Basic Biological Facts: Walt Whitman was named after his father "Walter Whitman" and was born May 31, 1819. His family consisted of nine children and Walt was the second son. He lived in Brooklyn and LongIsland with his family in the 1920s-1930s. It was at the age of 12 that he began to love writing and literature. He read things like the Bible, Shakespeare, Homer and Dante. Whitman was a teacher until 1841 when he began to make writing poems his full career. He took his first copyright out in 1855 for his book of poems Leaves of Grass. Whitman, during the Civil War, worked in a hospital after seeing the people who had been harmed. Whitman struggled to support himself and eventually died in 1982

• began his career at age 12 when he self taught himself and fell in love with writing
• At the age of 17 he began to teach in a one roomed school house
• Returned to Brooklyn and created his own newspaper called the Brooklyn Freeman
• In 1855, he took out a copyright on his first set of poems
• Worked in a hospital for years after seeing the distress caused by war

Whitman's poems are largely centered around himself and the world around. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Whitman vowed to live a “purged” and “cleansed” life. He worked as a freelance journalist and visited the wounded at New York City–area hospitals. In December 1862, he traveled to Washington D.C. to take car elf his brother that was wounded in war. Overcome by the suffering of the many wounded in Washington, Whitman decided to stay and work in the hospitals and stayed in the city for eleven years.

Quotes: Walt Whitman had a lot of quotes said like "Keep your face always toward the sunshine - and shadows will fall behind you." Also like "I am as bad as the worst, but, thank God, I am as good as the best." Another is "The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity." And finally "A great city is that which has the greatest men and women."