Abstract

This essay continues the effort to unearth Whitman’s correspondence in newspapers and highlights the recovery of a letter he wrote to the editor of the New-York Times that was published in the March 25, 1859 issue of the paper.This research includes historical and biographical context for the letter, as well as manuscript evidence of the poet-journalist’s authorship and revision of it. Appearing under the title “Important Questions in Brooklyn,” which Whitman seems to have provided, the letter centered on a surprising topic: the construction and management of Brooklyn’s in-progress waterworks and bore the signature of “CIVIS.” The recovery of this letter to the editor of the New-York Times is particularly significant as it is one of Whitman’s earliest known contributions to the paper. Henry Jarvis Raymond, a co-founder of the paper, was its editor at the time of Whitman’s contribution. The letter was published in the Times a little over a year before Whitman’s poem “The Errand-Bearers” (June 27, 1860), and it also predated by four years “The Great Army of the Sick,” the first of his articles for the Times chronicling his experiences as a volunteer in the Civil War hospitals of Washington, D.C.

Keywords: New York Times, newspapers, journalism, letters, correspondence, CIVIS, discovery

How to Cite:

Blalock, S. M., (2025) ““Important Questions in Brooklyn:” Walt Whitman’s Earliest Known Contribution to the New York Times ”, Walt Whitman Quarterly Review 42(3/4), 185-203. doi: https://doi.org/10.17077/0737-0679.34889