One hundred and fifty years ago—on or close to the Fourth of July—Walt Whitman, Brooklynite and sometime journalist, published the first edition of an utterly original book of poems. The great New England sage Ralph Waldo Emerson quickly recognized that Leaves of Grass marked the beginning of what he had long been calling for: a truly distinctive American literature.
From US News
July 6th, 2005 | Misc.