Description: Looking through our collections, we find the universal language of motherly gestures. Mothers nursing, bathing, and embracing their babies. Mothers present during the most important of life events, from the first day of school to the wedding day. There are also views of mothers, often stereotypical or oversimplified, and often presented by advertisers—the mother who dreams of
Description: [caption id="" align="alignright" width="147" caption="Walt Whitman, 1875, by Thomas Wilmer Dewing, Chalk on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Robert Tyler Davis Memorial Fund, 1980.73."][/caption] Fascinating interview with poet Robert Roper, who dug into the National Archives to examine the moving letters poet Walt Whitman wrote to family