Walt Whitman, born as Walter Whitman was born on May 31, 1819 in West Hills, Long Island, New York. He was second of nine children born to Walter Whitman and Louisa Whitman. Walt went to school until he was 11 years old in order to find a job because of his families financial problems. He worked as a office boy and then worked in the printery that published the weekly newspaper, the Patriot. Now Walt began to write poetry and later became a teacher in which he was disatisfied. He then created his own newspaper, Long Islander, and was an editor, publisher, and worked at a printing press. He continued to work for places that published newspapers and he also worked at numerous printeries until he decide to become a poet. In 1850, Whitman began writing the Leaves of Grass and completed it in 1855 and printed 795 copies. Leaves of Grass was highly praised but also criticized as being “obscene”.  Because of its sexual overtones, it was revised and re-released over and over again in Whitman’s life.

Whitman was active in the Civil War. Because of Whitman’s brother’s letters about the condition of war, it persuaded Whitman to serves as a nurse to wounded soldiers and he wrote about his experiences in his writing. The death of endless soldiers affected him. But that wasn’t all that affected Whitman at that time. He experienced the death of many of his family members. But Whitman continued to write and Poems of Walt Whitman was published in February 1968 which became popular in England and another edition of Leaves of Grass was released and continued to be released 1876, 1881, 1889. Sadly, Walt Whitman suffered a stroke and his health declined. He died on March  26, 1892 at 73 years of age because of many problems with his lungs.