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Mentioned in The Building of the House: Houghton Mifflin's Formative Years

James Osgood was introduced to the publishing world in 1855 when he clerked for Ticknor and Fields, prominent Boston publishers. In 1868 he attained the status of partner and, along with James T. Fields, created Fields, Osgood and Company. More mergers and dissolutions followed--R. Osgood and Company and Houghton, Osgood, and Company were formed between 1871 and 1880 (J. Derby 277).

Born on Long Island and raised in Brooklyn, Walt Whitman spent his childhood and early adulthood amid the sights and sounds of New York City and its environs. As a young man Whitman worked as a journeyman printer for several New York newspapers, before ultimately becoming a journalist and editor in his own right. Before committing himself to poetry, Whitman also worked intermittently as a schoolteacher, a carpenter, and a writer of sensational prose fiction.