In the poem "I Hear America Singing" by Walt Whitman, is he romanticizing or idealizing the workers?

In the poem 'I Hear America Singing by Walt Whitman' the poet seems to be both romaticizing and idealizing the workers simultaneously. Many readers may find this romatic, idyllic scene of a rural America unfamiliar and may even be offended by a perceived deliberate painting of a situation that was,in fact, unreal for most people.Even the tradespeople lucky enough to have those jobs may hardly have made enough to make ends meet for their kids or put food on the table.

Whitman presents a pastoral scene where everyone is gainfully employed as an artisan from classical times would be - mostly creatively, industriously and joyfully. However, some cynical readers may want to ask themselves where are the songs of the unemployed, the voices from the past that sing of the oppression of the slaves, the carols from the Depression queues - and topically in today's war situation - the soldiers voices from Iraq and Afghanistan, so in that sense the poem doesn't speak for us today or about other challenging times for some people in America.

Nonetheless, Whitman's poems became very popular - this one perhaps for an ideal it was striving to depict rather than reality as it really was. It's also worth remembering that Whitman, unlike his poetic peers, left school young and the 'pastoral types' and working men he wrote about were present among his own sphere of friends.Was he misrepresenting them? Unlikely - he and they were most likely appreciative of their lot.