Whitman’s Carriage Stoop

      In his later years in Camden, Walt Whitman began receiving many generous gifts and loans. Throughout Camden, Philadelphia, and Southern New Jersey, his network of rich, gift giving, friends had grown very large. For example, his Camden house, at 328 Mickle Street, was purchased for $1,750, of which $1250 dollars came from book royalties, but the other $500 was a loan from his friend George W. Childs. (Reynolds 546) And another generous gift, in May 1887, the journalist and author William Sloane Kennedy started a summerhouse fund for Whitman. The fund came to Whitman in the amounts of $323 dollars and then another $465 sent later. However, Whitman never used the money for a summerhouse; instead he added the money to his personal savings. (Reynolds 554) In 1885, Whitman’s horse and buggy was another, overwhelmingly generous, gift.

      The horse and buggy was quite significant. Whitman was 66 when he received the carriage. It was a particularly thoughtful gift. Although, there were means of public transportation available, for example, Justin Kaplan specifically notes the noise and proximity of the trains and ferries that were close to the Mickle Street residence, “night and day trains of the Camden and Amboy Railroad puffed and rattled along about a hundred yards away from the house. It was also earshot of factory whistles, shipping on the Delaware, and the ferry terminal.”(Kaplan 14) As Whitman aged, he began to express troubles with traveling around in the growing city of Camden. The carriage provided a source of an easier, personal transportation.

      Prior to the carriage, Whitman was nearly a forced shut in. Being house ridden was especially criminal to a poet like Whitman, who was inspired through his surroundings whether they were rural like his child hood in Long Island or urban like his experiences in Brooklyn, Manhattan, or his then current city, Camden. The adventurous poet could not have been very inspired with out means of exploring his environments.  

      The rumor of Whitman’s distress started to make its way around his social circles. His network of friends reacted with considerable aid. Thomas Donaldson, a Philadelphia lawyer, had previously obtained free ferry passages for Whitman, a noteworthy gesture, since it was obvious that Whitman enjoyed ferry trips, a better-known Whitman poem is “Crossing the Brooklyn Ferry”. The free passages were also Whitman’s only way into Philadelphia, since the Ben Franklin Bridge was not opened for another 40 years or so in 1926. It was also Thomas Donaldson who eventually secures the horse and buggy for Whitman. It arrives in front of Whitman’s 328 Mickle Street residence on September 17, 1885. Whitman immediately takes a liking to his new carriage. He seemed to have enjoyed the speed so much that he sells his first horse Frank for a faster one named Nettie. He used the carriage often until his second stroke in 1888, when he gave the horse and buggy up for good. (Reynolds 553)

     The carriage step must have been installed into the front sidewalk of the Mickle Street residence sometime between 1885 and 1888, which places its age around 121 years old. It is certainly surprising that the stoop stayed so undisturbed for such a considerable amount of time. The picture above shows the clear engraving of Whitman’s initials. The stoop remains in front of the house as a reminder of Whitman’s need for adventure and the generous friends he held around the Camden area.

Works Cited

Dooley, Joseph S. Whitman Carriage Step. Digital image. 21 Nov. 2009. Web.

Kaplan, Justin. Walt Whitman a life.

           New York: Perennial, 2003. Print.

Midnightdreary. Walt Whitamn House in Camden. Digital image. Wikimedia Commons.

Wikipedia.org, 13 Oct. 2007. Web. 21 Nov. 2009.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:WhitmanHouse-CamdenNJ1.jpg.

Reynolds, David S. Walt Whitman’s America A Cultural Biography.

            New York: Vintage, 1996. Print.

Whitman’s Carriage Stoop

Works Cited

Close-up of Raw Wool

Pre-Civil War, cotton was the primary material used to create clothing. The product was relatively cheap (labor cost, obviously, was not an issue) and there were not tariffs on the material, keeping production overhead relatively low. With the onset of the Civil War, however, wartime activity cut numerous supply lines to the North, which dealt primarily with manufacturing. One of these supply lines happened to be the supply of raw cotton that Northern manufacturers relied upon to produce clothing.

With these limitations in place, Civil-War America had “a textile industry which could not get a fraction of all the cotton it wanted, [so it] turned increasingly to the production of woolen fabrics (here likewise government requirements had skyrocketed), and the market for raw wool was never livelier” (Catton 159). The changes in manufacturing also brought on changes in clothing styles during the early-to-mid 1860s. The standardization of men’s clothing became a movement in the clothing industry in the 1860s, whereas in the 1850s men had a certain amount of latitude with the way they dressed.

Walt Whitman himself participated in this change in fashion: “Whitman dressed differently from before. That was the first thing John Townsend Trowbridge noticed when he visited Whitman in Washington late in 1863” (Reynolds 432). What Trowbridge noted was the transformation in Whitman’s style of clothing from the rebellious, colorful “loafer” of the 1850s, to the more somber, reserved Whitman of the 1960s. Whitman’s transformation in fashion also led to a conflict in the perception of the poet by his friends and admirers: “As for Burroughs’s claim that Whitman was no rough but instead clean and wholesome, it had some validity with regard to the public, postbellum Whitman, with his simple woolen suits and sparkling white linen shirts” (460). This transformation in Whitman’s style, and the fashion of the period in general, was not a coincidence or the whim of fashion, “changing clothing styles signified larger changes in society and culture” (432). The weak government of the antebellum period transformed itself into a powerful agent in America’s culture and Whitman became a part of the “war machine” during the decade he spent in Washington, D.C.. He was now the good grey bard.

