Paul Salveson: With Walt Whitman in Bolton: Spirituality, Sex and Socialism in a Northern Mill Town (2008)

With Walt Whitman in Bolton? Yes, that's the Walt Whitman, and the Bolton is in Lancashire, UK. The title is an allusion to Horace Traubel's With Walt Whitman in Camden (New Jersey), and is a booklet that reveals a little-known (well, to me at least) aspect of the poet's life, and it also reveals the effect that Walt Whitman (1819–92) had on the United Kingdom, and English socialism in particular.

Paul Salveson has a PhD in Lancashire Dialect Literature, and this is clearly a summation of a great deal of study that the author has made into the relationship between the US poet and a group of people in Bolton (and indeed elsewhere in the country) who can collectively be called 'Bolton Whitmanites'.

'Eagle Street College' wasn't a college at all, although it was at number 14 Eagle Street in Bolton that J. W. Wallace lived for a time, and where a group of men met. There were a number of Bolton Whitmanites, although the core consisted of Wallace (the son of a millwright), cotton waste merchant Fred Wild, and Dr Jon Johnson, a Bolton G.P. The group began meeting in 1885, after the death of Wallace's mother. They began by reading several poets, although Whitman was soon singled out as the principal point of interest.

Wallace and Johnston first sent the ageing poet birthday greetings in 1887, and regular correspondence followed until very close to his death on 26 March. Both Wallace and Johnston visited Whitman, Johnston's first journey being in the summer of 1890. Salveson says that the Bolton Library archive (which  incidentally includes Whitman's stuffed canary) is one of the best outside the States.

'Whitman Day' – held on 31 May, the poet's birthday – continued to be celebrated in Bolton long after his death, and latterly it appears to have been run by the Bolton Socialist Club. However, I can't find any reference after 2014, and all links to the club seem broken: I hope it's not closed down.

A fascinating publication. Wisely, perhaps, Whitman denied his homosexuality, although there's a splendid undated photo that shows Edward Carpenter clasping Charles Sixsmith's thigh with an obvious mixture of pride and defiance!

'Walt Whitman: The Commercialization of an American Icon' by Ed Centeno

On seeing my blog post here following my visit to Walt Whitman's birthplace in Huntington Station, Long Island last year, Ed Centeno emailed me last month with several examples of his very large collection of Whitman memorabilia. I could see a good opportunity for another post, and here I include a number of images from Ed's collection which he very kindly sent me. I leave the images to speak for themselves as most of them are largely self-explanatory, although I should add that the pictures of the house are in Camden, N. J., where Whitman lived for a number of years until his death in 1892. I've yet to go to Camden, and Ed's photos toward the end of this selection show Whitman's grave in the local cemetery. I now leave all the talking to Ed:

 

'My 27 years with Walt have been and continue to be rewarding, challenging, and inspiring. My intention has always been to exhibit rather than write or lecture about my Walt Whitman Collection. When devotion and passion are given to something you truly enjoy, it’s inevitable that audiences will be curious to see what you collect and interested in learning why you collect. 

'The primary focus of the collection is the commercialization of Whitman’s name, image, and body of works in memorabilia, ephemeral material, commercial products, fine art, and digital format. My reason for this madness is to enrich my knowledge of the past, preserve the aspect of collecting for future generations, and acquaint myself with the phenomenon of Whitman’s popularity.

'This fascination humbly began while I was researching material for an article about American poets on stamps. To my astonishment along the way I learned that the Walt Whitman House in Camden, New Jersey, was only several miles from where I lived as a teenager. I soon discovered that Walt has been depicted on advertising for cigars (ironically he never smoked), coffee, beer (he also never drank), insurance, and the list goes on and on! There are also places named after him—the Walt Whitman bridge, high schools, a shopping mall, parks, apartment building, bookstores, just to name a few.'

