Walter George Whitman Papers

On May 4, 1874, Walter George Whitman was born in Norway, Maine to George Washington Whitman and Eliza Jane Davis Whitman. Following his graduation from Norway High School, he attended Tufts College. He received an A.B. degree in 1898 and began teaching at Goddard Seminary in Barre, Vermont; he later taught at high schools in Gloucester and Springfield, Massachusetts. In 1906, he received a M.A. degree at Columbia University while teaching at New York City’s Ethical Culture School. On August 20, 1912, he married Grace Bates. Together, the couple had three children: George B. Whitman, who became the eccentric owner of the bookstore Shakespeare and Company in Paris, France, Mary C. Whitman and H. Carleton Whitman. Whitman continued to teach at a number of universities and secondary schools. His longest tenure was at the State Normal School, Salem Massachusetts, where he taught Practical Science and served as Head of the Science Department. While teaching, he also established and served on boards of numerous science-based organizations, becoming the founder of General Science Quarterly in 1916. In 1925, Whitman took a yearlong sabbatical from Salem Normal School and, along with his family, moved to China where he taught at Nanking University. While there, Whitman took a number of photographs and lantern slides, chronicling the everyday life of the Chinese people. While in Asia, Whitman traveled to multiple countries including Japan, India and Egypt. During the 1920s and 1930s, Whitman authored and co-authored a number of science textbooks. These textbooks were widely used across the country and abroad and remained in print for decades. Walter George Whitman died from a heart attack in his Orlando, Florida home at age 78 on November 2, 1952. He is largely recognized as a pioneer and leading force in general science and science education in the first half of the 20th century.