In his artistic development, William Carlos Williams offers us a series of enactments of the process of slow, laborious birth which he so often made the subject of his verse. When we look at Williams' career, we find long periods of groping experiment which culminate in brief phases of accomplished expression; the volumes Spring and All (1923), The Wedge (1944), and Journey to Love (1955) mark these major phases in his development. But the time of most profound change and growth for Williams was between 1902 and 1914. During that period of his early manhood Williams slowly evolved the identity that would provide the confident impetus for his later stylistic experiments. In evolving his idea of himself, Williams was most importantly influenced by Walt Whitman; the Camden Bard helped the Rutherford doctor both to discover and to affirm his mature identity.