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

'To see more of my collection, learn about upcoming Whitman events, and read more about his poetry, please visit the following links:

http://rivertonhistory.com/2015/03/walt-whitman-i-finally-heard-him-singing-thanks-to-ed-centeno/ (showing a portion of my collection)

http://www.waltwhitman.org/ (Walt Whitman Birthplace)

http://www.whitmanarchive.org/ (Walt Whitman website)

http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/whitman/ (Library of Congress Archives)

Centeno_005@hotmail.com (my personal email)

songofmyselfmarathon@gmail.com (12th annual marathon reading “Song of Myself”)'

Walt Whitman in Huntington Station, Long Island, NY

The Walt Whitman Birthplace State Historic Site and Interpretive Center. It was built by his carpenter father (also Walt Whitman) in about 1816 and the future poet was born here in 1819. He left when he was four years old.

The house as it was in 1903, published in the monthly periodical The Four-Track News in August 1904.

As this beautifully preserved house looks today, with the well in the foreground.

And there were no restrictions on indoor photography. This is the ground (or first) floor sitting room with fireplace and cupboard below. The furniture is of the period, but none of it is from the original house.

The stairs, showing the odd small top step.

The kitchen.

The exit door.

'TO MARK THE BIRTHPLACE OF
WALT WHITMAN
THE OLD GRAY POET
BORN MARCH 31, 1819.

Erected by the Colonial Society
of Huntington in 1905.'

'WALT WHITMAN
BY JOHN GIANNOTTI

NEW HISTORY! NEW HEROES! I PROJECT YOU YOU!
VISIONS OF POETS! ONLY YOU REALLY LAST! SWEEP ON!

WALT WHITMAN

WALT WHITMAN, MY SUN!
LIGHT MY WAY, SHINE ON FOREVER!

DAISAKU IKEDA

COMMEMORATING THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF DAISAKU IKEDA'S
VISIT TO NEW YORK ON OCTOBER 13, 1960'

Bust by Justin C. Mayer.

'Walt Whitman

Warren Wheelock, c. 1940
Carved from butternut wood

Gift of Oscar Lion'

'Poets to Come

Poets to come, orators, singers, musicians to come!

Not to-day is to justify me and answer what I am for,

But you, a new brood, native, athletic,

continental, never before known,

Arouse! for you must justify me.

Leaves of Grass, 1855'

Whitman taught school from the age of seventeen, beginning his four-year period in the summer of 1836. He taught in a number of places and this is his desk from Woodbury, Long Island, from 1840. In Smithtown the schoolhouse only had one room and he had eighty-five students. He became a strong advocate of educational reform.

Whitman was also known for having published a local paper called The Long Islander. This is a similar type of press he used to print his newspaper.

Whitman's original printing materials.

'Walt Whitman as a Young Man

Joy Buba, 1953
Plasticene bust
Gift of the artist'

'Walt Whitman as an Old Man

Joy Buba, 1953
Plasticene bust
Gift of the artist'

CONCORD, Mass'tts, July 21, 1855.

DEAR SIR, I am not blind to the worth of the wonderful gift of "LEAVES OF GRASS." I find it the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed. I am very happy in reading it, as great power makes us happy. It meets the demand I am always making of what seemed the sterile and stingy nature, as if too much handiwork, or too much lymph in the temperament, were making our western wits fat and mean.

I give you joy of your free and brave thought. I have great joy in it. I find incomparable things said incomparably well, as they must be. I find the courage of treatment which so delights us, and which large perception only can inspire.

I greet you at the beginning of a great career, which yet must have had a long foreground somewhere, for such a start. I rubbed my eyes a little to see if this sunbeam were no illusion; but the solid sense of the book is a sober certainty. It has the best merits, namely, of fortifying and encouraging.
I did not know, until I last night saw the book advertised in a newspaper, that I could trust the name as real and available for a post-office. I wish to see my benefactor, and have felt much like striking my tasks and visiting New-York to pay you my respects.

R. W. EMERSON.

I have to add that the staff here were extremely helpful and even gave me full directions for the drive back to JFK: unfortunately, this was our final day.