Rainbow History's Whitman in DC walking tour

Walt Whitman, the great American poet whose works resonate with many gay men and women, lived in Washington, DC from 1863 to 1873.  He arrived to search for his brother George, reportedly wounded in the fighting around Fredericksburg, VA.  Whitman became an attentive visitor for wounded soldiers in Washington, DC.  Much of his time was spent at the Armory Square Hospital, at 6th St. SW, on the site of the present National Air and Space Museum.  His original intention to stay two weeks stretched into ten years.

It was also in Washington, DC that Whitman met Peter Doyle, his great love, in the winter of 1865 on the streetcar that ran between the Navy Yard and Georgetown.  At the time, Doyle was working as a conductor on the streetcars.

While in Washington, DC Whitman created some of his most memorable works.  During this period he wrote Drum-Taps, Democratic Vistas,  and Passage to India.   Whitman's published newspaper correspondence and personal notebook entries made during his Washington years served as the basis for later prose works, Memoranda During the War (1875) and Specimen Days and Collect (1882).

During his years in Washington, DC, Whitman worked as a government clerk, principally in the Attorney General's office.

Also during his time here, Whitman's own health deteriorated.  Illness forced him to return to Brooklyn, NY for six months convalescence after which he returned to Washington.  In 1873, a debilitating stroke led him to move to Camden, New Jersey where he lived with his brother George until Whitman's death in 1892.

Kim Roberts has prepared very valuable documentation of Whitman's presence in Washington, DC.

Walt Whitman in Washington, DC: http://washingtonart.com/beltway/whitman.html

Where Whitman lived in Washington, DC:  http://washingtonart.com/beltway/whitman2.html

Where Whitman worked:  http://washingtonart.com/beltway/whitman3.html

Additional sources on Whitman:  http://washingtonart.com/beltway/whitman4.html
 

Martin Murray, founder of the Washington Friends of Walt Whitman, provided the sources for this brief review of Whitman's Washington years and reviewed the text.  Murray's articles on Whitman include
 

A biography of Peter Doyle: http://www.iath.virginia.edu/whitman/archive1/biography/supplementary/doyle/index.html

Whitman's work with the wounded: http://www.iath.virginia.edu/whitman/criticism/murraywounded/

The Winter/Spring 2003 issue of Walt Whitman Quarterly Review carries a report of Murray's discovery of two previously unknown documents: "Two Pieces of Uncollected Whitman Journalism: 'Washington as a Central Winter Residence' and 'The Authors of Washington'."
 

In 1978, when several separate LGBT health organizations incorporated as the city's central gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered health center, they chose the name Whitman-Walker for the new clinic, in honor of the work of Walt Whitman and Dr. Mary Walker in this city.

OTHER RESOURCES:

The Whitman Archive at the University of Virginia: http://www.whitmanarchive.org/
The Library of Congress collection of Whitman's notebooks at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wwhtml/wwhome.html

Walt Whitman's Wartime Washington, by Angel Price:   http://xroads.virginia.edu/~CAP/hospital/whitman.htm