Whitman's antislavery writing often focused on white Americans

Whitman's view on slavery was informed by a trip to New Orleans

In 1848, Walt Whitman traveled with his brother to New Orleans to pursue a job opportunity at the Daily Crescent newspaper. While there, he witnessed firsthand the horrors of the slave trade, an experience that would inform the political and artistic projects that followed.

Whitman founded an antislavery newspaper in Brooklyn

In 1948, Whitman founded a “free soil” newspaper called the Brooklyn Freeman, which explicitly argued against slavery. That activism led to problems for the paper, including an attack on its headquarters after the release of its first issue.

Whitman revolutionized American poetry

Whitman was a groundbreaking force in American literature, legitimizing the national idiom, capturing the spirit of the evolving country, and inspiring younger generations of writers for centuries to follow.

How Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman grappled with the American Civil War

Whitman, whose brother was injured while fighting for the Union, was often overt in his pro-Union poems. Dickinson, whose brother paid to have someone enlist under his name, was more subtle, though equally as affected, as this comparative analysis makes clear.

Adams was a vocal opponent of slavery during the Revolutionary era

In letters written during the Revolution, Adams clearly opposed slavery—calling it an unjust scheme and highlighting the contradiction of fighting for freedom while enslaving others. Read it in her own words here in a letter to John Adams.

Whitman led a Lincoln lecture late in life

Whitman toured several cities with “The Death of Lincoln,” a lecture series about the slain president that sought to establish him as a crucial figured in American history. The talks attracted famous figures, including Mark Twain and General William Tecumseh Sherman.

Later in life, Washington privately grew critical of slavery—while continuing to uphold it publicly

His private letters increasingly described slavery as unjust and incompatible with Republican ideals, and his final will ordered the eventual emancipation of those he legally owned. At the same time, he enforced slave labor, signed pro-slavery laws, and took no public action to dismantle the system.

Walt Whitman wrote a temperance novel

Before “Leaves of Grass” there was “Franklin Evans,” a novel about a young man whose drinking ruins his life. Whitman all but disowned the novel for the rest of his life, though critics note that he preached teetotaling throughout his life.

Francis Scott Key was a slaveholder and anti-abolitionist

As a Christian, Key was opposed to slavery in principle, though he owned slaves and was opposed to abolition. His anti-slavery work was limited to the American Colonization Society, which believed slaves should be freed and then returned to Africa, despite Black Americans opposing the idea. Later, he turned into an anti-slavery activist.

Whitman left school at 11 to help his family

The poet's family was poor and moved several times during his childhood. At 11, his father removed Whitman from school so he could work to support the family.

The abolitionist movement long predated the Civil War

Beginning in the late 18th century, abolitionists like Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, and Sojourner Truth campaigned through newspapers, lectures, and political action to end slavery.

'Leaves of Grass' was banned several times for obscenity

Whitman's collection was banned numerous times in various cities through the 1800s; in Boston, the district attorney even threatened Whitman’s publisher with criminal prosecution.

Hughes wrote for and about everyday Black Americans

Early in his career, Hughes was often disregarded by prominent white literary critics and criticized by Black intellectuals for his sometimes negative portrayal of Black life. Hughes, though, was unconcerned, saying that he wrote for the “workers, roustabouts, and singers, and job hunters” of New York, Washington, Chicago, and other Black hubs.

What was life like as a slave in the US?

Over 2,500 former slaves were interviewed by writers and journalists in the late 1930s as part of the US Federal Writer's Project. The collection recorded images and firsthand verbal accounts of life as a slave, eight of which are highlighted in this article at the Library of Congress. See the humanity in each of these individuals with their firsthand accounts.

Thoreau's 'Civil Disobedience' was largely a protest against the Mexican-American War

Henry David Thoreau refused to pay taxes that funded what he saw as an unjust war waged to expand slavery. His act of protest inspired his famous essay "Civil Disobedience," a foundational text for nonviolent resistance.

Twain's ‘To the Person Sitting in the Darkness’ satirized American imperialism

The 1901 essay was a response to the Philippine-American War as well as Rudyard Kipling’s poem, “The White Man’s Burden,” which argued that Western nations had a moral duty to rescue non-Western nations from ignorance. Twain’s essay ironically encouraged lecturing citizens of the countries being invaded: “for the sake of the Business we must persuade him to look at the Philippine matter in another and healthier way. We must arrange his opinions for him.”

Debunking the myth of Dickinson's antisocial seclusion

It's true that the poet largely kept to herself in her late-30s, spending nearly all her time at her father's house, and when she did venture out into the world, she'd wear white, facts that led American history to label her a strange, antisocial recluse. But, as this essay shows, that image is not entirely true, evident in the many relationships she maintained through her letters.

The words of Truth's Akron speech are disputed—compare the two versions

There are two versions of Truth's Akron speech: one written shortly after by a white abolitionist, and the other published 12 years later. The later version added a southern dialect and the phrase "Ain't I a Woman?"—raising questions about its authenticity.

A prominent writer analyzes Thoreau's apparent contradictions

Some call Thoreau a monkish hermit living in the woods, while others say he's a privileged layabout who was playacting a simple life. In this essay, Rebecca Solnit argues that both of those assessments are caricatures that reduce a complex man who reckoned with complex ideas.

