Witty Whitman

http://documents.nytimes.com/walt-whitman-and-abraham-lincoln

This looks like an header to newspaper. I don't know the significance of the title but I have heard that Whitman was a total hipster and eccentric. This could be significant because it could be a self description or a description of Lincoln. The introspective nature of poetry directly correlates with introspective nature of the poet and his definition of self will be the most evident in his art.  This picture in particular lacks color, looks very stark, and jagged. And looks very ordinary.  His aim was to reach the ordinary man and the publication of a newspaper could be expansive and revolutionary.

The New-York Saturday Press was a literary weekly edited by Henry Clap and was described as "pitches into nonsense of all kinds in its sharp, sententious, French way....."  this reinforces my hypothesis that the paper was eccentric.  But it doesn't really talk about the design except that the picture is a sketch.