However, this was not the only connection that wool had to Whitman’s life. Even years after the initial effects of the Civil War (roughly twenty years, to be exact) wool was still having an impact on Whitman’s life because of where he lived—Camden. Right across the river from Philadelphia, a major industrial hub, Camden itself benefited from the increased need for wool.

The Camden Woolen Mills, which shared a building with a dying factory, were located at 611 Cooper Street and were just one example of the numerous businesses dealing with worsted wool in Camden, NJ in the 1880s and 1890s, towards the end of Walt Whitman’s life. With the increased popularity and demand for woolen goods, however, came the “threat” of foreign competition. During the 1880s and 1890s, one of the most hotly contested actions of government interacting with industry was the debate over tariffs on wool. American wool was considered expensive and of a poorer quality than that which could be obtained through trade with foreign producers of wool. The “average rate of duty on manufactures of woolens in 1887 was 67.21 per cent” (New York Times Sep 24, 1888), whereas under the proposed bill it would be lowered to a uniform rate of 40 percent. Opinions varied greatly as to the effects of this lowered tariff, arguing that it would destroy domestic industry (New York Times Mar 7 1883), or that it would prove beneficial to consumers because of the lowered cost of production (New York Times Sep 24, 188) and prove to cause little harm to domestic industry (Town Topics July 26 1888). By January of 1890, two years before the death of Whitman, the issue was finally being weighed by the Committee of Ways and Means in the House of Representatives. The decision of the Ways and Means Committee lead to the creation of the McKinley Tariff Act.

Works Cited

Catton, Bruce. The Civil War. New York, NY: The American Heritage Library, 1988.

Cohen, Phil. “611 Cooper Street, 1920s.” DVRBS.com. <http://www.dvrbs.com/camden-streets/CamdenStreets/Cooper-605-1920s-1b.jpg>

cyphs-stockup. “Cotton Bowl.” Deviantart.com. 17 Oct 2003. <http://cyphs-stockup.deviantart.com/art/Cotton-Bowl-3475420>

“Free Wool Demanded.” New York Times 3 Jan 1890: 5. Print.

Gardner, Alexander. “Walt Whitman.” Alderman Library, University of Virginia, 1863. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org/multimedia/images/large/012.jpg>

gatagataa-no. “Wool.” Deviantart.com. 25 Sep 2005. <http://gatagataa-no.deviantart.com/art/Wool-22953533>

“Opinions on the Tariff.” New York Times 7 Mar 1883: 2. Print.

Reynolds, David S.. Walt Whitman’s America: A Cultural Biography. New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1996.

“Saunterings.” Town Topics 26 July 1888: 12. Print.

“Woolen Goods and Their Consumers.” New York Times 24 Sep 1888: 5. Print.

Close-up of Raw Wool

Pre-Civil War, cotton was the primary material used to create clothing. The product was relatively cheap (labor cost, obviously, was not an issue) and there were not tariffs on the material, keeping production overhead relatively low. With the onset of the Civil War, however, wartime activity cut numerous supply lines to the North, which dealt primarily with manufacturing. One of these supply lines happened to be the supply of raw cotton that Northern manufacturers relied upon to produce clothing.

With these limitations in place, Civil-War America had “a textile industry which could not get a fraction of all the cotton it wanted, [so it] turned increasingly to the production of woolen fabrics (here likewise government requirements had skyrocketed), and the market for raw wool was never livelier” (Catton 159). The changes in manufacturing also brought on changes in clothing styles during the early-to-mid 1860s. The standardization of men’s clothing became a movement in the clothing industry in the 1860s, whereas in the 1850s men had a certain amount of latitude with the way they dressed.

Walt Whitman himself participated in this change in fashion: “Whitman dressed differently from before. That was the first thing John Townsend Trowbridge noticed when he visited Whitman in Washington late in 1863” (Reynolds 432). What Trowbridge noted was the transformation in Whitman’s style of clothing from the rebellious, colorful “loafer” of the 1850s, to the more somber, reserved Whitman of the 1960s. Whitman’s transformation in fashion also led to a conflict in the perception of the poet by his friends and admirers: “As for Burroughs’s claim that Whitman was no rough but instead clean and wholesome, it had some validity with regard to the public, postbellum Whitman, with his simple woolen suits and sparkling white linen shirts” (460). This transformation in Whitman’s style, and the fashion of the period in general, was not a coincidence or the whim of fashion, “changing clothing styles signified larger changes in society and culture” (432). The weak government of the antebellum period transformed itself into a powerful agent in America’s culture and Whitman became a part of the “war machine” during the decade he spent in Washington, D.C.. He was now the good grey bard.

However, this was not the only connection that wool had to Whitman’s life. Even years after the initial effects of the Civil War (roughly twenty years, to be exact) wool was still having an impact on Whitman’s life because of where he lived—Camden. Right across the river from Philadelphia, a major industrial hub, Camden itself benefited from the increased need for wool.

