Walt Whitman and the Everyday Worker

Elfreth's Alley, as a neighborhood with a frequently changing population, is the home of a wide variety of craftsmen and workers, skilled and unskilled, immigrant and native. Read the poem and:

Primary source lesson: Using the 1880 census records (see Census Project Lesson Attachments), list the occupations of the residents of Elfreth's Alley.
Secondary source lesson: Use attachment below, a listing of all of the occupations of Alley residents from 1850 - 1880.

Read the selected cantos of Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" "A Song of Myself." Whitman, in writing about the breadth of his life and loves and in the vastness of America, speaks of the workaday lives of the people around him. Starting at line 252, the students will read and record the occupations of the men and women who people Whitman's poem. Once that list has been compiled, compare the Alley list with Whitman's list.

• How well represented is the Alley in the poem?
• Are there jobs that no longer exist?
• Is Whitman making a judgment about these people?
• Is he making a judgment about America?
• Do you think his was a common viewpoint in 1855?  1865?  1880?

 

Alternative

Read "Song of Myself" from the beginning through line 349.

What is Whitman's view of the people around him?
What is his 1855 view of African American's?
Do you think that is a typical view for an educated man in 1855?

How does he view America?
Between line 252 and 349, Whitman expounds on people and their lives. Do these everyday activities of 1855 reflect just their own time or can it be transposed to the American of today?

Write an essay juxtaposing Whitman's view of the life of the American worker with what you believe life may have been like for a resident of Elfreth's Alley.