Walt Whitman House
- City
- Philadelphia, PA
The Walt Whitman House was the poet's own purchase in the spring of 1884, made at age 65 with the first money that ever bought him a home. After a paralytic stroke and his mother's death in 1873, Whitman had spent eleven years boarding with his brother George on Stevens Street in Camden; buying the small house on Mickle Street (now Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard) gave him a roof of his own for what remained of his life. He called it, self-deprecatingly, his 'shanty' or 'coop.'
the building
The house he chose instead. Whitman's brother George was building a farmhouse in Burlington, New Jersey, with a room set aside for the poet, and Walt spent Christmas 1883 with friends in Germantown while it went up. Instead of moving in with George, he bought the modest Mickle Street house that spring — a deliberate choice for independence in his last years.
significance
The Walt Whitman House is a National Historic Landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, recognized for its association with the poet's final years.
nearby
- Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception
- Dr. Henry Genet Taylor House and Office
- Wilson Building
- South Jersey Gas, Electric and Traction Company Office Building
- One Port Center
- Nipper Building