Bowery B'hoys

The Bowery B'hoys started out as a the tough youths that hung out in the Bowery and then as time went on the perception of them seemed to shift to that of the ideal urban American. The spelling is used to evoke an Irish pronunciation as many of them were immigrants, though not all Irish. It is speculated that the "voice" or persona of "Song of Myself" comes from the voice/position/social standing of a Bowery B'hoy. I was surprised to have read this because I thought the voice of Song of Myself" was the poet, Walt Whitman, himself. I can see where the attraction to the Bowery B'hoys lies for Whitman. He tends to romanticize the working-class, common man way of life so the Bowery B'hoy certainly would fit the bill for this: "That ruffianly lower-class swell, the Bowery B'hoy—already a hero of the raucous popular theater frequented by Whitman—lent his outrageous swagger to "Song of Myself"" (1855)(whitmanarchive.org). But in taking it a step further it is interesting to see how it was one of Whitman's goals to go beyond class structure in "Song of Myself," to include everyone, and as the Bowery B'hoy evolved from ruffian to a representation of a middle-class New Yorker we can see then how the voice really matches the intent of the poem.

There is a lot on the net about the Bowery B'hoys online, but I found these two sites paricularly interesting:

http://books.google.com/books?id=2uTCiN347lMC&pg=PA67&lpg=PA67&dq=Bowery+b’hoy&source=bl&ots=cScBcz89Kh&sig=h0Q4QL6UW5ue4OLn7NZGpkyn5X0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Ud5FT__ALZT1sQLZ9YHDDw&ved=0CHMQ6AEwDw#v=onepage&q=Bowery%20b’hoy&f=false

http://whitmanarchive.org/criticism/current/encyclopedia/entry_37.html