1825: Daniel Webster, Bunker Hill
Oration; WW attends public school in
Brooklyn through 1830		 1831: William Lloyd Garrison establishes the
Liberator; Poe, Poems; WW works in printing
offices and serves as an apprentice on Long
Island Patriot through 1832.		 1835: New York Herald; WW works
in printing offices in New York City through
1836; ED begins primary school and attends
until 1839.		 1840: Graham's Magazine, the Lowell Offering,
the Dial; ED attends Amherst Academy through
1847, begins corresponding with family and friends.		 1845: Southern and Western Literary Messengers,
Broadway Journal (Poe briefly edits); Margaret
Fuller's Woman in the Nineteenth Century; Poe, The
Raven and Other Poems; Frederick Douglass, Narrative
of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. 		1849: Elizabeth Peabody publishes the only issue of Aesthetic Papers (includes
pieces by Emerson, Thoreau, and Hawthorne); Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
Kavanaugh; Melville, Mardi and Redburn; Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and
Merrimack Rivers; WW returns to New York, builds a house for the Whitman family
and through 1852, he may have operated a printing press and a bookstore.		 1857: The Atlantic Monthly; Elizabeth
Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh; WW edits
and/or contributes to the Brooklyn Times
through 1859. 		1862: Julia Ward Howe, "Battle Hymn of the Republic;" Elizabeth Barstow Stoddard, The Morgesons; Stowe,
The Pearl of Orr's Island; WW visits his brother, George,wounded in Virginia; becomes an unofficial Civil War
nurse in Washington, D.C.; ED's "Safe in their Alabaster Chambers" is published in the Springfield Republican;
Higginson publishes "Letter to a Young Contributor" in the Atlantic Monthly; ED begins correspondence with
Higginson and comments to him that she has not read Whitman's book--"was told that he was disgraceful."
  1784: First daily newspaper in America:
American Daily Advertiser (Philadelphia),
followed by the New York Daily Advertiser
in 1785.		 1819: Washington Irving,
The Sketch Book; WW born
on Long Island, New York.		 1828: First Native American
newspaper, the Cherokee Phoenix
(published in Georgia, as a
bilingual paper in English and
Cherokee.		 1842: Rufus Griswold, Poets and Poetry of America; WW edits the Aurora and
theTatler; attends Emerson's lecture, The Poet and reviews it for the Aurora.		 1846: Emerson, Poems; Poe, "The
Philosophy of Composition"; WW edits
the Booklyn Daily Eagle through 1847;
ED visits Boston for health reasons. 		1850: Harper's New Monthly Magazine; New York
Times established; Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet
Letter; Susan Warner, The Wide, Wide World; Amherst
College Indicator publishes ED's "Magnum bonum" valentine; ED receives a copy of Emerson's Poems.		 1854: Henry David Thoreau,
Walden; Elizabeth Oakes Smith,
The Newsboy. 		1858: Longfellow, Courtship
of Miles Standish; Holmes,
Autocrat of the Breakfast Table. 		  1863: The New York Round Table.
  1832: William Cullen Bryant, Poems;
WW works as a compositor on the Long
Island Star.		 1837: Sarah Josepha Hale
becomes editor of Godey's Lady's
Book; United States Magazine and
Democratic Review. 		1843: William Prescott,
History of the Conquest
of Mexico; WW edits the
Statesman		 1852: Stowe, Uncle
Tom's Cabin; ED's "Sic
transit" valentine is
published in the
Springfield Republican.		 1859: Charles Darwin,
On the Origin of Species;
Samuel Smiles, Self-Help. 		  1865: The Nation; Thoreau, Cape Cod; Mark Twain,
"The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calavaras County";
WW publishes Drum-Taps;ED visits Boston about
eyesight.

This timeline situates Whitman ("WW") and Dickinson ("ED")
 
1830: Godey's
Lady's Book; ED
born in Amherst,
Massachusetts.
 
1838: John Greenleaf Whittier,
Ballads and Anti-Slavery Poems;
WW edits Long-Islander through
1839.
 
1844: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays,
Second Series; Margaret Fuller, Summer
on the Lakes, in 1843; WW edits the
New York Democrat and works for the
New York Mirror; ED visits Boston.
1848: The Independent; James
Russell Lowell, Biglow Papers and
Fable for Critics; WW is a contributing
editor for the New Orleans Crescent;
edits the Brooklyn Freeman.
1851: The New York Ledger; Frederick Douglass'
Paper; Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; Hawthorne,
The House of the Seven Gables; Harriet Beecher
Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin begins serialization
in the National Era; ED visits Boston
1856: Fanny Fern, Rose Clark; Stowe, Dred; Fowler
and Wells publish second edition of Leaves of Grass
with letter of Emerson's; Thoreau visits WW; Austin
Dickinson and Susan Gilbert are married and settle
at the Evergreens.
1861: Longfellow, "Paul Revere's Ride";
ED's "I taste a liquor never brewed"
published as "The May-Wine" by
Springfield Republican.
1866: Whittier, Snow-Bound;
William O'Connor, The Good Gray
Poet; ED's "A narrow fell in the
grass" published in the Springfield
Republican.

in the literary marketplace through the Civil War, outlining some
of the literary landmarks of the era and some of the significant
literary and biographical moments in each poet's life.

Introduction | Whitman & Emerson | Dickinson & Higginson | Investigations | Bibliography

1827: First African American
newspaper, Freedom's Journal.
1836: Emerson, Nature; Oliver
Wendell Holmes, Poems.
1841: Horace Greeley founds the New York Tribune; Ralph Waldo
Emerson, Essays: First Series; Longfellow, Ballads and Other
Poems;WW works as a compositor for the New World, contributes
to the Democratic Review, Broadway Journal, American Review,
New York Sun, and Columbian Magazine through 1848.
1847: Evert Duyckinck founds Literary World for
the review of new books; the Springfield Republican
established by Samuel Bowles; Charlotte Bronte,
Jane Eyre; Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline;
ED attends Mt. Holyoke Seminary through 1848.
1855: Fanny Fern, Ruth Hall; Frederick Douglass, My
Bondage and My Freedom; Longfellow, Hiawatha; Melville,
Benito Cerino; Evert Duyckinck, Cyclopedia of American
Literature;WW prints and publishes Leaves of Grass; Emerson visits WW in Brooklyn; ED visits Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia.
1860: The New York World;
Thayer and Eldridge publish
third edition of Leaves of
Grass; WW visits Boston and
sees Emerson.
1864: George Henry Boker, Poems of the War.