Real or Romantic?

I think Whitman is idealizing the situation of the workers. In the past, workers had to work for long hours with low pay. There weren’t any two-day weekends, so the workers had to work everyday. Whitman described all the workers as if they are enjoying their job, but this is most likely not the case. Many of the work he described are labor work.

One question I would like to ask Whitman is that is he had ever been in a place of a worker. Does he know what it is like? Even though he says he likes to look at things in other people’s perspective, he doesn’t seem to be doing so in this poem. Or maybe, the purpose of the poem isn’t to describe things as real as they are. I think, for the poem, Walt Whitman is trying to paint a picture rather than describing the facts and conditions. He makes an idealistic painting of life and work in America of being cheerful and happy. This poem might not be intended to portray the truth. It might be a song, as the title say, to make people in America feel happy about their life and their country.