What kind of jobs did Walt Whitman have before the Civil War?

Walt Whitman, born in 1819, actually worked a great variety of jobs before the Civil War. Many of these jobs revolved around the world of print, and he worked for a number of different newspapers and literary publications.
You might be surprised to learn that Whitman actually stopped going to school when he was eleven, at which point he worked as an office boy for a law firm. Soon after, he would make his way to the world of print, but not before a quick pit stop working for a doctor.
When Whitman was twelve he worked for a newspaper, and he even contributed some writing to it. He had a string of other such jobs, staying in print and even starting his own newspaper in 1838. Between newspaper jobs, Whitman also taught.
As the above description suggests, Whitman moved between positions fairly regularly, although the majority of his time was spent in print—whether it he was working as a compositor, penning literary reviews, editing, or writing stories. Concurrent to all of this, of course, Whitman was writing his own poems. As a poet of democracy, Whitman moved between roles, embracing different positions and even at one point working as a carpenter and a contractor.