Desc: In Search of Walt Whitman, Part One: The Early Years (1819-1860): Directed by Andrew D. Kaplan. With Al Foote III, Andrew D. Kaplan, Richard S. Rose. Walt Whitman rises from a hardscrabble boyhood in Long Island and Brooklyn to write the masterpiece Leaves of Grass in 1855 that revolutionizes literature. Many of his most famous poems are profiled.