The papers of Walt Whitman (1819-1892) in the Charles E. Feinberg Collection span the years 1763 to 1985, with the bulk of the items concentrated in the period after 1841. The collection of correspondence, literary manuscripts, books, proofs, and associated items assembled by Feinberg during a period of six decades contains letters, notes, postcards, telegrams, and memoranda written by Whitman and letters written to him by friends and admirers, as well as a variety of manuscripts and proofs, many of them annotated by Whitman, that reflect the development of literary technique in his prose and poetry. Whitman's private concerns and interests, some of which would later be voiced in his writings, are revealed in diaries, notes, and notebooks.

The collection contains series devoted to Whitman manuscripts, a Supplementary File of items relating to Whitman, Memorabilia, Addenda, and Oversize. Series containing original Whitman items include Diaries, Diary Notes, and Address Books, Family Papers, General Correspondence, Literary File, Notes and Notebooks, and Miscellany. The Supplementary File contains personal papers of individuals associated with Whitman and articles, books, and speeches written about him. Entries from the catalog published by the Detroit Public Library in 1955 for an exhibition of items from Feinberg's collection are identified with the designation DCN (Detroit catalog number) and are listed numerically in an index at the end of the finding aid. Whitman at times used the reverse side of incoming letters to draft his own correspondence or to note an idea for a trial line for a poem or an essay. Verso manuscripts are identified throughout the register by the use of cross references. Since the manuscripts in the collection had been cataloged previously by Feinberg, the titles of these catalog entries were used to determine the placement of the original item within the collection's current arrangement.

The collection contains the only surviving page from the original manuscript of the first edition of Leaves of Grass. The collection also contains Ralph Waldo Emerson's letter of July 21, 1855, in which, after having read the new poet's slim volume, he wrote with warm approval and congratulated Whitman on his achievement, greeting him “at the beginning of a great career.” It was this letter which Whitman used as an endorsement upon the publication of the 1856 edition of Leaves of Grass. Feinberg collected the first editions of all subsequent publications of Leaves of Grass and all of Whitman's other published works, as well as a number of items from Whitman's personal library which had been inscribed or annotated by the poet. All of these volumes are housed in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division of the Library of Congress where they are identified as part of the Feinberg Collection.

Trial lines or full drafts and proofs for a number of Whitman's poems are included, among them “Song of Myself,” “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking,” “Prayer of Columbus,” and “Song of the Redwood-Tree.” Two commonplace books for the period 1876-1891 record Whitman's literary and social activities, including notations concerning his health and finances as well as the names and addresses of friends and acquaintances. “Hospital notebooks” describe conditions at Armory Square Hospital, Washington, D.C., and list the names and addresses of soldiers to whom Whitman ministered during the Civil War. A notebook from 1865 contains Whitman's descriptions and observations of the capital city and of the proceedings of Congress in session. Whitman's letters to his mother provide further references to life in Washington. During this period, Whitman established close friendships with John Burroughs, the naturalist, and William Douglas O'Connor and his wife, Ellen, who provided a surrogate home for Whitman. He also formed an intimate relationship with Peter Doyle, a streetcar conductor. Correspondence with these and other friends and associates can be found in the General Correspondence file.

Whitman's reflections on the events of these years, in particular his reaction to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, are recorded in Drum Taps, published in 1865, which contains some of his best-known and most critically acclaimed poems, including “Oh Captain! My Captain!” “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd,” and “Beat! Beat! Drums!” Notes, trial lines, and drafts of these poems are included in the collection. A “reading book” which Whitman used for his lectures on the significance of Lincoln's life and death is also located in the Literary File series.

In 1873, Whitman moved to Camden, New Jersey, and lived there until his death in 1892. The collection contains many writings published during this period, including the poetry and prose in November Boughs (1888) and Specimen Days (1882-1883), Whitman's assemblage of autobiographical reminiscences. The collection includes complete drafts of both these works as well as Democratic Vistas (1871).

Prominent among Whitman's correspondents is Richard Maurice Bucke, a Canadian physician and mystic who was one of Whitman's most ardent disciples as well as one of his literary executors. Bucke's correspondence is the single largest group in the collection. Among the many foreign admirers, critics, and writers whose letters are contained in the collection are Edward Carpenter (1844-1929), Edward Dowden, Anne Burrows Gilchrist, John Johnston, William Michael Rossetti, Abraham Stoker, John Addington Symonds (1840-1893), Baron Alfred Tennyson, J. W. (James William) Wallace, and Oscar Wilde. Other correspondents include Francis Pharcellus Church, William Conant Church, Moncure Daniel Conway, Mary Whitall Smith Costelloe, Thomas Donaldson (1843-1898), Charles W. Eldridge, Hamlin Garland, Joseph Benson Gilder, Richard Watson Gilder, Ulysses S. (Ulysses Simpson) Grant, Bret Harte, Robert Green Ingersoll, John H. Johnston, William Sloane Kennedy, Sidney H. Morse, T. W. (Thomas William) Rolleston, Bethuel Smith and his parents, Logan Pearsall Smith, Robert Pearsall Smith, members of the Stafford family, J. M. (Joseph Marshall) Stoddart, Horace Traubel, and Talcott Williams.