The Camden Woolen Mills, which shared a building with a dying factory, were located at 611 Cooper Street and were just one example of the numerous businesses dealing with worsted wool in Camden, NJ in the 1880s and 1890s, towards the end of Walt Whitman’s life. With the increased popularity and demand for woolen goods, however, came the “threat” of foreign competition. During the 1880s and 1890s, one of the most hotly contested actions of government interacting with industry was the debate over tariffs on wool. American wool was considered expensive and of a poorer quality than that which could be obtained through trade with foreign producers of wool. The “average rate of duty on manufactures of woolens in 1887 was 67.21 per cent” (New York Times Sep 24, 1888), whereas under the proposed bill it would be lowered to a uniform rate of 40 percent. Opinions varied greatly as to the effects of this lowered tariff, arguing that it would destroy domestic industry (New York Times Mar 7 1883), or that it would prove beneficial to consumers because of the lowered cost of production (New York Times Sep 24, 188) and prove to cause little harm to domestic industry (Town Topics July 26 1888). By January of 1890, two years before the death of Whitman, the issue was finally being weighed by the Committee of Ways and Means in the House of Representatives. The decision of the Ways and Means Committee lead to the creation of the McKinley Tariff Act.

Works Cited

Catton, Bruce. The Civil War. New York, NY: The American Heritage Library, 1988.

Cohen, Phil. “611 Cooper Street, 1920s.” DVRBS.com. <http://www.dvrbs.com/camden-streets/CamdenStreets/Cooper-605-1920s-1b.jpg>

cyphs-stockup. “Cotton Bowl.” Deviantart.com. 17 Oct 2003. <http://cyphs-stockup.deviantart.com/art/Cotton-Bowl-3475420>

“Free Wool Demanded.” New York Times 3 Jan 1890: 5. Print.

Gardner, Alexander. “Walt Whitman.” Alderman Library, University of Virginia, 1863. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org/multimedia/images/large/012.jpg>

gatagataa-no. “Wool.” Deviantart.com. 25 Sep 2005. <http://gatagataa-no.deviantart.com/art/Wool-22953533>

“Opinions on the Tariff.” New York Times 7 Mar 1883: 2. Print.

Reynolds, David S.. Walt Whitman’s America: A Cultural Biography. New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1996.

“Saunterings.” Town Topics 26 July 1888: 12. Print.

“Woolen Goods and Their Consumers.” New York Times 24 Sep 1888: 5. Print.

Pfaff’s was the perfect place for writers and literary types to come and drink while sharing their writings and opinions of other writers. Patrons were known to stand and recite their new works before having them published. Some of the most famous patrons of Pfaff’s were, “Ada Clare, the Queen of Bohemia…the actress Adah Isaacs Menken…the fictionist Fitz-James O’Brien…(author) Fitz-Hugh Ludlow…Artemus Ward, the comedian…the picturesque poet N.G. Shephard and the Poesque tale writer Charles D. Gardette” (Reynolds 377). Perhaps the most famous patrons of all were Walt Whitman and Henry Clapp Jr., the King of the Bohemians. Clapp was born in Nantucket but spent many years in Paris. His writing was considered controversial and his most controversial move of all was creating the Saturday Press. Miller writes that the Saturday Press was a, “mix of radical politics, personal freedom, naïveté, silliness, realism, sexual frankness, and exuberance…” (89). The Press allowed Clapp to publish his views and to also highlight the works of authors that he appreciated. One of these authors was Walt Whitman and his works “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking” and “O Captain! My Captain!” among dozens of other items. Unfortunately the Press was plagued with financial troubles and only existed for a year before it had to be shut down. Clapp was not to give up without a fight. Purely through strength of will Clapp reopened the Press in 1865 for two weeks, just long enough to publish “Oh Captain! My Captain!” and “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” which catapulted Mark Twain to fame. Clapp, as the King of Bohemia, sat at the head of the table at Pfaff’s while Whitman usually took his place to the side at a separate table.

Although Whitman was touted as the “reigning luminary” (Burrows & Wallace 711)  Whitman did not come to Pfaff’s to be the center of attention. As he himself stated, “My own greatest pleasure at Pfaff’s was to look on – to see, talk little, absorb. I was never a great discusser, anyway”. This is not to say that Whitman was entirely silent, he was known to read new works aloud as well as to become embroiled in tiffs with other writers. Whitman wrote of Thomas Bailey Aldrich’s The Bells, “Yes, Tom, I like your tinkles: I like them very well” (Parry 41). He also made a short term enemy with George Arnold. Parry writes that George Arnold one night made the mistake of toasting the South. Whitman, a proud Yankee, jumped up and gave a long patriotic speech (quite unlike his placid Pfaffian demeanor) to which Arnold responded with a tug on Whitman’s beard (42).  Quarrels were to be expected because of the very nature of Pfaff’s; it was a place that encouraged drinking and liberal speech simultaneously.

Liberality reigned supreme in many forms. An important aspect of Pfaff’s was its female presence. Ada Claire was far and beyond the Queen. She was the trail blazer for all women who were to eventually find company at Pfaff’s, but she was also the woman to stay the longest. Ada was considered by Whitman to be born ahead of her time (Parry 14). Although she wrote love poems, she was really famous for her utter disregard of social norms. Ada Claire flaunted her love affairs and her illegitimate child born of one such affair, she smoked and drank with the Pfaffian men, and she took to the stage in order to achieve fame (Miller 91-92). Alongside Claire was Adah Isaacs Menken, known as, “a writer and actress and heroine of celebrated off-stage adventures” (Kaplan 243). Like Claire, Menken’s life was full of romantic drama and an illegitimate child. But unlike Claire, Menken found more success on stage when she stared in Mazeppa a play in which she was strapped to a horse practically naked. Adah Isaacs Menken was a great fan of Whitman and aligned him with Edgar Allen Poe, the Patron saint of the Pfaffians.

