Major funding for backstory is provided by an anonymous donor, the National

Endowment for the Humanities, and the Robert and Joseph Cornell Memorial Foundation.

From Virginia Humanities, this is backstory.

Welcome to backstory, the show that explains the history behind today's headlines.

I'm Joanne Freeman.

I'm Nathan Connelly.

I'm Ed Ayers.

If you're new to the podcast, we're all historians and each week, along with our colleague,

Brian Ballot, we explore a different aspect of American history.

I celebrate myself and what I assume you shall assume.

That's a bold statement, Gary.

Kind of audacious, huh?

Well, I'm doing that because today marks what would be the great American poet Walt

Whipman's 200th birthday.

So on this week's show, we're going to explore how the author of Leaves of Grass and Song

of Myself tried to forge a unified American identity at a time of national crisis and

division.

So we're going to talk about how Whipman tries to thread differences across sexual identity,

race, religion, place, and politics.

So let's say, just a paraphrase, the poet himself, this week's show is going to be large

and might just contain multitudes.

We'll discuss how Brooklyn shaped Walt Whipman and what exactly he was doing wandering around

...