The Library of Congress will present a Walt Whitman Open House display in Room 119 of the Thomas Jefferson Building. The Open House will feature a special array of rarely seen Walt Whitman collection items from the Manuscript, Rare Book, Music, and Prints and Photographs divisions, as well as Serials and General Collections. 

The display will include items pertaining to Whitman’s time in Washington, but also other materials from throughout his life, including the walking cane given to him by nature writer John Burroughs, draft poems, artistic renderings of Whitman and rare editions of Leaves of Grass.

This is part of the multi-venue, 12-day Walt Whitman 200 Festival, celebrating the 200th anniversary of the birth of one of America’s most significant and enduring poets, who was a resident of Washington, DC for ten years during and after the Civil War.