Founding Friendships and the Making of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, America's Second Declaration of Independence
Fellows' Forums

Event Details:
Presented live on Zoom
Dr. Karen Karbiener, 2025-26 New York Historical Fellow, presents the story of the first edition of Leaves of Grass: a revolutionary book that would not have been produced without the assistance of Whitman's friends and Brooklyn neighbors, the Rome brothers. Descendants of the Rome family will share their multi-generational oral history of the friendship as well as their private collection of Whitman-Rome treasures.
Dr. Karen Karbiener is an internationally recognized Whitman scholar and a Distinguished Teaching Award-winning professor at New York University. She has published widely and curated several exhibitions on the poet.
In conversation with Dr. Karbiener are descendants of Tom Rome, Whitman's friend and printer of Leaves of Grass (1855), James Garrett, Linda Garrett, and Rebecca Garrett Granatini.
Location:
Presented live on Zoom
Ticket Instructions:
Online: Click the button above. If you need assistance, please send an email to fellowships@nyhistory.org.
Before the program, all registered attendees will receive a link and instructions for viewing the program on Zoom. If you do not receive a message, please check your spam folder. An additional reminder will be sent two hours prior to the program start time.
Fellowships at The New York Historical are made possible through the generous endowments of The Mellon Foundation, Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation, and Helen and Robert Appel. Major support for fellowships is provided by Bernard L. Schwartz and the Lehrman Institute.


