What was Walt Whitman’s day job after publishing Leaves of Grass?

Some things never change.

Even after publishing Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman, one of America’s greatest poets couldn’t survive on a poet’s royalties.

He worked as a low-level Washington bureaucrat, as a clerk in the Indian Department. He often saw his big boss, Abraham Lincoln, walking up the streets of Washington, D.C.

Whitman was a loyal employee; his poem “Oh Captain, My Captain” was written in mourning for Lincoln after his assassination.

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