Erastus Worthington, in [[Brooklyn]].<ref name=Reynolds45>Reynolds, 45.</ref> His family moved back to [[West Hills, New York]], on [[Long Island]] in the spring, but Whitman remained and took a job at the shop of Alden Spooner, editor of the leading [[Whig Party (United States)|Whig]] weekly newspaper the ''Long-Island Star''.<ref name=Reynolds45/> While at the ''Star'', Whitman became a regular patron of the local library, joined a town debating society, began attending theater performances,<ref>Callow, 32.</ref> and anonymously published some of his earliest poetry in the ''[[New-York Mirror]]''.<ref>Kaplan, 79.</ref> At the age of 16 in May 1835, Whitman left the ''Star'' and Brooklyn.<ref>Kaplan, 77.</ref> He moved to New York City to work as a [[Compositor (typesetting)|compositor]]<ref>Callow, 35.</ref> though, in later years, Whitman could not remember where.<ref name=Kaplan81>Kaplan, 81.</ref> He attempted to find further work but had difficulty, in part due to a severe fire in the printing and publishing district,<ref name=Kaplan81/> and in part due to a general collapse in the economy leading up to the [[Panic of 1837]].<ref>Loving, 36.</ref> In May 1836, he rejoined his family, now living in [[Hempstead (village), New York|Hempstead, Long Island]].<ref>Callow, 36.</ref> Whitman taught intermittently at various schools until the spring of 1838, though he was not satisfied as a teacher.<ref>Loving, 37.</ref>

After his teaching attempts, Whitman returned to [[Huntington, New York]], to found his own newspaper, the ''[[Long Islander News|Long-Islander]]''. Whitman served as publisher, editor, pressman, and distributor and even provided home delivery. After ten months, he sold the publication to E. O. Crowell, whose first issue appeared on July 12, 1839.<ref name=Reynolds60>Reynolds, 60.</ref> There are no known surviving copies of the ''Long-Islander'' published under Whitman.<ref>Loving, 38.</ref> By the summer of 1839, he found a job as a typesetter in [[Jamaica, Queens]], with the ''Long Island Democrat'', edited by James J. Brenton.<ref name=Reynolds60/> He left shortly thereafter, and made another attempt at teaching from the winter of 1840 to the spring of 1841.<ref>Kaplan, 93–94.</ref> One story, possibly [[wikt:apocryphal|apocryphal]], tells of Whitman's being chased away from a teaching job in [[Southold, New York]], in 1840. After a local preacher called him a "[[Sodomy|Sodomite]]", Whitman was allegedly [[Tarring and feathering|tarred and feathered]]. Biographer [[Justin Kaplan]] notes that the story is likely untrue, because Whitman regularly vacationed in the town thereafter.<ref>Kaplan, 87.</ref> Biographer [[Jerome Loving]] calls the incident a "myth".<ref>Loving, 514.</ref> During this time, Whitman published a series of ten editorials, called "Sun-Down Papers—From the Desk of a Schoolmaster", in three newspapers between the winter of 1840 and July 1841. In these essays, he adopted a constructed persona, a technique he would employ throughout his career.<ref>Stacy, 25.</ref>

Whitman moved to New York City in May, initially working a low-level job at the ''New World'', working under [[Park Benjamin Sr.]] and [[Rufus Wilmot Griswold]].<ref>Callow, 56.</ref> He continued working for short periods of time for various newspapers; in 1842 he was editor of the ''[[The New York Aurora|Aurora]]'' and from 1846 to 1848 he was editor of the ''[[Brooklyn Eagle]]''.<ref>Stacy, 6.</ref> While working for the latter institution, many of his publications were in the area of music criticism, and it is during this time that he became a devoted lover of [[Italian opera]] through reviewing performances of works by [[Vincenzo Bellini|Bellini]], [[Donizetti]], and [[Verdi]]. This new interest had an impact on his writing in free verse. He later said, "But for the opera, I could never have written ''Leaves of Grass''."<ref>{{cite journal|title= Walt Whitman's Conversion To Opera|author=Brasher, Thomas L.|editor=Judith Tick, Paul E. Beaudoin|journal=Music in the USA: A Documentary Companion|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2008|page=207}}</ref>

