Newspaper – The Daily Graphic “An Evening Newspaper”

The illustrated cover of ‘The Daily Graphic’ evening newspaper titled “At the Women’s Congress: a sketch in front of the platform.” In the foreground, well-dressed women audience members listen to a speaker while clouds above them feature five small sketches identified as ‘public opinion’ showing ‘the poor working girl,’ ‘the female prisoner in her cell,’ ‘the outcast,’ and ‘the unkempt biddy.’ The caption reads “Public opinion (to the leaders of the movement for the advancement of women) – ‘What are you going to do for the working-women and for female outcasts?” New York: Graphic Co., New York. Tuesday, October 21, 1873, Vol. II, No. 198. DATED: 1873

.At the beginning of 1873, Walt Whitman suffered a debilitating stroke and just as he was beginning to recover, his mother, Louisa Whitman, died. He struggled with his health and grief and also with his persistent feeling that he was failing to become a major American poet. But Whitman rallied and continued writing, publishing his poems and prose articles in periodicals, and trying new venues such as the New York Daily Graphic, which was among the first tabloid-format newspapers. The Daily Graphic began publication on March 4, 1873 and ended in 1889 and, from the beginning, was designed for visual appeal to readers. Within the eight pages of the paper were dozens of line drawings (some of them full page illustrations) and political cartoons designed to accompany news articles often printed as a part of regular columns, “Topics of the Day” and “Voices of the Day,” which provided news of local crime activity, government corruption, and international events. The paper also published book reviews and notices in a regular column, “Books of the Day,” as well as poems and stories. The editor of the New York Daily Graphic, David Goodman Croly, who had served as the city editor of the New York World, was known as a reformer and admired Whitman’s work. Whitman published a variety of works in the Daily Graphic, including eight new poems, poems reprinted from earlier publications, “A Christmas Garland of Prose and Verse,” and several articles on the Civil War that were eventually a part of Memoranda During the War (1876) and Specimen Days (1882).