Poe came to rule over the Pfaffian crowd for obvious reasons. For one, he was a maligned writer who was unappreciated in his time. For two, the Pfaffians related well with Poe’s melancholic nature, no doubt enhanced for them by their drinking. In their own way, many of the Pfaffians emulated Poe. Whitman himself went down the melancholic road when he wrote in Two Vaults, “The Vault at Pfaff’s where the drinkers and laughers meet to eat and drink and carouse, While on the walk immediately overhead pass the myriad feet of Broadway As the dead in their graves are underfoot hidden”. Fitz-James O’Brien patterned his stories after Poe and Charled D. Gardette was called a “Poesque tale writer” (Reynolds 377). Poe’s influence created  duplicity in the lives of the Pfaffians; on one hand they were care-free revelers, on the other hand they took up melancholic airs to reflect him. The symbolism of Poe gave the otherwise aimless group something to appear to fight against, namely Capitalism and the emerging middle class. Although the group had aspersions to toss not only at the middle class but also the slavery allies, they were not activists for progression or change. Reynolds writes, “It was they (the Pfaffians)…who had no distinct aim or purpose…Their carefree, carpe diem attitude showed that fifties individualism had sunk toward anarchic decadence” (378).

Not all of the Bohemians continued to reject the middle class; in fact, the group who did not reject the middle class lifestyle lived much better lives than those who did. Miller writes that, “William Winter rose to become a powerful drama critic. Edmund C. Stedman became a wealthy stockbroker on Wall Street… Bayard Taylor became a noted man of letters…And Whitman transformed himself into America’s Great Gray Poet…” (90). Steadfast Pfaffians met many sad fates; Ada Clare died of rabies after she was bit by a dog (Parry 36), Adah Menken died of pneumonia in Paris, Clapp died an alcoholic pauper on Blackwell’s Island, Fitz-James O’Brien died in the Civil War and Artemus Ward (Miller 90), Fitz-Hugh Ludlow, George Arnold, and Ned Wilkins all died because of drug related issues (Kaplan 244). When those who stuck by Pfaff’s began to die off, the Vault suffered its own form of death. As prosperity moved north to Midtown, the Vault at Pfaff’s also moved leaving behind a shell that was only a memory of the golden years of Bohemia. The original building was destroyed and made into a store. Charles Pfaff died in 1890.

The Vault at Pfaff’s was the beginnings of the Bohemian lifestyle in New York City which took strong root in Greenwich Village and continues to this day in various ways. The Bohemian lifestyle has lent itself to short life expectancy due to the use of drugs and alcohol and the rejection of the norms of society. It is not surprising that Walt Whitman found himself comfortable in a space of such care-free individualism, even if he did set himself aside instead of making himself the center of the movement. Whitman outlived the original location of the Vault at Pfaff’s and the Pfaffian lifestyle, becoming the Great Gray Poet. Those Pfaffians who followed suit grew to prosper while those who did not follow such a course met early and tragic deaths. The Saturday Press precluded the demise of Henry Clapp; the lives of both the paper and the man ended in poverty. Surprisingly, Charles Pfaff lived a long life well into his late seventies, and the Bohemian lifestyle that was born and nurtured in his Vault continues to this day.

Works Cited

Reynolds, David. Walt Whitman’s America: A Cultural Biography. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1995.

Miller, Terry. Greenwich Village And How It Got That Way. New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1990.

Burrows, Edwin, and Wallace, Mike. Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898. New York: Oxford, 1999.

Parry, Albert. Garretts & Pretenders: A History of Bohemianism in America. New York: Cosimo, Inc., 2005.

Kaplan, Justin. Walt Whitman, A Life. New York: Perennial Classics, 2003.

Picture

Howells, William Dean. “First Impressions of Literary New York.” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine. Jun. 1895: 62-74.

Pfaff’s was the perfect place for writers and literary types to come and drink while sharing their writings and opinions of other writers. Patrons were known to stand and recite their new works before having them published. Some of the most famous patrons of Pfaff’s were, “Ada Clare, the Queen of Bohemia…the actress Adah Isaacs Menken…the fictionist Fitz-James O’Brien…(author) Fitz-Hugh Ludlow…Artemus Ward, the comedian…the picturesque poet N.G. Shephard and the Poesque tale writer Charles D. Gardette” (Reynolds 377). Perhaps the most famous patrons of all were Walt Whitman and Henry Clapp Jr., the King of the Bohemians. Clapp was born in Nantucket but spent many years in Paris. His writing was considered controversial and his most controversial move of all was creating the Saturday Press. Miller writes that the Saturday Press was a, “mix of radical politics, personal freedom, naïveté, silliness, realism, sexual frankness, and exuberance…” (89). The Press allowed Clapp to publish his views and to also highlight the works of authors that he appreciated. One of these authors was Walt Whitman and his works “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking” and “O Captain! My Captain!” among dozens of other items. Unfortunately the Press was plagued with financial troubles and only existed for a year before it had to be shut down. Clapp was not to give up without a fight. Purely through strength of will Clapp reopened the Press in 1865 for two weeks, just long enough to publish “Oh Captain! My Captain!” and “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” which catapulted Mark Twain to fame. Clapp, as the King of Bohemia, sat at the head of the table at Pfaff’s while Whitman usually took his place to the side at a separate table.

