Walt Whitman: Librarian & Printer's Devil

Jeffrey Croteau, poet and librarian, talks about the Brooklyn printers that Walt Whitman came into contact with during his apprenticeship years and how these connections directly led to Whitman's appointment as acting librarian of the Brooklyn Apprentices Library in 1835. The Apprentices Library evolved into the Brooklyn Institute and eventually into the Brooklyn Museum, which houses many books collected by the Apprentices Library.

Jeffrey Croteau is the Public Services Librarian at the National Heritage Museum in Lexington, MA. His article on nineteenth-century Brooklyn libraries recently appeared in the journal Library History. His poetry has appeared in The Paris Review and Fence.