Tags Posts tagged with "Walt Whitman Birthplace"

Walt Whitman Birthplace

Walt Whitman Birthplace
Join the Huntington Historical Society for its virtual October Lunch & Learn event on Thursday, Oct. 7 at noon as Walt Whitman Birthplace Association Executive Director Cynthia Shor and Docent Iris Jumper offers a virtual tour of the home where Walt Whitman was born in 1819. Afterwards, they will offer a virtual presentation of the permanent exhibit in the Interpretive Center by commenting on the panels which depict Walt’s life in his later years. The presentation will last 45 minutes with time for commentary and Q&A from participants.
Suggested donation is $10.
Your donations will help the Society continue to preserve and share the history of Huntington!

A crowd gathers at the birthplace of Walt Whitman, where Whitman’s legacy was discussed from Aug. 9 to 11. Photos from Cynthia Shor

‘O Captain, My Captain’

By Walt Whitman

Whitman’s poem “O Captain, My Captain” is an elegy written to honor Abraham Lincoln in his work for the country in keeping it unified, said Cynthia Shor, executive director of Walt Whitman Birthplace Association. 

Like all poems, the tribute contains a turning point that reveals an overarching meaning. See if you can find Whitman’s message in this poem, written in 1865, the year of Lincoln’s death. 

O Captain! My Captain!

our fearful trip is done;

The ship has weather’d every rack,
the prize we sought is won;

The port is near, the bells I hear,
the people all exulting,

While follow eyes the steady keel,
the vessel grim and daring:

      But O heart! heart! heart!

       O the bleeding drops of red,

         Where on the deck my Captain lies,

          Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! My Captain!

rise up and hear the bells;

Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills;

For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding;

For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

       Here captain! dear father!

         This arm beneath your head;

           It is some dream that on the deck,

            You’ve fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer,
his lips are pale and still;

My father does not feel my arm,
he has no pulse nor will;

The ship is anchor’d safe and sound,
its voyage closed and done;

From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;

       Exult, O shores, and ring O bells!

        But I with mournful tread,

         Walk the deck my Captain lies,

           Fallen cold and dead.

The Walt Whitman Birthplace Association hosted its first three-day international conference in honor of Whitman’s legacy. The event was held at Whitman Birthplace State Historic Site at 246 Old Walt Whitman Road in Huntington Station.

“All the presentations opened new roads into interpreting Whitman, whose words are still relevant today in his Bicentennial 200th birthday year,” Executive Director Cynthia Shor said. “Plans are being made for a follow-up conference in 2021.” 

About 50 guests each day from both the local community and other parts of New York, such as Queens, attended to see 25 international presenters share their research about Whitman’s impact on cultural, social, historical, literary and gender issues from his lifetime to our lifetime. 

Presenters traveled from six countries and 10 states to discuss topics such as translating Whitman’s poems into other languages, the use of his poems in contemporary advertising and the influence of mesmerism and Darwinism in his writing. Creative expressions were also included through poetry readings and open mic, films and music celebrating Whitman. There were nine panels in total, moderated by the association’s board members. Local Walt Whitman “personator” Darrel Blaine Ford dressed as Whitman and posed for pictures with attendees.

The keynote speaker was Professor Ed Folsom, the Roy J. Carver Professor of English at The University of Iowa. His panel discussion was titled “Whitman Growing Old” and he spoke about how Whitman confronted death in his poetry and how he still speaks to poets today, long after his death. 

“There has been a gradual, almost imperceptible, shift in our view of Whitman and his work recently, as if we have been searching for the Whitman who can address and respond to a growing cultural despair instead of (or maybe in addition to) the Whitman who spurs on an endless optimism,” Folsom said. “Americans are, after all, at a far different period of the nation’s history than that which he experienced, a point where some of the democratic payoff that Whitman promised should be far more apparent than it is, a point where many of us begin to feel a need for a different Whitman, one more tempered in his outlook, older, pointing not the way to a fully achieved democratic future but rather one who can guide us about how to live in a diminished present on an earth of diminishing resources, in a society where the same old problems — of racial injustice, of grotesquely unfair wealth distribution, of continuing gender discrimination — just keep resurfacing, as virulent as ever.” 