Although Whitman was touted as the “reigning luminary” (Burrows & Wallace 711)  Whitman did not come to Pfaff’s to be the center of attention. As he himself stated, “My own greatest pleasure at Pfaff’s was to look on – to see, talk little, absorb. I was never a great discusser, anyway”. This is not to say that Whitman was entirely silent, he was known to read new works aloud as well as to become embroiled in tiffs with other writers. Whitman wrote of Thomas Bailey Aldrich’s The Bells, “Yes, Tom, I like your tinkles: I like them very well” (Parry 41). He also made a short term enemy with George Arnold. Parry writes that George Arnold one night made the mistake of toasting the South. Whitman, a proud Yankee, jumped up and gave a long patriotic speech (quite unlike his placid Pfaffian demeanor) to which Arnold responded with a tug on Whitman’s beard (42).  Quarrels were to be expected because of the very nature of Pfaff’s; it was a place that encouraged drinking and liberal speech simultaneously.

Liberality reigned supreme in many forms. An important aspect of Pfaff’s was its female presence. Ada Claire was far and beyond the Queen. She was the trail blazer for all women who were to eventually find company at Pfaff’s, but she was also the woman to stay the longest. Ada was considered by Whitman to be born ahead of her time (Parry 14). Although she wrote love poems, she was really famous for her utter disregard of social norms. Ada Claire flaunted her love affairs and her illegitimate child born of one such affair, she smoked and drank with the Pfaffian men, and she took to the stage in order to achieve fame (Miller 91-92). Alongside Claire was Adah Isaacs Menken, known as, “a writer and actress and heroine of celebrated off-stage adventures” (Kaplan 243). Like Claire, Menken’s life was full of romantic drama and an illegitimate child. But unlike Claire, Menken found more success on stage when she stared in Mazeppa a play in which she was strapped to a horse practically naked. Adah Isaacs Menken was a great fan of Whitman and aligned him with Edgar Allen Poe, the Patron saint of the Pfaffians.

Poe came to rule over the Pfaffian crowd for obvious reasons. For one, he was a maligned writer who was unappreciated in his time. For two, the Pfaffians related well with Poe’s melancholic nature, no doubt enhanced for them by their drinking. In their own way, many of the Pfaffians emulated Poe. Whitman himself went down the melancholic road when he wrote in Two Vaults, “The Vault at Pfaff’s where the drinkers and laughers meet to eat and drink and carouse, While on the walk immediately overhead pass the myriad feet of Broadway As the dead in their graves are underfoot hidden”. Fitz-James O’Brien patterned his stories after Poe and Charled D. Gardette was called a “Poesque tale writer” (Reynolds 377). Poe’s influence created  duplicity in the lives of the Pfaffians; on one hand they were care-free revelers, on the other hand they took up melancholic airs to reflect him. The symbolism of Poe gave the otherwise aimless group something to appear to fight against, namely Capitalism and the emerging middle class. Although the group had aspersions to toss not only at the middle class but also the slavery allies, they were not activists for progression or change. Reynolds writes, “It was they (the Pfaffians)…who had no distinct aim or purpose…Their carefree, carpe diem attitude showed that fifties individualism had sunk toward anarchic decadence” (378).

Not all of the Bohemians continued to reject the middle class; in fact, the group who did not reject the middle class lifestyle lived much better lives than those who did. Miller writes that, “William Winter rose to become a powerful drama critic. Edmund C. Stedman became a wealthy stockbroker on Wall Street… Bayard Taylor became a noted man of letters…And Whitman transformed himself into America’s Great Gray Poet…” (90). Steadfast Pfaffians met many sad fates; Ada Clare died of rabies after she was bit by a dog (Parry 36), Adah Menken died of pneumonia in Paris, Clapp died an alcoholic pauper on Blackwell’s Island, Fitz-James O’Brien died in the Civil War and Artemus Ward (Miller 90), Fitz-Hugh Ludlow, George Arnold, and Ned Wilkins all died because of drug related issues (Kaplan 244). When those who stuck by Pfaff’s began to die off, the Vault suffered its own form of death. As prosperity moved north to Midtown, the Vault at Pfaff’s also moved leaving behind a shell that was only a memory of the golden years of Bohemia. The original building was destroyed and made into a store. Charles Pfaff died in 1890.

The Vault at Pfaff’s was the beginnings of the Bohemian lifestyle in New York City which took strong root in Greenwich Village and continues to this day in various ways. The Bohemian lifestyle has lent itself to short life expectancy due to the use of drugs and alcohol and the rejection of the norms of society. It is not surprising that Walt Whitman found himself comfortable in a space of such care-free individualism, even if he did set himself aside instead of making himself the center of the movement. Whitman outlived the original location of the Vault at Pfaff’s and the Pfaffian lifestyle, becoming the Great Gray Poet. Those Pfaffians who followed suit grew to prosper while those who did not follow such a course met early and tragic deaths. The Saturday Press precluded the demise of Henry Clapp; the lives of both the paper and the man ended in poverty. Surprisingly, Charles Pfaff lived a long life well into his late seventies, and the Bohemian lifestyle that was born and nurtured in his Vault continues to this day.

