Zachary Turpin has recently co-authored with Stefan Schöberlein, Whitman’s Southern Sojourn: Rediscovering the Poet in New Orleans, 1848, published by the University of Iowa Press.
Whitman’s Southern Sojourn
by Stefan Schöberlein and Zachary Turpin
“Whitman’s tenure at the Crescent has long been the subject of
speculation. While many scholars have suspected the consequence
of Whitman’s time in New Orleans, Whitman’s Southern Sojourn
reveals the substance of this period through exciting discoveries and compelling claims. It will
be the authority on Whitman’s southern sojourn for years to come.”—Jason Stacy, author, Walt
Whitman’s Multitudes: Labor Reform and Persona in Whitman’s Journalism and the First Leaves of
Grass, 1840–1855
“Whitman’s few months in 1848 New Orleans have long been seen as both a crucial—and fairly
mysterious—episode in his development. I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard someone
say how much we need a book on the subject. At long last, that book is now here. Schöberlein and
Turpin have given us an invaluable study.”—T. R. Johnson, author, New Orleans: A Writer’s City
Walt Whitman’s 1848 stint in New Orleans was a crucial moment of development for the poet.
Working for The Daily Crescent, a new local newspaper, Whitman spent his days strolling through the
multiracial city and turning his impressions into prose sketches, news items, and fiery editorials.
While in the southern metropolis, the young journalist brushed shoulders with American soldiers
returning from Mexico, cheered on European revolutions in the French Quarter, and explored
raunchy performances at the St. Charles Theatre. Yet 1848 was also the year Whitman began
lobbying for “Free Soil,” after encountering in New Orleans, Creole citizens, enslaved Black people,
and the slaveholder who would become America’s next president.
Far from some brief escape, New Orleans was a significant milestone in Whitman’s development
as a political firebrand, as well as a major step for a professional journalist on the rise. Through
a wealth of new texts, contexts, and personalities, Stefan Schöberlein and Zachary Turpin paint
a vivid picture of a writer on the verge of Leaves of Grass, embracing the contradictions and the
multitudes of New Orleans.
Stefan Schöberlein is associate professor of English at Texas A&M University–Central Texas. He
is author of Writing the Brain: Material Minds and Literature, 1800–1880, among others. He lives in
Georgetown, Texas. Zachary Turpin is assistant professor of American Literature at the University
of Idaho. He is the author and coeditor of such works as Every Hour, Every Atom: A Collection of Walt
Whitman’s Early Notebooks and Fragments (Iowa, 2020). Turpin lives in Moscow, Idaho.