Whitman and Wilde Part 1: Walt Whitman in New York, 1855

In celebration of this month of Pride, this two-part show takes a look at two revolutionary writers, Walt Whitman and Oscar Wilde, a surprising meeting they actually had, the times in which they lived and the city of New York and how it inspired them to move onto great fame and celebrity. 

The New York world the Walt Whitman knew as a young man in the 1850’s was really two cities — that of New York which was only today’s Manhattan and the growing Brooklyn across the East River. These two cities in the midst of pre-Civil War and pre-Gilded Age development inspired the young Whitman to give voice to a new America and new experience. In this first episode, guest writer and historian Hugh Ryan (“When Brooklyn Was Queer”) talks about just how revolutionary Whtman’s “Leaves of Grass” was, and just how Whitman would have defined his same sex attractions which had not yet evolved into the concepts of sexuality and gender identification we know today. This unique episode includes a look at the New York and Brooklyn that Whitman knew, what it meant to him and Hugh contributes his own perspective and insight into just what that famous meeting between the older Whitman and the younger Wilde years later might have been like.