Folsom is the editor of the Walt Whitman Quarterly Review, co-director of the Whitman Archive and editor of the Whitman Series at The University of Iowa Press. He is the author or editor of numerous books and essays on Whitman and other American writers. 

The association wishes hearty congratulations to all who took part and is delighted to have hosted an event shedding light on Whitman’s tremendous body of work and his charismatic personality.

This program was made possible with funds from Robert D.L. Gardiner Foundation, New York State Parks, Suffolk County, Town of Huntington, New York State Council on the Arts and Huntington Arts Council. The association offers special thanks and appreciation to these organizations for their continued support. 

Whitman’s birthplace museum is open to the public seven days a week, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. After Labor Day, the site is open Wednesday to Friday, 1 to 4 p.m. and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekends. The site is located at 246 Old Walt Whitman Road in Huntington Station. For more information call 631-427-5240 or visit www.waltwhitman.org.

Suffolk Comptroller's audit of Walt Whitman Birthplace Association cites trouble with financial practices

Walt Whitman Birthplace State Historic Site and Interpretive Center. Photo from Facebook.

Suffolk County is seeking more than $21,000 in repayments from the nonprofit Walt Whitman Birthplace Association after an audit allegedly found multiple issues with its financial practices.

Suffolk Comptroller John Kennedy (R) performed an audit of the Walt Whitman Birthplace Association, a nonprofit organization that operates the state historic site and interpretive center in Huntington Station, after receiving an anonymous hotline complaint and tips from people he described as “those familiar with its operation.” The Jan. 19 report alleged the birthplace association overbilled the county by $24,365 in 2015.

“I have the utmost respect [for nonprofits]; they put in a tremendous amount of hours for benefit of the local community and educational community,” Kennedy said. “There is also a select segment who seem intent on gaming the system.”

We have a curator who was submitting his hours on the back of looseleaf paper.”

— Suffolk Comptroller John Kennedy

The comptroller said he found it “absolutely horrendous” the organization’s executive director doesn’t keep time sheets or oversight of employee hours, which were byproducts of the audit. Kennedy said despite selling tour tickets and running a gift shop, the organization had no point of sale system or manual bookkeeping. He said his staff also found an active credit card still in the name of a former trustee.

“We have a curator who was submitting his hours on the back of looseleaf paper,” he said. “It’s crazy, absolutely crazy.”

The association receives roughly half of its funding through Suffolk’s hotel motel tax, which sets aside 8 percent of the tax revenue for “the support of museums and historical societies, historic residences and historic birthplaces.” The organization receives 1.5 percent of that 8 percent set aside, under county law, for a total of $138,789 in 2015.

“We had hoped this would be a collegial and cooperative enterprise when they said they would audit us,” said William Walter, president of the organization’s board of trustees. “We thought we would find some improved procedures and not this type of report where they want to take money back from us that we need to run our programs.”

Kennedy said the nonprofit has 30 days to come up with a plan to repay the funds.

In response to the county, the organization has admitted to overcharging more than $2,000 in expenses but disputed most of the audit findings.

We had hoped this would be a collegial and cooperative enterprise when they said they would audit us.”
— William Walter

Walter said Executive Director Cynthia Shor is a salaried employee, not subject to time sheets under state law. The $2,587 disallowed by the audit for paid lunches to its part-time staff has been a standing company policy, according to the board president.

“We have no health insurance for employees, no pension, no benefits, no vacation,” he said. “The one thing we thought we could give them was a paid lunch hour, which is a half hour.”

The nonprofit board president also pointed to several policy changes enacted since 2015. An audit committee was formed in September 2017 to provide oversight of the organization’s finances and a point of sale system has been installed in recent months. That credit card in a former trustee’s name Walter said is slowly being paid off so the organization can close it out and replace it with a debit card.

The comptroller said he will be forwarding the county’s audit both to Huntington Supervisor Chad Lupinacci (R) and New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli (D), as both provide funding to the organization. Huntington spokesman A.J. Carter confirmed the town gave $21,000 to the birthplace in 2017, an amount that has remained consistent since 2015.

Walter said the organization has hired an attorney, Melville-based Tenenbaum Law, to defend itself against the county’s allegations.

“We’d rather not have to take it to court or get into an adversarial position with them,” he said.