Walt Whitman Birthplace

In 1819, Walt Whitman, widely recognized as America's greatest poet, was born in a small farmhouse in the rural Long Island community of West Hills in the town of Huntington. Despite Whitman’s prominence, his family’s house faced the continual threat of suburban encroachment. In 1949, Walt Whitman Birthplace Association was established to preserve his birthplace. Poets, authors, professors, businesspeople, and concerned citizens were among its founding members.

To help raise awareness and funds to protect the farmhouse, WWBA appealed to Alicia Patterson, the owner and publisher of Newsday. Patterson featured Whitman and the plight of his farmhouse on the cover of the newspaper and launched a fundraising campaign that inspired students across Long Island to collect for the cause. After three months, the Association purchased the property. In 1957, WWBA was successful in its petition to Governor Harriman to designate the birthplace a New York State Historic Site. In 1985, the property was listed on the NYS and National Registers of Historic Places.

Up until 1986, WWBA managed the site on a small scale with limited visitation and public programming. WWBA’s executive director Barbara Mazor Bart convinced the Association’s board to promote the site as a center of learning and to make it more accessible to the public. The site’s educational programs were inaugurated in 1987. Among its various offerings, one of the site’s most successful initiatives is the annual student poetry contest, which receives 5,000 entries each year.

Each year, WWBA’s Board of Trustees selects a nationally recognized poet to be its Poet-in-Residence. From public readings of his or her own poetry to teaching master writing classes, these guest poets are helping to instruct and inspire the next generation of writers. WWBA maintains a library of approximately 1,800 volumes at the site, which focuses on the poetry and life of Walt Whitman and includes an original edition of Leaves of Grass.

In the 1990s, to help accommodate the site’s increased visitation and expanding programs, the Association in partnership with OPRHP, planned an Interpretive Center at the site. The center opened in 1997 and provides space for a classroom, library, offices, gift shop, and collections storage as well as providing handicapped accessible bathrooms. Through the initiative of WWBA and the leadership of OPRHP Commissioner Bernadette Castro, a comprehensive restoration of the Birthplace was undertaken for the first time in 43 years. The restoration was completed in 2000.

In addition, PIRC staff developed a new furnishing plan for the house in collaboration with WWBA curator Richard Ryan. The plan reflects the agrarian lifestyle of the Whitman family between 1816 and 1823. Almost half of the site’s collection (about 200 objects) is on display in the house. In 2005, the barn was renovated and its original wood was used as floorboards for the new structure, named the Gathering House. This structure was dedicated in November of 2005. It is utilized as an environmental education classroom, exhibit space, and small meetings.

In 2007, Cynthia Shor was selected by the Board of Trustees as executive director. She initiated the first Walt Whitman Family Reunion in 2008 with the intention of locating descendants, making an oral history documentary of family members, and mounting an exhibit of family artifacts relating to Walt Whitman.

Source:

About, www.waltwhitman.org/about/about-wwba