Works Cited

Reynolds, David. Walt Whitman’s America: A Cultural Biography. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1995.

Miller, Terry. Greenwich Village And How It Got That Way. New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1990.

Burrows, Edwin, and Wallace, Mike. Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898. New York: Oxford, 1999.

Parry, Albert. Garretts & Pretenders: A History of Bohemianism in America. New York: Cosimo, Inc., 2005.

Kaplan, Justin. Walt Whitman, A Life. New York: Perennial Classics, 2003.

Picture

Howells, William Dean. “First Impressions of Literary New York.” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine. Jun. 1895: 62-74.

(image credit: William J. Milne Progressive Arithmetic (New York: American Book Company, 1912)43)

In 1885, Philadelphia lawyer, Thomas Donaldson, planned to buy Walt Whitman a horse and buggy. This expensive gift required donations from Whitman’s extensive social network, including Mark Twain and Oliver Wendell Holmes.  According to David S. Reynolds, on September 17, 1885, a new horse and buggy awaited Whitman on Mickle Street, clearly visible from Whitman’s bedroom window. The gift was a pleasant surprise for the poet. Despite his elderly age, Whitman was immediately taken with this new-fangled form of transportation and he enjoyed the horse’s ability race down the streets, rapidly moving by shops and row homes. Reynolds’s cultural biography makes the claim that while he rode in the buggy, Whitman “displayed agility and sometimes reckless speed, in guiding his horse, Frank, through the Camden streets” (553) and Reynolds describes Whitman’s driver, William Duckett, as a “rougish teenager” (553). But Frank wasn’t even quick enough to suit Whitman’s desire to wildly race through Camden. Reynold’s states that after five months “Whitman sold his horse, Frank, [and] got a faster one, Nettie, but he had to give up the carriage after his strokes in June 1888″ (553). Even though Whitman only owned a horse and buggy for roughly three years, it was America’s most popular form of transportation the later half of the nineteenth century.

(image credit: Foster, Ellsworth D. The American Educator (Chicago: Ralph Durham Company, 1921) 592)

What exactly was the purpose and structure of the buggy? According to the OED, the buggy itself is “a light one-horse (sometimes two horse) vehicle, for one or two persons. Those in use in America have four wheels” (OED 1a), differing from the two wheeled carriages common in England. These wagons were designed to have strong pulling efficiency even when the horses were given a heavy load, and people enjoyed riding in the buggies to reach their destination in a timely manner. Whitman’s own horse and buggy cost a sum of $320, indicating this transportation was reserved for people who had an adequate amount of money. Reynolds illustrates Whitman’s gift for the reader, saying it included “a horse, a leather-lined phaeton, a whip, halter, and lap blanket” (553). The last item useful for the colder winter months, making a horse ride a pleasant experience for all times of the year, not limiting the horse’s usefulness for the warm summer months.

Clay McShane’s article, “Gelded Age Boston,” discusses the growth and usefulness of horses and buggies in 1880′s Boston, a city not too far north from Camden. The historical article discusses how, depending on the individual owners’ wishes and purposes, different horse breeds were suited for different businesses. For example, “breweries preferred Clydesdales, unsuited to the North American climate but handsome high-steppers that provided good publicity for the industries they represented” (291) and carriage owners, like Whitman, “preferred light, young, agile animals” (291).

Regardless of the benefits, owners of horses and buggies faced several challenges, especially people like Whitman, who lived in an urban neighborhood. The urban surroundings were laden with diseases that could easily spread to the animals, rendering them useless. McShane’s research shows that although “farriers (horseshoers) served as folk practitioners of veterinary medicine . . . their nostrums would not do in an age that increasingly valued professionalization” (287). In order to combat this issue, veterinary medicine developed into a new profession to care for the equine population and “Harvard opened [the first] veterinary school in 1882, which was active until 1904, roughly when urban horses began to lose their importance” (287). The school’s curriculum focused entirely on the well-being of draft animals.

Animal abuse was also a major concern in cities and in 1868, George Angell attempted to quell the problem by founding the MSPCA or Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The MSPCA revealed “astonishing examples of cruelty, including the practice of lighting fire under a horse to urge him to start pulling a heavy load,” and the MSPCA publicly denounced these incidents  to raise awareness among potential horse and buggy owners.

By the 1910′s, the development and eventual market for automobiles diminished the use for the horse and buggy.  McShane’s conclusion states “they had all but faded from view” (300), being a image of America’s past and Whitman’s later life.

(image credit: Charles D. Maginnis Pen Drawings an Illustrated Treatise (Boston: Bates & Guild Company, 1903) 57)

Works Cited

McShane, Clay. “Gelded Age Boston.” The New England Quarterly, Inc. 74.2 (June 2001): 274-302.

Reynolds, David S. Walt Whitman’s America: A Cultural Biography. New York: Vintage Books, 1995.

