Walt Whitman as a Nurse in the Civil War

Currently not on view

Walt Whitman as a Nurse in the Civil War

c. 1861-1864 (negative); c. 1950-1955 (print)

Print by Ansel Adams (American, 1902–1984) Negative by Mathew B. Brady (American, 1823–1896)

Brady took this portrait during the years Walt Whitman served as a volunteer wound dresser in the hospitals of Washington, D.C., during the Civil War. Whitman's writings about his visits were published in a New York newspaper in December 1864, where he wrote that "the magnetic flood of sympathy and friendship . . . does, in its way, more good than all the medicine in the world."

Currently not on view

Object Details

Titles:

Walt Whitman as a Nurse in the Civil War

Date:

c. 1861-1864 (negative); c. 1950-1955 (print)

Artists:

Print by Ansel Adams (American, 1902–1984) Negative by Mathew B. Brady (American, 1823–1896)

Medium:

Gelatin silver print

Dimensions:

Image and sheet: 9 × 6 1/2 inches (22.8 × 16.5 cm) Mount: 12 × 9 inches (30.5 × 22.8 cm)

Classification:

Photographs

Credit Line:

From the Collection of Dorothy Norman, 1997

Accession Number:

1997-146-130

Geography:

Photograph taken in United States, North and Central America

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Currently not on view