Preferring to be out-of-doors, Walt Whitman constructed pocket-sized notebooks to record his thoughts: we’ll start by creating a folded-paper notebook, and then trace Whitman’s career through the lens of the printing trade. The period of his life coincided with extraordinary changes in the printing industry. Apprenticed in a newspaper office at the age of twelve, he learned the trade and worked as a compositor, publisher, and editor. Each of his books represent his graphic concept—evolving with time and technology— about the work within, and he maintained a professional interest in the production of his books until the end of his life.

Barbara Henry prints fine editions at Harsimus Press. She was Curator of Bowne & Co., Stationers at New York’s South Street Seaport Museum and served as Master Printer at The Center for Book Arts

Karen Karbiener, president and founding member of the Walt Whitman Initiative, is a Whitman scholar and teaches at New York University. Winner of the Kluge Fellowship at the Library of Congress and a Fulbright recipient, she was the curator of “Whitman and the Promise of America” (South Street Seaport Museum, NY, July – December 2005), “Poet of the Body: New York’s Walt Whitman” (with Susan Tane; Grolier Club, NY, May – July 2019), and most recently, “Robust American Love: Avid Visions by Walt Whitman and John Ransom Phillips” (BlackBook Presents, Brooklyn, August – September 2019).

Folding Exercise 1
Folding Exercise 2