History, Natural History & the Arts
Humble in appearance, one-room schoolhouses might be easy to overlook, but their existence hints at a broader social, cultural, and educational history.
Hundreds of one-room school houses were built across Long Island and many still survive, either adapted to new uses or restored and open for public access. [Read more…] about Historic Schoolhouses of Long Island
The poetry of Walt Whitman is crowded with allusions to song and the singer. Music was important to him in life (he had worked as a music journalist) and is a central metaphor in his work. The poet of “I Hear America Singing” was blessed with an ear for inner rhythms which he transformed into melodious free verse that broke the barriers of poetic language.
Given the musicality of his songs, it is not surprising that the poet inspired composers around the world (the number of settings of his texts exceed 1,200). [Read more…] about The Canary Craze & Walt Whitman
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: who has the biggest brain?
This episode of the Long Island History Project podcast turns for answers to Dr. James R. Wright, medical historian and retired professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the University of Calgary. [Read more…] about Whatever Happened to Walt Whitman’s Brain?
Walt Whitman’s original essay, “A Backward Glance O’er Travel’d Roads,” was printed at the end of the 1891-92 edition of Leaves of Grass. The following adaptation is an attempt to quite radically “translate” its disorganized, disgressive, awkward “Whitmanese” into the standards of prose clarity expected by 21st century readers.
When I say prose clarity, I am not only referring to a very aggressive copy edit. I have also subjected it to a critical, discerning lens of historical perspective. The result is Whitman’s clearest directions on how to read Leaves of Grass. — Mitchell Santine Gould, Curator, LeavesOfGrass.org. [Read more…] about Walt Whitman On How To Read Leaves of Grass
During the 1830s, young Romantic poets in Paris were loud and rebellious. They raised the noise levels in literature. Pétrus Borel headed the “Petit Cénacle,” an eccentric group of writers who had declared war on Classicism.
Considered a social nuisance, their rowdy and unruly behavior led to arrests. A journalistic term of abuse was turned into a banner of pride. The group’s members adopted the name Les Bousingos (“faiseurs de bousin” = brawlers). [Read more…] about Charlie Pfaff, Walt Whitman and the King of Bohemia
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