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 theatre performances at the St. Charles Theater. 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.
Far from some brief escape, New Orleans was a significant milestone in Whitman’s development as a political firebrand, as well as a major step for a professional journalist on the rise. Through a wealth of new texts, contexts, and personalities, Stefan Schöberlein and Zachary Turpin paint a vivid picture of a writer on the verge of Leaves of Grass, embracing the contradictions and the multitudes of New Orleans.
“Whitman’s tenure at the Crescent has long been the subject of speculation. While many scholars have suspected the consequence of Whitman’s time in New Orleans, Whitman’s Southern Sojourn reveals the substance of this period through exciting discoveries and compelling claims. It will be the authority on Whitman’s southern sojourn for years to come.”—Jason Stacy, author, Walt Whitman’s Multitudes: Labor Reform and Persona in Whitman’s Journalism and the First Leaves of Grass, 1840–1855
“Whitman’s few months in 1848 New Orleans have long been seen as both a crucial—and fairly mysterious—episode in his development. I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard someone say how much we need a book on the subject. At long last, that book is now here. Schöberlein and Turpin have given us an invaluable study.”—T. R. Johnson, author, New Orleans: A Writer’s City
