The Discovery of an 1868 Carte de Visite in the John Rylands Library’s Whitman Collection.
Karen Karbiener, Clinical Professor, New York University & Leverhulme Trust Visiting Professor, writes:
The Walt Whitman who matters most to so many is the courageous voice in the wilderness who dared to be true to himself, body and soul, the singular figure of his time who declared that same-sex love is natural and a worthy subject for poetry. Despite nearly two centuries of efforts by scholars and censors to heterosexualize Whitman— create progeny, convert female friends to lovers, manipulate his pronouns—the truth remains that America’s poet was also its first queer spokesperson and activist. He practiced what he preached, filling little black books with men’s names and descriptions, presiding over meetings of the Fred Gray Association (quite possibly the first gay men’s club in America), bathing naked at the Brooklyn docks, and cruising the streets of New York.
Before the word “homosexual” was first used in 1868 and despite vicious critiques—such as Rufus Griswold’s condemnation of Leaves of Grass (1855) using language invoking the crime of sodomy from contemporary legal records—Whitman published dozens of poems exploring same-sex love. In particular, the “Calamus” cluster of poems from Leaves of Grass (1860) ‘write into being’ a new language of homosexual identity. In a poem first known as “Live Oak, with Moss 8”, then “Calamus 9,” Whitman takes a definitive, ground-breaking step out of the closet (“I am ashamed—but it is useless—I am what I am”) and begins the work towards establishing a supportive gay community: “I wonder if other men ever have the like, out of the like feelings?”
Whitman’s deepest, longest and most important relationship beyond his family circle was with the Irish-born laborer Peter Doyle (1843 – 1907). The first gay couple in American literary history met in Civil War Washington in 1865 and were still in touch when Whitman died in 1892. Their relationship took root during a particularly busy and unsteady moment for Whitman and for America. In the years that Whitman and Pete saw each other almost daily (1865 – 1873), Walt published numerous important works: Drum-Taps (May 1865, with Sequel, October 1865); the fourth (1867) and two printings of the fifth (1871 and 1872) editions of Leaves of Grass; and Democratic Vistas (1871), his defense of democratic principles despite his growing skepticism. While British support for Whitman was manifested by the first UK publication of Leaves of Grass (1868) and correspondence with poet Alfred Lord Tennyson, Whitman was fired by his boss, Secretary of the Interior James Harlan, on the grounds of the “immorality” of his poetry. Further, Whitman’s close-knit family was splitting apart: his brothers Thomas Jefferson and George Washington Whitman married and moved out of the family’s Brooklyn home, and eldest brother Jesse died in the Brooklyn Lunatic Asylum. Whitman’s mother was left to tend to Edward, his severely handicapped brother, though her health was failing.
Through the unpredictable years of Reconstruction, Whitman’s life was held together by his relationship with Pete. Closely bonded on a daily basis for almost eight years, they rode streetcars, patronized the Union Hotel in Georgetown, ate fresh fruits at Center market, and enjoyed moonlit walks along the Potomac River. Though Walt did not share Pete’s fondness for drinking, and Pete was not much for poetry (he admitted that he lost the manuscript of Drum-Taps after Walt had “made him a present of it”), their intimacy is palpably expressed in a photo of the couple taken by Moses P. Rice between 1865 – 1869.
Courtesy of the Library of Congress, photograph of Whitman and Doyle, circa 1865
“Doyle should be a girl,” remarked Whitman’s close friend Charles Harned after scrutinizing their fond gazes and close body positions. After Whitman’s death, Pete gave his consent to publish Whitman’s love letters to him in a volume entitled Calamus: A Series of Letters Written During the Years 1868-1880 (Boston: Laurens Maynard, 1897). Most of these letters date to their time in Washington together, occasioned by Whitman’s visits to his mother and Edward in Brooklyn. “I think of you very often, dearest comrade, and with more calmness than when I was there—I find it first rate to think of you, Pete, & to now that you are there, all right, & that I shall return, & we should be happy together, Walt wrote on September 18, 1868. In the six weeks they were apart, Whitman wrote eleven times and Doyle at least seven times.
The John Rylands Library holds the largest and most important Whitman collection outside of the United States, so I was not surprised to find a first edition of Walt and Pete’s Calamus letters listed in the catalogue. On February 4—just about a week before my second Leverhulme Lecture, “’I Am What I Am’: Walt Whitman, Good Gay Poet” – I turned the green volume over in my hands, opened it to the title page… and Pete literally popped right out of the book.
R101045, Calamus by Walt Whitman, with carte de visite of Peter Doyle, Walt Whitman Printed Collection
A carte de visite of Whitman’s beloved Peter Doyle had been carefully tucked into Calamus for – well, who knows how long? Perhaps the donor Charles F. Sixsmith (1870-1954) had left it to be discovered by the book’s first reader; could that really have been me? If there was any sign that these books deserve more attention, here was an open invitation – in fact, a calling card.
The carte de visite is a type of photograph patented in the mid-1850s that was produced in multiple copies at once, making it cheap and easy to share. An albumen print photograph on thin paper was glued onto thicker cardstock the approximate size of a business card. Peter’s is sepia-tinted, the photo framed by a border; on the back is written “M.P. Rice, Photographer, 520 Pennsylvania Avenue, Between 2nd & 3rd Sts., Washington, D.C.” and in smaller letters at the bottom: “Duplicates of this Picture can be had at any time.” At the top, in Whitman’s distinct scrawl: “Pete Doyle taken July 5 1868.” Walt and Pete were indeed in Washington together in July 1868, and here was material proof.
Recto and verso of carte de visite of Peter Doyle, 1868
Pete’s handsome face glows, a contrast with his thick, curly black hair and impressively long moustache (a 1905 photo indicates that Doyle kept his looks, along with his facial hair). His left eye appears lazy, though this is not mentioned in any of their correspondence. Was Pete winking? There is an air of mischief about his expression, his cocked hat – even his wildly oversized jacket. Doyle looks much more tailored in the portraits of the couple. Was this perhaps his boyfriend’s coat, or a tribute to Whitman’s bohemian look in circa 1860s photographs?
Photograph of Walt Whitman by Mathew Brady, c. 1860-1865
As I held the precious memento gingerly on its edges, I relished my “Eureka!” moment and considered the many stories this object could tell: about nineteenth-century queer culture; about Pete’s sense of humor and dashing good looks; and about Whitman’s pride – yes, Pride with a capital “P” but also his personal vanity about his boyfriend. The note he had written on the verso of the card was surely not for his eyes alone; this carte de visite was meant for others to see. Walt was proud of Pete.
In so many ways, this couple was not a perfect match. The marginally literate, ex-Confederate soldier who had served time for desertion, cab driver and railroad worker Peter Doyle was over twenty years younger than his lover. Yet, according to both men, it was love at first sight when they first met during a particularly stormy evening in February or March 1865. Soggy and tired, Whitman took a seat in Doyle’s horsecar; Doyle jumped off his perch to check out his lone customer. Pete waxes poetic describing what transpired from there:
Something in me made me do it and something in him drew me that way. He used to say there was something in me had the same effect on him. Anyway, I went into the car. We were familiar at once—I put my hand on his knee—we understood. He did not get out at the end of the trip—in fact went all the way back with me… From that time on we were the biggest sort of friends. (from Calamus: A Series of Letters Written During the Years 1868 – 1880, p.23).
And now, with the recovery of this precious memento, the world has another way to remember—and celebrate — America’s first queer love story.