Whitman at Pfaff's: Commercial Culture, Literary Life and New York Bohemia at Mid-Century

Andrews is described as an "anarchist and sex radical" who presided over the New York Free Love League, "a discussion group of men and women" (120).

To help publicize Leaves of Grass Clapp "cheerfully" published Beach's "revolted review" of the third edition (122).

He is listed as one of the Pfaffian writers that "have fallen into obscurity." Stansell wonders how much influence these writers weilded on Whitman's literary career (108). Stansell notes that Clapp "set the tone" at Pfaff's and "was known for his slashing wit and withering bon-mots: a disdain for puffery was a point of principle for his Saturday Press" (117). Stansell also writes that one can understand the "superheated conditions of literary work" in the 1850s from Clapp's correspondence to Whitman (117).

Stansell writes that "Henry Clapp himself thought bohemia to be an entirely French phenomenon, impossible to transplant to America" (110).

As one of the "Pfaffian regulars" who did "serious writing along with journalism", Clapp wrote criticism (114). Stansell writes that at Pfaff's "There was verbal play with literary material: O'Brien took the idea for a sensationalist Poe-esque story about a glass eye from a story Clapp told one night" (117).

Stansell observes that the way Whitman referred to Clapp is similar to "the sort of evasion and half-glimpse which Whitman often used as a sexual code" and suggests that the two might have been lovers. Regardless of this fact, Stansell notes that Clapp was a "champion and friend" of Whitman; "a much needed ally at that time...when almost the whole press of America when it mentioned me at all treated me with derision or worse," and also, "Henry Clapp stepped out of the crowd of hooters" (119). Clapp was 44 and Whitman 39 when they met, and they "shared a general affiliation to radical reform." Clapp was born in Nantucket and had worked as an abolitionist lecturer in the 1830s, edited a temperance newsletter, and worked as the secretary to Albert Brisbane, the American Fourierist. Stansell notes that Clapp's political positions seem harder to gauge in the 1850s, as he separated his political and literary works, but notes that he attended a "star-studded convention of radicals in Rutland, Vermont" in the late 1850s -- "a gathering of spiritualists, free-thinkers, advocates of women's rights and free love, and abolitionists" (119). Stansell writes that "more salient...to Clapp's friendship with Whitman was his involvement in free love circles" and notes that he was arrested in a police raid in 1855, during a meeting of the New York Free Love League, "a discussion group of men and women presided over by the anarchist and sex radical Stephen Pearl Andrews." According to Stansell, Clapp was a prominent member of this group and spoke for them both the night of their arrest and at their trial (119-120). Stansell writes, however, that "By the time Whitman met him...Clapp sought a more protean oppositional identity than radical reform offered. He impressed others as a bohemian genius who set his entire existence against the forces of convention" (120).

Stansell discusses Howells's visit in detail, focusing on Howells's interactions with Clapp when he visited the Saturday Press (120). According to Stansell, "Howells' mistake was to be from Boston. We can view the entire account of his meeting with Clapp as materializing from his decades-long battle against the ascendancy of New York over his beloved Boston as literary capital of the country. Howells was both drawn to the literary dynamism of New York and repelled by it, and he preserved until the end of his life a nostalgia for the well-bred Boston literary elite which had enfolded him in their circle when he first migrated to the city from the Midwest in 1861. For Howells, Clapp's 'bad' qualities were inseparable from his New-York-ness: 'he embodied the new literary life of that city.' And at the heart of that life was a contempt for Boston, 'a bitterness against Boston as great as the bitterness against respectability'" (120-121).

According to Stansell, during the 1850's, the publishers and writers of New York "were just beginning to take advantage of the possibilities the new markets offered for a publishing business free of the dominance of the Boston critics and publishers. Clapp was a leader in this process, and Whitman would in some ways be its first great success. Clapp's prescience lay in his comprehension of how publicity and celebrity could, within a changing literary market, obviate the need for critical and moral approval. Whitman seemed to have something of this in mind when he noted that Clapp was the writers' avant-garde, 'our pioneer, breaking ground before the public was ready to settle.' At a moment whne some gentleman writers still shied away from advertising their books, Clapp fully grasped the democratizing features of the market. 'It is a fundamental principle in political economy,' he instructed Whitman in 1860, 'that everything succeeds if money enough is spent on it'" (121-122).