(image credit: William J. Milne Progressive Arithmetic (New York: American Book Company, 1912)43)

In 1885, Philadelphia lawyer, Thomas Donaldson, planned to buy Walt Whitman a horse and buggy. This expensive gift required donations from Whitman’s extensive social network, including Mark Twain and Oliver Wendell Holmes.  According to David S. Reynolds, on September 17, 1885, a new horse and buggy awaited Whitman on Mickle Street, clearly visible from Whitman’s bedroom window. The gift was a pleasant surprise for the poet. Despite his elderly age, Whitman was immediately taken with this new-fangled form of transportation and he enjoyed the horse’s ability race down the streets, rapidly moving by shops and row homes. Reynolds’s cultural biography makes the claim that while he rode in the buggy, Whitman “displayed agility and sometimes reckless speed, in guiding his horse, Frank, through the Camden streets” (553) and Reynolds describes Whitman’s driver, William Duckett, as a “rougish teenager” (553). But Frank wasn’t even quick enough to suit Whitman’s desire to wildly race through Camden. Reynold’s states that after five months “Whitman sold his horse, Frank, [and] got a faster one, Nettie, but he had to give up the carriage after his strokes in June 1888″ (553). Even though Whitman only owned a horse and buggy for roughly three years, it was America’s most popular form of transportation the later half of the nineteenth century.

(image credit: Foster, Ellsworth D. The American Educator (Chicago: Ralph Durham Company, 1921) 592)

What exactly was the purpose and structure of the buggy? According to the OED, the buggy itself is “a light one-horse (sometimes two horse) vehicle, for one or two persons. Those in use in America have four wheels” (OED 1a), differing from the two wheeled carriages common in England. These wagons were designed to have strong pulling efficiency even when the horses were given a heavy load, and people enjoyed riding in the buggies to reach their destination in a timely manner. Whitman’s own horse and buggy cost a sum of $320, indicating this transportation was reserved for people who had an adequate amount of money. Reynolds illustrates Whitman’s gift for the reader, saying it included “a horse, a leather-lined phaeton, a whip, halter, and lap blanket” (553). The last item useful for the colder winter months, making a horse ride a pleasant experience for all times of the year, not limiting the horse’s usefulness for the warm summer months.

Clay McShane’s article, “Gelded Age Boston,” discusses the growth and usefulness of horses and buggies in 1880’s Boston, a city not too far north from Camden. The historical article discusses how, depending on the individual owners’ wishes and purposes, different horse breeds were suited for different businesses. For example, “breweries preferred Clydesdales, unsuited to the North American climate but handsome high-steppers that provided good publicity for the industries they represented” (291) and carriage owners, like Whitman, “preferred light, young, agile animals” (291).

Regardless of the benefits, owners of horses and buggies faced several challenges, especially people like Whitman, who lived in an urban neighborhood. The urban surroundings were laden with diseases that could easily spread to the animals, rendering them useless. McShane’s research shows that although “farriers (horseshoers) served as folk practitioners of veterinary medicine . . . their nostrums would not do in an age that increasingly valued professionalization” (287). In order to combat this issue, veterinary medicine developed into a new profession to care for the equine population and “Harvard opened [the first] veterinary school in 1882, which was active until 1904, roughly when urban horses began to lose their importance” (287). The school’s curriculum focused entirely on the well-being of draft animals.

Animal abuse was also a major concern in cities and in 1868, George Angell attempted to quell the problem by founding the MSPCA or Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The MSPCA revealed “astonishing examples of cruelty, including the practice of lighting fire under a horse to urge him to start pulling a heavy load,” and the MSPCA publicly denounced these incidents  to raise awareness among potential horse and buggy owners.

By the 1910’s, the development and eventual market for automobiles diminished the use for the horse and buggy.  McShane’s conclusion states “they had all but faded from view” (300), being a image of America’s past and Whitman’s later life.

(image credit: Charles D. Maginnis Pen Drawings an Illustrated Treatise (Boston: Bates & Guild Company, 1903) 57)

Works Cited

McShane, Clay. “Gelded Age Boston.” The New England Quarterly, Inc. 74.2 (June 2001): 274-302.

Reynolds, David S. Walt Whitman’s America: A Cultural Biography. New York: Vintage Books, 1995.

The College of Physicians of Philadelphia began collecting materials for a museum of pathological anatomy in 1849. In 1856, Dr. Thomas Dent Mutter, in poor health and intending to retire from teaching, offered the museum the contents of his personal collection of “bones, wet specimens, plaster casts, wax and papier-mâché models, dried preparations, and medical illustrations.” In addition, Dr. Mutter offered the College of Physicians a $30,000 endowment to pay for the administrative costs of running a museum. Dr. Mutter’s collection was added to the materials collected by the college since 1849 and the Mutter medical museum was born.

Mutter’s endowment facilitated the purchase of additional collections in Europe, and as students from the college “contributed interesting surgical and post-mortem specimens acquired from their hospital and private practice,” the museum’s collection grew. The College decided in 1871 to start collecting old-fashioned medical tools in an effort to document the “changes in the technology of medicine and memorabilia of present and past practitioners.” The majority of the museum’s contemporary acquisitions are of this type.

As the museum’s holdings continued to increase, a larger building was required. Construction began on a new space in 1908. Although the building itself boasted elegant marble and carved oak details, the medical exhibits still resembled “the utilitarian medical museums typical of 18th century hospitals and medical schools,” which “illustrated the fact that the museum’s purpose lay not in the decorative display of selected artifacts, but in the organized assemblage of teaching materials which were to be available to the student or researcher as were books on a library shelf.” In 1986, a major renovation of the museum’s exhibit areas modernized the shelving and lighting, presumably altering the nostalgic atmosphere.