Claude McKay's poem 'If We Must Die' criticized racial violence

The poem, a Shakespearean sonnet, is a critique of the violence that Black Americans faced at home in America. It was written in the summer of 1919, also known as "Red Summer," when several white supremacist attacks and race riots broke out across the country.

Black women played a central but often overlooked role in the suffrage movement

Although the women's suffrage movement is often portrayed as a white story, Black women like Truth, Ida B. Wells, and Mary Church Terrell fought for voting rights—frequently facing racism within the movement itself.

Public transit has been a front line of civil rights battles for over a century

Public transit was among the most contested terrain in the fight for racial equality in America, because it was where Black Americans and white Americans were unavoidably forced to share public space.

Augusta Savage's masterpiece was destroyed after a limited exhibition

"Life Every Voice and Sing," sometimes called "The Harp," debuted at the 1939 New York World's Fair. Based on the James Weldon Johnson poem (and eventual unofficial Black national anthem) of the same name, the massive, 16-foot-tall sculpture depicted a kneeling Black man holding a bar of music in front of 12 chorus singers. After the fair ended in 1940, Savage was unable to pay to preserve it, so it was destroyed.

The 14th Amendment aimed to guarantee citizenship for formerly enslaved people

The 14th Amendment was crafted to overturn Dred Scott by granting birthright citizenship to formerly enslaved people and their descendants, securing their legal status under federal law.

A dissenting take on the Lamar's Pulitzer win

Not everyone thought that Kendrick Lamar’s historic Pulitzer win was a good thing—even his own fans. Writer and hip-hop aficionado Ismail Muhammad lays out the case for why "DAMN" deserved the award, but the Pulitzers don’t deserve praise for giving it. Was the decision more about the organization’s image than the work itself? See if Muhammad’s argument convinces you.

Before writing 'Walden,' transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau nearly burned down his hometown with a campfire that grew out of control.

Famed poet TS Eliot rejected the manuscript for George Orwell's political fable 'Animal Farm,' writing that its criticism of authoritarianism was not 'the right point of view.'

Mark Twain spent decades feuding with the US Postal Service, convinced its costs and regulations were bureaucratic overreach.

Abraham Lincoln was almost assassinated weeks before his inauguration as he traveled from Illinois to DC through Baltimore in 1861; it took two independent claims for Lincoln to be convinced the threat was real

The rivalry between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson centered on federalism—the question of how much power the federal government should hold relative to the states.

The Brothers Grimm were lawyers before they were storytellers, but became interested in fairy tales as they began investigating how rules and customs had been passed down through cultures.

The 19th-century painters of the Hudson River School were among the first American romantics, with portraits that displayed the natural beauty of the young country.

Georgia O'Keeffe's flower paintings are often assumed to be sexual, though the artist claimed she was simply interested in highlighting the beauty of flowers that most people neglect

Many legends about George Washington, including his supposed wooden teeth and the story of cutting down the cherry tree, lack evidence.

American dance legend Martha Graham, sometimes called 'the Picasso of dance,' refused to perform at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and conceived the piece 'Chronicle' in response to the experience.

The original copy of the Declaration of Independence is not a pristine document, and even features a smudged anonymous handprint in the bottom left corner.

20,000 letters to the advice columnist 'Dear Abby' provide insight into prevailing sex, religion, and LGBTQ fears, anxieties, and concerns from the 1950s onward.

The US Constitution is widely regarded as the longest-standing written national constitution still in force—see how it has influenced rights worldwide.

The first line of 'immortal' human cells, which can divide indefinitely and are used in scientific research, was nonconsensually taken from a Black woman.

After the Boston Tea Party, colonists switched to coffee, which became the main morning drink for revolutionaries.

Frank Lloyd Wright's houses are historically hard to sell because they're old, subject to local landmark commissions, and often unfashionable

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

Watch a 1934 short film starring jazz legend Cab Calloway, a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance's music scene

Browse a detailed visual analysis of over 200,000 similes—comparisons that often use 'like' or 'as'—from popular fiction to see how frequently writers the same idiomatic expressions.

A small portion of The Winstons' 'Amen, Brother,' an obscure '60s gospel record, is the basis for thousands of hip-hop tracks, making it one of the most sampled records ever that's informally known as 'the Amen break.'

In 2018, 26-year-old missionary John Allen Chau was killed by tribesmen after attempting to reach and evangelize on India's isolated North Sentinel Island

The American cockroach is actually from Africa, an apparent hitchhiker aboard ships carrying enslaved people, with evidence suggesting the bug may have arrived in the New World as early as the 1600s.

During the French Revolution, a botanist's letter asking about "dear Rhus" (poison ivy) was intercepted, leading authorities to suspect he was conspiring with the Russians.

Apollo astronauts left items in the moon's 'toss zone,' including golf balls, family photos, and bags of human waste, to make room for lunar rocks.

SpongeBob exemplifies Aristotle's philosophy for living well because he understands that happiness doesn't come from external factors like money, recognition, or power.