Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2023 October 29

= October 29 =

Whitman lecture $2500
Can anyone track down more information about what the lecture that earned Whitman $2500 could be? This book mentions it Eddie891 Talk Work 17:23, 29 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Plenty of references at Walt Whitman's lectures on Abraham Lincoln. 2A00:23C7:9939:E401:E5D4:4200:8CC2:2EF9 (talk) 17:50, 29 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, I wrote the article. None of them seem like they could possibly have netted that much money, especially considering that there were only two after this one. Eddie891 Talk Work 18:15, 29 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Is it possible that Whitman gave two lectures at Madison Square Theatre, and that he netted nearly $600 from the first, while the second, on 14 April 1887, attended by Andrew Carnegie, Mary Mapes Dodge, Daniel Coit Gilman, John Milton Hay, James Russell Lowell, Charles Eliot Norton, Augustus Saint-Gaudens and Mark Twain, earned him the larger amount? --Lambiam 13:20, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Hm, the sourcing seems pretty clear that the 600 came from that lecture, since we know that Carnegie gave 350 for it. It's hard to imagine that a lecture with *fewer* prominent people would raise so much more. Eddie891 Talk Work 18:16, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
 * If there was an earlier lecture, it was probably attended by fewer prominent people than the second lecture. Is there an early source that connects the $600 to specifically the April 14, 1887, date? --Lambiam 10:14, 31 October 2023 (UTC)
 * OK, I found a source (a letter by Whitman) making that connection clear. --Lambiam 10:22, 31 October 2023 (UTC)