Robert Ingersoll speaking the eulogy at Walt Whitman’s funeral
Robert Ingersoll, called The Great Agnostic, was one of the premier orators of the second half of the 19th century, and gave the funeral eulogy for Walt Whitman on March 30, 1892. It was an age in which public orations were a principle means of both education and entertainment and orators such as Ingersoll, from Peoria, Illinois, always drew large crowds and could speak for hours without notes.
Ingersoll enjoyed a friendship with the poet Walt Whitman, who considered Ingersoll the greatest orator of his time. “It should not be surprising that I am drawn to Ingersoll, for he is ‘Leaves of Grass‘ … He lives, embodies, the individuality, I preach. I see in Bob [Ingersoll] the noblest specimen—- American-flavored—- pure out of the soil, spreading, giving, demanding light.”
Nick Barovic Hancock reads the words of Ingersoll and Alex Hancock describes their friendship and mutual admiration. With Kurt Weill’s musical settings of Whitman’s verse, sung by Jerry Hadley, Ian Bostridge, and Wolfgang Holzmair.
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The standard biography is: Susan Jacoby, The Great Agnostic: Robert Ingersoll and American Freethought. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013
A statue of Ingersoll in Peoria, Illinois – restored with help from Madison’s Freedom From Religion Foundation.
Thanks to the Madison Arts Commission for help with funding our Podcast Project.