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In 1848 he visited New Orleans ,Chicago ,and the Westem frontier ;the later impressed him greatly ;There is speculation that some of his experiences on this trip marked a turning point in his career ,though it is more likely that he was gradually developing as an artist .At any rate ,soon after this he became famous ,He published the first edition of Leaves of Grass in 1855 ,setting the type for the book himself ,and writing favorable reviews of it in the papers ,anonymously .He comtinued to add new poems to the collection ,and tk rearrange and revise them ,untilhis death in 1892 .His best work is usually considered to have been done before 1871

In the first decades after the Civil War ,Americans ceased to be isolated from the world amd from each other.Telegraph lines spanned the nation ,and in 1866 a trans-Atlantic cable joined America and Europe .The first transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869 ,linking the Atlantic and the Pacific ,Soon the United States had the most extensive railroad system in the world ,which in turn generated enormous commercial expansion .The cost of transporting raw materials and finished goods dropped .Products once made locally by costly handwork were replaced by inexpensibve goods

Whitman was one of the great innovators in American literature  .In the cluster of poems he called Leaves of Grass he gave America its first genuine epic poem.The poetic style he devised is now called free verse-that is ,poetry without a fixed bear or regular rhyme scheme .Whitman thought that the voice of democracy shoulk not be hqltered by traditional forms of verse ,His imfluence on the poetic technique of other writers was small during the time he was writing Leaves of Grass ,but today elements of his style are apparent in the work of many poets ,During the 20^th century ,poets as different as Carl Sandburg and the “Beat”bard ,Allen Ginsberg have owed something tl him.