Tag: Walt Whitman

Historic Schoolhouses of Long Island

January 12, 2026
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Old schoolhouse.
George Bradford Brainerd. Credit: Brooklyn Museum/Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklyn Collection

Today we come to praise the one-room schoolhouse of the 19th century (and some of its earlier forebears). Humble in appearance, these buildings might be easy to overlook but their […]

Whatever Happened to Walt Whitman’s Brain?

October 21, 2024
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Brain from "Tertia pagina figurarum capitalium." New York Public Library Digital Collections.

The science of the brain was changing throughout the 19th century. Medical researchers were peering ever deeper into cerebral mysteries and one question piqued their interest more than any other: […]

Walt Whitman: Straight out of Paumanok

March 11, 2019
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Cynthia Shor, Executive Director of the Walt Whitman Birthplace Association, sits at a microphone in her office.
Cynthia Shor, Executive Director of the Walt Whitman Birthplace Association.

Two hundred years ago, the man who broke American poetry wide open was born in West Hills, Long Island. His house remains a shrine and place of pilgrimage for fans […]