The New York Daily Tribune

Like Whitman, Horace Greeley, the founder of the New York Daily Tribune, was a journalist from a humble background who grew up in the world of New York city newspapers. Greeley founded the Tribune in 1841 as an inexpensive daily newspaper with a strong reform agenda, including abolition, the elimination of capital punishment, and temperance. Also interested in promoting American literature, Greeley hired many New England writers to provide poems, short fiction, and reviews, and many well-known writers, such as Margaret Fuller, became associated with the increasingly popular and influential newspaper. Greeley, who was an admirer of Whitman's early work as a journalist, published three of Whitman's poems in 1850, all of which were inspired by political events. Signed "Paumanok," "Blood-Money" was a response to Daniel Webster's speech in Congress in support of the Compromise of 1850, which included the Fugitive Slave Law. "The House of Friends" criticized northern Democrats who supported the Compromise of 1850, and "Resurgemus," the only poem of this period that would appear in the first edition of Leaves of Grass (1855) was inspired by the European Revolutions of 1848. Several years later, a prepublication review of Leaves of Grass (1876) and Two Rivulets (1876) included eleven poems. Whitman's last appearance in the Tribune was with "A Death Sonnet for Custer," which commemorates the death of General George Custer on June 25, 1876 at the Battle of Little Big Horn. But the most famous association between Whitman and the New York Tribune was the publication in the newspaper of Ralph Waldo Emerson's letter to Whitman on October 10, 1855, in which he greeted the unknown poet "at the beginning of a great career."

Poems

"Blood-Money." New York Daily Tribune, Supplement. 22 March 1850: 1. Reprinted in the New York Evening Post (30 April 1850) and in Specimen Days (1882).

"The House of Friends." New York Daily Tribune 14 June 1850. Transcription and page image not currently available. Revised as "Wounded in the House of Friends," Specimen Days (1882).

"Resurgemus." New York Daily Tribune 21 June 1850: 3. Partially reprinted in "Art and Artists" in Brooklyn Daily Advertiser (3 April 1851); revised as ["Suddenly out of its stale and drowsy lair"] in Leaves of Grass (1855); reprinted as "Poem of the Dead Young Men of Europe, the 72nd and 73rd Years of These States," in Leaves of Grass (1856); and as "Europe, The 72nd and 73rd Years of These States," in Leaves of Grass (1881–82).

"Extracts from Two Rivulets." New York Daily Tribune 19 February 1876: 4. Eleven poems appeared within this prepublication review of Two Rivulets (1876) and Leaves of Grass (1876):

• "[Two Rivulets]."  Reprinted in the "Two Rivulets" section of Two Rivulets (1876).

• "Or From that Sea of Time."  Reprinted in the "Two Rivulets" section of Two Rivulets (1876).

• "Eidólons."  Reprinted in the "Two Rivulets" section of Two Rivulets (1876).

• "[Out from Behind This Mask]."  Reprinted as "Out from Behind This Mask: To confront My Portrait, illustrating 'the Wound-Dresser,' in Leaves of Grass" in the "Two Rivulets" section of Two Rivulets (1876).

• "To a Locomotive in Winter."  Reprinted in the "Two Rivulets" section of Two Rivulets (1876).

• "[Come, said my Soul]."  According to the Comprehensive Reader's Edition of Leaves of Grass, this poem appeared first in the New York Daily Graphic on 25 December 1874, though at this time we have not been able to verify this information. The poem was reprinted on the title page of Leaves of Grass (1876).

• "After an Interval."  Reprinted in Leaves of Grass (1876).

• "When the Full-Grown Poet Came."  Reprinted in Leaves of Grass (1876).

• "The Beauty of the Ship."  Reprinted in Leaves of Grass (1876).

• "A Song by the Potomac."  This poem appeared previously under the title "By Broad Potomac's Shore" in As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free (1872) and was reprinted in Two Rivulets (1876) and Leaves of Grass (1881–82).

• "Ship of Democracy."  This appearance in the Daily Tribune is the first instance of the poem under the title "Ship of Democracy," but it appeared earlier as section three of the poem "As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free" in the volume As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free (1872).

"A Death-Sonnet for Custer." New York Daily Tribune (10 July 1876): 5. Reprinted as "From Far Dakotas Cañon," Leaves of Grass (1881–82).

Bibliography

Blodgett, Harold W., and Sculley Bradley, eds. Leaves of Grass: Comprehensive Reader's Edition. New York: New York University Press, 1965.

Douglas, George H. The Golden Age of the Newspapper. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1999.

Greenspan, Ezra. Walt Whitman and the American Reader. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

Myerson, Joel. Walt Whitman: A Descriptive Bibliography. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1993.

Smith, Susan Belasco. "New York Tribune." Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia. Ed. J. R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings. New York: Garland, 1998.

Tebbel, John. The Compact History of the American Newspaper: An Encyclopedia: New and Revised Edition. New York: Hawthorn Books, 1969.

Turner, Hy B. When Giants Ruled. New York: Fordham University Press, 1999.