Deland was an actress who came to Pfaff's with her male companion/manager. She is also mentioned as one of "the handful of women artists [who] figure in the accounts of New York Bohemia" (111).

He is listed as one of the Pfaffian writers that "have fallen into obscurity." Stansell wonders how much influence these writers weilded on Whitman's literary career (108).

Stansell writes that for Poe and O'Brien a decade later, journalism became "a profession for the broken and disappointed of the gentlemanly classes" (114). She also describes him as "dashing" and writes that O'Brien was, "a once wealthy Irishman and Pfaffian in the late '50s who had arrived in New York with impressive letters of introduction to New York's most powerful editors, 'a large and valuable library,' 'dressing cases; pictures' a ward-robe of much splendor; and all sorts of knick knackery, such as young bachelors love to collect'" (114).

As one of the "Pfaffian regulars" who did "serious writing along with journalism", O'Brien wrote short stories (114). Stansell writes that at Pfaff's "There was verbal play with literary material: O'Brien took the idea for a sensationalist Poe-esque story about a glass eye from a story Clapp told one night" (117). Stansell writes that "O'Brien...would dash into Pfaff's to sponge off freinds when he was dead broke, then dash out again with an idea for a story of knock off" (118).

Stansell writes that for Poe and O'Brien a decade later, journalism became "a profession for the broken and disappointed of the gentlemanly classes" (114).

He is listed as one of the Pfaffian writers that "have fallen into obscurity." Stansell wonders how much influence these writers weilded on Whitman's literary career (108).

He is listed as one of the Pfaffian writers that "have fallen into obscurity." Stansell wonders how much influence these writers weilded on Whitman's literary career (108).

As one of the "Pfaffian regulars" who did "serious writing along with journalism", Shephard wrote poetry (114).

Stansell writes that Stedman remembered the 1850s in New York as "bleak": "there was not much of a literary market at that time" (121).

Stansell writes that Clapp incorported his "disdain for puffery" as a "point of principle for his Saturday Press" (117).

Stansell notes that while many contemporary sources claim that literary life was quite difficult in the 1850s in New York, evidence of the wide spread of New York publications, such as the Saturday Press to places like Columbus, Ohio, where it was noticed and contributed to by Howells, show that matters were improving for the New York literary world (121).

Clapp used the Saturday Press as a venue for "stirring up" issues around Leaves of Grass to promote the book. The paper seems to have discussed both the poetry and Whitman; publishing twenty items on Whitman in eleven months as well as poetic contributions, critical reviews of the work, notes about the poems, advertisements, and parodies (122).

Clapp was a "champion and friend" of Whitman.

Stansell looks to Winter as a source about Pfaff's and writes: "Winter described a caustic collective style articulated through verbal facility, mockery and male bravado:

'Candor of judgment, indeed, relative to literary product was the inveterate custom of that Bohemian group. Unmerciful chaff pursued te perpetrator of any piece of writing that impressed those persons as trite, conventional, artificial, laboriously solemn, or insincere; and they never spared each other from the barb of ridicule. It was a salutary experience for young writers, because it habituated them to the custom not only of speaking the truth, as they understood it, about the writings of their associates, but of hearing the truth, as others understood it, about thier own productions'" (117).

Stansell also quotes Winter's description of Clapp p.120. In discussing the literary life in New York in the 1850s, Stansell quotes Winter: "a harder time for writers has not been known in our country than the time that immediately preceeded the outbreak of the Civil War" and notes that he uses the life stories of several Pfaff's regulars to illustrate this point (121).

He is listed as one of the Pfaffian writers that "have fallen into obscurity." Stansell wonders how much influence these writers weilded on Whitman's literary career (108).