The Whitman collection is comprised primarily of books donated to the Walt Whitman House by Colonel Richard Gimbel at his death in 1971. The collection was cataloged into the Library Catalog in 1986-87 as part of a grant received by Professor Geoffrey Sill, the President of the Walt Whitman Association and a member of the Department of English at Rutgers University in Camden. The collection is available to scholars by prior arrangement at the phone number listed above.

Walt Whitman lived with his brother George in Camden from 1873 until 1884, when he bought his own house at 328 Mickle Street, where he lived until his death in 1892. Among the many visitors he received in Camden were Thomas Eakins, John Burroughs, Oscar Wilde, and Horace Traubel. The house, now numbered 330 Mickle Boulevard, displays furnishings owned and used by Whitman and a collection of manuscripts, photographs, and memorabilia. The house is managed by the State of New Jersey Division of Parks and Forestry and is open to the public see http://www.nj.gov/dep/parksandforests/historic/whitman/index.html. The library is in an adjacent building at 326 Mickle Boulevard.