Although I am unsure whether or not Walt Whitman visited the Mutter Museum, I am interested in exploring Whitman’s views and experiences with medicine. In particular, I am interested in the time Whitman spent nursing wounded soldiers during the Civil War. According to Reynolds, Whitman saw himself as a healer, and he had a severe distrust of medical doctors. Nursing the soldiers “intensified his distaste for conventional medicine and permitted him to test out his homespun ideas about healing” (430). The war doctors were overwhelmed with injured soldiers, and they were forced to perform surgeries with inadequate equipment and ineffective painkillers. This was a time when “medicine was still primitive,” and though Whitman “sympathized with the overworked war doctors, he recognized their limitations and believed that his own magnetic powers were as effective as all their procedures” (431). Many of Whitman’s “homespun ideas” were based on building interpersonal relationships with the soldiers. Whitman devoted a considerable amount of time to talking to the soldiers, reading to the soldiers, and helping them to write letters. Reynolds notes that: “to the end of his life Whitman would look upon regular doctors and their drugs with suspicion” (332).

According to its website, the Mutter Museum has “specimens and photographs of battle injuries” from the Civil War within its collection. These artifacts were acquired from the Army Medical Museum “in exchange for duplicate material from the Mutter to be used for the training of army surgeons.” If Whitman were to visit the Mutter, I would venture to guess that this exhibit would be of special interest to him.

Please click on the link below to see some of the Mutter Museum’s current holdings. These photos are not for the faint of heart!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/42620318@N06/galleries/72157622808660274/

Works Cited:
History of the Mutter Medical Museum adapted from:

http://www.collphyphil.org/erics/Mutthist.htm

Information on Walt Whitman’s views on medicine taken from:
Reynolds, David. Walt Whitman’s America: A Cultural Biography. New York: Vintage, 1995. Print.

Lead Image provided by:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/10/10/arts/11mutt-slide1.jpg

The College of Physicians of Philadelphia began collecting materials for a museum of pathological anatomy in 1849. In 1856, Dr. Thomas Dent Mutter, in poor health and intending to retire from teaching, offered the museum the contents of his personal collection of “bones, wet specimens, plaster casts, wax and papier-mâché models, dried preparations, and medical illustrations.” In addition, Dr. Mutter offered the College of Physicians a $30,000 endowment to pay for the administrative costs of running a museum. Dr. Mutter’s collection was added to the materials collected by the college since 1849 and the Mutter medical museum was born.

Mutter’s endowment facilitated the purchase of additional collections in Europe, and as students from the college “contributed interesting surgical and post-mortem specimens acquired from their hospital and private practice,” the museum’s collection grew. The College decided in 1871 to start collecting old-fashioned medical tools in an effort to document the “changes in the technology of medicine and memorabilia of present and past practitioners.” The majority of the museum’s contemporary acquisitions are of this type.

As the museum’s holdings continued to increase, a larger building was required. Construction began on a new space in 1908. Although the building itself boasted elegant marble and carved oak details, the medical exhibits still resembled “the utilitarian medical museums typical of 18th century hospitals and medical schools,” which “illustrated the fact that the museum’s purpose lay not in the decorative display of selected artifacts, but in the organized assemblage of teaching materials which were to be available to the student or researcher as were books on a library shelf.” In 1986, a major renovation of the museum’s exhibit areas modernized the shelving and lighting, presumably altering the nostalgic atmosphere.

Although I am unsure whether or not Walt Whitman visited the Mutter Museum, I am interested in exploring Whitman’s views and experiences with medicine. In particular, I am interested in the time Whitman spent nursing wounded soldiers during the Civil War. According to Reynolds, Whitman saw himself as a healer, and he had a severe distrust of medical doctors. Nursing the soldiers “intensified his distaste for conventional medicine and permitted him to test out his homespun ideas about healing” (430). The war doctors were overwhelmed with injured soldiers, and they were forced to perform surgeries with inadequate equipment and ineffective painkillers. This was a time when “medicine was still primitive,” and though Whitman “sympathized with the overworked war doctors, he recognized their limitations and believed that his own magnetic powers were as effective as all their procedures” (431). Many of Whitman’s “homespun ideas” were based on building interpersonal relationships with the soldiers. Whitman devoted a considerable amount of time to talking to the soldiers, reading to the soldiers, and helping them to write letters. Reynolds notes that: “to the end of his life Whitman would look upon regular doctors and their drugs with suspicion” (332).

According to its website, the Mutter Museum has “specimens and photographs of battle injuries” from the Civil War within its collection. These artifacts were acquired from the Army Medical Museum “in exchange for duplicate material from the Mutter to be used for the training of army surgeons.” If Whitman were to visit the Mutter, I would venture to guess that this exhibit would be of special interest to him.

Please click on the link below to see some of the Mutter Museum’s current holdings. These photos are not for the faint of heart!

 http://www.flickr.com/photos/42620318@N0…

Works Cited:
History of the Mutter Medical Museum adapted from:
 http://www.collphyphil.org/erics/Mutthis…

Information on Walt Whitman’s views on medicine taken from:
Reynolds, David. Walt Whitman’s America: A Cultural Biography. New York: Vintage, 1995. Print.

Lead Image provided by:
 http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005…