A substantial amount of material relating to Whitman is arranged in the Supplementary File series. Subseries containing small collections of papers of Whitman's admirers and associates include those of Richard Maurice Bucke, John H. Johnston, William Douglas O'Connor, and Horace and Anne Montgomerie Traubel. In addition to this material, the Library of Congress also maintains a separate collection of the Horace and Anne Montgomerie Traubel Papers which may be consulted in the Manuscript Division Reading Room.

There is no original Whitman material in the Supplementary File series, but he is, instead, the subject that most often binds the various correspondents together. Personal files of Charles E. Feinberg in the Supplementary File are concerned largely with his involvement in the development of exhibitions celebrating the centennial of the publication of Leaves of Grass. Feinberg, one of the founders of the Walt Whitman Review, collected proofs, manuscripts, and other production materials associated with most of the individual issues of that periodical.

The collection contains the manuscripts and proofs of many works about Whitman, including Gay Wilson Allen's The Solitary Singer, James Edwin Miller's A Critical Guide to Leaves of Grass, and Horace Traubel's In Re Walt Whitman and With Walt Whitman in Camden. Published editions of Whitman's writings include Calamus, edited by Richard Maurice Bucke; The Complete Writings of Walt Whitman, edited by Bucke, Thomas Biggs Harned, and Horace Traubel; The Correspondence, edited by Edwin Haviland Miller; and Daybooks and Notebooks, edited by William White. These works are arranged in the Speeches and Writings File subseries, which also includes similar production material for literary and research articles concerning Whitman. The Printed Matter subseries contains articles, pamphlets, and brochures. Photocopies of Whitman items assembled by Feinberg from public and private collections other than his own are filed in the Photocopies subseries. The two largest collections represented by photocopies are located at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, and Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.

The Memorabilia series includes a walking stick carved from a calamus root and given to Whitman by John Burroughs and a haversack which Whitman used on his visits to military hospitals during the Civil War. Other artifacts include such personal possessions as Whitman's pen, pocket watch, and spectacles.

Material received following the main corpus of the Feinberg Collection has been organized in an Addenda series. The first addition contains drafts, typescripts, and proofs of writings pertaining to contemporary Whitman scholarship. Production copy manuscripts for several numbers of the Walt Whitman Review are included, as are manuscripts and proofs of 1980: Leaves of Grass at 125, a special supplement printed by the Walt Whitman Review and edited by William White. This addition also contains a small collection of White's correspondence, notes, and papers relating to the editing and publication of Daybooks and Notebooks and to an edition of variant readings of Leaves of Grass.

Although it includes several original Whitman items, the second addition is composed largely of material relating to Whitman. The addition complements the original collection and reflects its organization, with the bulk of the items arranged in the Supplementary File. In addition to prose notes and trial lines written by Whitman, the second addition includes correspondence and personal papers of Whitman's friends and colleagues as well as associated scholars and collectors, including Albert Aylward, Frank and Mildred Bain, Léon Bazalgette, Charles N. Elliot, Charles E. Feinberg, Thomas Biggs Harned, Henry Scholey Saunders, and Horace and Anne Montgomerie Traubel. Literary manuscripts and production material of speeches and writings about Whitman and related subjects are also contained in this addition.

Material added in 2012 includes a letter fragment dated May 6, 1864, from Whitman to his mother Louisa Van Velsor Whitman concerning the movement of troops under General Ulysses S. Grant around Richmond, Virginia, an addendum to a letter to her filed in the series of Family Papers. Memorabilia include a plaster bust by Sidney H. Morse, created in 1878 from live sittings, and a thirteen inch wooden sculpture by an unidentified artist.

Periodicals containing articles about Whitman published in the period 1892-1915 were removed from the collection in 1997 and scheduled for inclusion in the general collection, but subsequently were retained and added to the collection in 2013.

Abbreviations used in the finding aid include:

DCN

Detroit Catalog Number

P & P

Prints and Photographs Division

RBSC

Rare Book and Special Collections Division