Walt Whitman is America’s poet, a man who had a large idea of America’s then current and potential greatness. Whitman came at a time when the American people needed guidance, the Civil War, and he helped the country lick its wounds and begin bringing people back together after such a long period of division. Due to his notoriety and synonymy with Americanness, Whitman’s seminal work Leaves of Grass has achieved canon-status in the US, and continues to be published in numerous editions. All of the subsequent publishes of Leaves of Grass after Whitman’s death seemingly have some special feature to set them apart from previous versions for a hopeful increase in sales, and that was the case for the 1941 edition featuring Edward Weston’s photography. Allison Meier in her article, “When Edward Weston Took Photographs for Walt Whitman’s ‘Leaves of Grass’” talks much about why Weston was chosen for such a prestigious role in taking photos for Whitman, Weston’s photography ability, and Whitman’s idea’s longevity as expressed through photos.
The defining feature of Whitman’s idealistic America is the fact that so much life happens on its soil. That is to say, the American people and land is beautifully diverse and Whitman celebrates that. Meier states, “When Edward Weston set out to photograph the United States of the 1940s for a new edition of the 19th-century poet’s Leaves of Grass, he attempted to represent the manifold experiences of life in the country.” Because of the multitude of things that make up American culture, and the vast difference of the natives in certain parts of the country, Norton decided upon a cross-country road trip to fuel his photography. Per the article, Norton thought his Whitman catalog to be some of the best work of his career, but ultimately the book was extremely unsuccessful. There could have been a multitude of reasons for the books failure, but it seems the main reason was ignorance of the vision that Norton and Whitman shared. Upon the printing of the book, it had the photos taken by Norton paired with a Whitman quote with a green background bleeding through the photos. Norton went into the project attempting to capture America, he had no real quote or words in mind while photographing, and the retrofitting of his work with Whitman’s detracted from what Norton wanted and what Whitman would have wanted for Leaves. For Whitman, Leaves was a vision of America and Americans through most every relevant lens at the time, and that is what Norton captured; a few of Norton’s photos include an ancient Louisiana plantation house with Roman-esque columns out front and a beat-up car underneath the overhang, a man and woman on a front porch dressed in what look to be handmade clothes, and several portraits of people dressed in 19th-century attire. The photos captured a true American spirit for not only Whitman’s time, but the America of the 1940’s. That being said, although the book was a failure the photos are still thought of as incredible work because of how well they serve their intended purpose. Had the photos not been unintendedly compiled with Whitman’s misfit words there would be no question as the similarity between the calm, realistic, and confidence of Norton’s photos, and the century-old emotional response to Whitman’s poetry.
Whitman’s poetry was groundbreaking for its time; his writing was completely free of verse, sexually transparent, and exceedingly optimistic in a time of national distress. Although Norton could not tick every single box as Whitman, he kept the authenticity and lack of formalism like in Leaves of Grass. Words can only describe the photos so much, so I attached a link to the article and that features a few of the collection. Despite the distance between these photos and Whitman, the resemblance of feeling is undeniable.
When Edward Weston Took Photographs for Walt Whitman’s ‘Leaves of Grass’
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