June 7, 2010
Rare Meteor Event Inspired Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass includes the poem “Year of Meteors, (1859-60)” in which he documents many events in those years—including the hanging of abolitionist John Brown and the election of Abraham Lincoln. He also includes descriptions of a comet and meteors:
Nor the comet that came unannounced out of the north, flaring in heaven;
Nor the strange huge meteor procession, dazzling and clear, shooting over our heads,
(A moment, a moment long, it sail’d its balls of unearthly light over our heads,
Then departed, dropt in the night, and was gone;)
The comet is clearly Comet 1860 III, the Great Comet of 1860. But what were the meteors? Historians have suggested that Whitman was describing the Leonid meteor shower of 1833, or perhaps the one in 1858. More recent scholars have suggested he was describing a fireball that passed overhead on the morning of November 15, 1859. But forensic astronomer Don Olson and his collaborators show in the June issue of Sky & Telescope that Whitman was actually describing a rare phenomenon called a “meteor procession” that occurred on July 20, 1860.
The Meteor of 1860 (courtesy of Judith Filenbaum Hernstadt)
Olson and his colleagues ruled out the Leonids; these are multi-hour events, not the brief one of the poem, and 1833 and 1858 are not the years the poem covers. And though the fireball of 1859 fits the timeline, Whitman described a process of “balls of unearthly light,” not a single one.
The solution to the mystery came from the back of a catalog from an exhibition of paintings by Frederick Edwin Church, a member of the Hudson River School of artists. Olson noticed similarities between the painting and Whitman’s poem: The Meteor of 1860 depicted a line of several fireballs blazing across the New York sky. A search through newspapers, journals and other publications revealed hundreds of accounts from July 20, 1860 of a phenomenon known as a meteor procession—when a meteor grazes the Earth’s atmosphere and fragments into smaller meteors all traveling in the same path—exactly what Whitman had described. It could be seen from Vermont to Virginia, from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean, in upstate New York where Church painted, and in New York City where Whitman lived.
Though the event garnered much public attention—Olson found hundreds of eyewitness accounts—it was mostly forgotten by the 20th century, perhaps overshadowed by the tremendous events that shortly followed. But Whitman and the thousands of other people who saw the meteor procession witnessed something truly special. Olson knows of only three other meteor processions in history. Now there are four.
(In related news, check out this story about a group of meteorologists who how Olson’s group and some scientists from the UK tracked down where Claude Monet stood to create his painting Waterloo Bridge in 1903.)
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RE: Texas State astronomers solve Walt Whitman meteor mystery
As a reference to the July 2010 “Sky and Telescope” publication of Texas State physics professors Donald Olson and Russell Doescher, English professor Marilynn S. Olson and Honors Program student Ava G. Pope work publish on the “Year or Meteors 1859-1860″ and the Church
painting. I am obligated to point out that at the International Meteor Conference in Slovakia in 2008 September, a poster session was presented where the Walt
Whitman “Year of the Meteors” poem was addressed and the implication of the poem to both meteor science and Whitman’s interest in human nature and pre-American civil war period commentary on natural and cultural events
Prior to the IMO conference a CD of articles was prepared (available through the IMO, see their web site if interested,) including the article “Meteor Beliefs Project: Year of Meteors” edited for the co-authors and contributors to the IMC 2008 MBP, by Alastair McBeath & Andrei Dorian
Gheorghe, Project Coordinators (2008 June 15).
The article in the IMO publication about the 1859-1860 meteor out break, pointed out that between 15 November 1859 to 2 August 1860 there were four notable fireball events reported in popular press. The event of bright fireballs was world wide, and that the Comet mentioned in the poem, was Comet C/1860 M1 (III) . The other review of literature
of interest was an article in “Scientific American” of the period entitled the “Year of Meteors”.
The initial article (September 2008) was followed by a related article for John Brown’s Anniversary on the raid on Harpers Ferry and his death in December 1859. The Whitman Poem identifies John Brown as a meteoric figure (WGN December 2009, pp191-194).
As Alastair, Andrei, and I tried to identify the social effect of the 1859-1860 meteors display, with meteor metaphors appearing in commerce and the identification of villains and heroes. I found this contemporary passage for Church, “Church’s meteoric rise in the 1840′s and 1850′s, as one critic has said, was fueled by the tumult of the
times. ….”. And indeed the period of the poem and painting were presented was fluid and dynamic.
The event observed by Church, Whitman, and others was more than just a local event observed by artist on the July 20th, 1860. Newspapers and related journals, found the event to be spectacular. Even medical journals. From the “American Medical Times” this was located, Vol 1,
page 72, July 26, 1860. “Remarks on the Weather (from New York City) ,” (July) 20 Clear and Hot. A brilliant planetary Meteor Crosses the horizon from west to east at a great altitude at 9 1/4 P.M.”
With the information available beginning in 1859 to the end of 1860, the earth’s orbit passed through a series of cosmic dust trails (possibly the 1860 Comment), as the year of meteors was observed through out the world. A publication by Heis and Neumayer (1867), ( On meteors in the southern hemisphere) discuss a series of fireball (circa 1860)
observed from Southern Hemisphere. An illustration by Lydwig Becker from Australia, October 1860 shows a bright fireball over the landscape, as Church.
An opinion shared with Alastair, the 1859-1860 event was the
threshold for scientist and others to begin studying meteors as a discipline of astronomy. I know 1833 Leonid outbreak was an event that began some scientist of the period to rethink meteors, not as water vapours, or volcanic rock from earth but from outside the earth. A review of literature after the 1859-1860 event, finds more observational logs
and publications beginning to be focused on the study of meteor and meteorites. The event of 1859-1860 was the beginning of the acceptance of meteor observations.
Thank you for your time.
George John Drobnock
On behalf of Alastiar McBeath (Alastair McBeath
), Andrei Dorian Gheorghe (Andrei Dorian Gheorghe ), and
the International Meteor Organization publication the WGN (editor – Javor Kac )
[...] fall of 1859 through the summer of 1860 was a period of unusually dramatic meteors. An article in the Smithsonian’s blog suggests that another remarkable meteor in July of 1860 may have inspired Walt Whitman’s poem [...]
Could the Smithsonian provide an article on the November 15, 1859 fireball that exploded near New York City. The roar of that explosion lasted nearly two minutes and the concussion from the blast shook houses for many miles around. Comparisons to the Tunguska explosion could be added to note that these events have occurred near a major city in the past. Building public awareness of natural phenomena is a mission of the Smithsonian, is it not? Perhaps it might influence the funding of meteorite detection and deflection efforts.