Throughout the 1840s, Whitman contributed freelance fiction and poetry to various periodicals,<ref>Reynolds, 83–84.</ref> including ''[[Brother Jonathan (newspaper)|Brother Jonathan]]'' magazine edited by [[John Neal]].<ref>{{cite book | last = Merlob | first = Maya | editor2-last = Carlson | editor2-first = David J. | editor1-last = Watts | editor1-first = Edward | chapter = Chapter 5: Celebrated Rubbish: John Neal and the Commercialization of Early American Romanticism | title = John Neal and Nineteenth Century American Literature and Culture | publisher = Bucknell University Press | location = Lewisburg, Pennsylvania | year = 2012 | isbn = 978-1-61148-420-5 | page = 119, n18}}</ref> Whitman lost his position at the ''Brooklyn Eagle'' in 1848 after siding with the free-soil "[[Barnburners and Hunkers|Barnburner]]" wing of the Democratic party against the newspaper's owner, [[Isaac Van Anden]], who belonged to the conservative, or "[[Barnburners and Hunkers|Hunker]]", wing of the party.<ref>Stacy, 87–91.</ref> Whitman was a delegate to the 1848 founding convention of the [[Free Soil Party]], which was concerned about the threat slavery would pose to free white labor and northern businessmen moving into the newly colonized western territories. Abolitionist [[William Lloyd Garrison]] derided the party philosophy as "white manism".<ref name="google">{{cite book|title=Louisa May Alcott on Race, Sex, and Slavery|author1=Alcott, Louisa May|author2=Elbert, Sarah|author1-link=Louisa May Alcott|author2-link=Sarah Elbert |date=1997|publisher=Northeastern University Press|isbn=978-1555533076|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6g6kwxBDzxoC}}</ref>

In 1852, he serialized a novel, ''[[Life and Adventures of Jack Engle]]'', in six installments of New York's ''The Sunday Dispatch''.<ref name="jack" /> In 1858, Whitman published a 47,000 word series, ''Manly Health and Training'', under the pen name Mose Velsor.<ref name=schuessler>{{cite news|last= Schuessler |first= Jennifer |title= Found: Walt Whitman's Guide to 'Manly Health' |date= April 29, 2016 |access-date= May 1, 2016 |newspaper= [[The New York Times]] |url= https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/30/books/walt-whitman-promoted-a-paleo-diet-who-knew.html |quote= Now, Whitman's self-help-guide-meets-democratic-manifesto is being published online in its entirety by a scholarly journal, in what some experts are calling the biggest new Whitman discovery in decades.}}</ref><ref name= wwqr-vol33-iss3>{{cite journal|title= Special Double Issue: Walt Whitman's Newly Discovered 'Manly Health and Training' |date=Winter–Spring 2016 |access-date= May 1, 2016 |journal= Walt Whitman Quarterly Review |issn= 0737-0679 |volume=  33 |number= 3 |url= http://ir.uiowa.edu/wwqr/vol33/iss3/|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20160502103230/http://ir.uiowa.edu/wwqr/vol33/iss3/|url-status= dead|archive-date= May 2, 2016}}</ref> Apparently he drew the name Velsor from Van Velsor, his mother's family name.<ref>{{cite web |last= Whitman |first= Walt |title= Genealogy – Van Velsor and Whitman |type= excerpt from ''Specimen Days'' |year= 1882 |url= http://www.bartleby.com/229/1003.html |website= [[Bartleby.com]] |access-date= May 2, 2016 |quote= THE LATER years of the last century found the Van Velsor family, my mother's side, living on their own farm at Cold Spring, Long Island, New York State, ... |archive-date= May 5, 2016 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20160505124953/http://www.bartleby.com/229/1003.html |url-status= live }}</ref> This self-help guide recommends beards, nude sunbathing, comfortable shoes, bathing daily in cold water, eating meat almost exclusively, plenty of fresh air, and getting up early each morning. Present-day writers have called ''Manly Health and Training'' "quirky",<ref>{{cite web|last= Onion |first= Rebecca |title= Finding the Poetry in Walt Whitman's Newly Rediscovered Health Advice |date= May 2, 2016 |website= [[Slate.com]] |access-date= May 2, 2016 |url= http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2016/05/02/walt_whitman_s_manly_health_and_training_has_poetry_hidden_in_its_health.html |quote= a quirky document full of prescriptions that seem curiously modern}}</ref> "so over the top",<ref>{{cite journal |last= Cueto |first= Emma |title= Walt Whitman's Advice Book For Men Has Just Been Discovered And Its Contents Are Surprising |date= May 2, 2016 |journal= [[Bustle (magazine)|Bustle]] |access-date= May 2, 2016 |url= http://www.bustle.com/articles/158277-walt-whitmans-advice-book-for-men-has-just-been-discovered-and-its-contents-are-surprising |quote= And there are lots of other tidbits that, with a little modern rewording, would be right at home in the pages of a modern men's magazine—or even satirizing modern ideas about manliness because they're so over the top. |archive-date= May 8, 2016 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20160508070441/http://www.bustle.com/articles/158277-walt-whitmans-advice-book-for-men-has-just-been-discovered-and-its-contents-are-surprising |url-status= live }}</ref> "a pseudoscientific tract",<ref>{{cite journal|last= Turpin |first= Zachary |title= Introduction to Walt Whitman's 'Manly Health and Training' |date=Winter–Spring 2016 |journal= Walt Whitman Quarterly Review |issn= 0737-0679 |volume=  33 |number= 3 |page= 149 |doi=10.13008/0737-0679.2205 |quote= a pseudoscientific tract|doi-access= free }}</ref> and "wacky".<ref name=schuessler/>