Carl August Sandburg (January 6, 1878 – July 22, 1967) was an American poet, biographer, journalist, and editor. He won three
Pulitzer Prizes
The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made hi ...
: two for his poetry and one for his biography of
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...
. During his lifetime, Sandburg was widely regarded as "a major figure in contemporary literature", especially for volumes of his collected verse, including ''
Chicago Poems'' (1916), ''Cornhuskers'' (1918), and ''Smoke and Steel'' (1920).
He enjoyed "unrivaled appeal as a poet in his day, perhaps because the breadth of his experiences connected him with so many strands of American life". When he died in 1967, President
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...
observed that "Carl Sandburg was more than the voice of America, more than the poet of its strength and genius. He was America."
Life
Carl Sandburg was born in a three-room cottage at 313 East Third Street in
Galesburg, Illinois
Galesburg is a city in Knox County, Illinois, United States. The city is northwest of Peoria. At the 2010 census, its population was 32,195. It is the county seat of Knox County and the principal city of the Galesburg Micropolitan Statistical ...
, to Clara Mathilda (née Anderson) and August Sandberg,
[ Sandburg's father's last name was originally "Danielson" or "Sturm". He could read but not write, and he accepted whatever spelling other people used. The young Carl, sister Mary, and brother Mart changed the spelling to "Sandburg" when in elementary school.] both of
Swedish
Swedish or ' may refer to:
Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically:
* Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland
** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
ancestry. He adopted the nickname "Charles" or "Charlie" in elementary school at about the same time he and his two oldest siblings changed the spelling of their last name to "Sandburg".
At the age of thirteen he left school and began driving a milk wagon. From the age of about fourteen until he was seventeen or eighteen, he worked as a porter at the Union Hotel barbershop in Galesburg. After that he was on the milk route again for 18 months. He then became a bricklayer and a farm laborer on the wheat plains of
Kansas
Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the ...
. After an interval spent at
Lombard College
Lombard College was a Universalist college located in Galesburg, Illinois.
History
Lombard College was founded in 1853 by the Universalist Church as the Illinois Liberal Institute. In 1855, however, a major fire damaged much of the college, p ...
in Galesburg, he became a hotel servant in
Denver
Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...
, then a coal-heaver in Omaha. He began his writing career as a journalist for the ''
Chicago Daily News
The ''Chicago Daily News'' was an afternoon daily newspaper in the midwestern United States, published between 1875 and 1978 in Chicago, Illinois.
History
The ''Daily News'' was founded by Melville E. Stone, Percy Meggy, and William Dougherty ...
''. Later he wrote poetry, history, biographies, novels, children's literature, and film reviews. Sandburg also collected and edited books of ballads and folklore. He spent most of his life in
Illinois
Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...
,
Wisconsin
Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...
, and
Michigan
Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...
before moving to
North Carolina
North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...
.
Sandburg volunteered to go to the military during the
Spanish–American War
, partof = the Philippine Revolution, the decolonization of the Americas, and the Cuban War of Independence
, image = Collage infobox for Spanish-American War.jpg
, image_size = 300px
, caption = (clock ...
and was stationed in Puerto Rico with the 6th Illinois Infantry, disembarking at
Guánica,
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and Unincorporated ...
on July 25, 1898. Sandburg was never actually called to battle. He attended
West Point
The United States Military Academy (USMA), also known Metonymy, metonymically as West Point or simply as Army, is a United States service academies, United States service academy in West Point, New York. It was originally established as a f ...
for just two weeks before failing a mathematics and grammar exam. Sandburg returned to Galesburg and entered
Lombard College
Lombard College was a Universalist college located in Galesburg, Illinois.
History
Lombard College was founded in 1853 by the Universalist Church as the Illinois Liberal Institute. In 1855, however, a major fire damaged much of the college, p ...
but left without a degree in 1903. He then moved to
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at th ...
, to work for a newspaper, and also joined the Wisconsin Social Democratic Party, the name by which the
Socialist Party of America
The Socialist Party of America (SPA) was a socialist political party in the United States formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party of Ameri ...
was known in the state. Sandburg served as a secretary to
Emil Seidel
Emil Seidel (December 13, 1864 – June 24, 1947) was a prominent German-American politician. Seidel was the mayor of Milwaukee from 1910 to 1912. The first Socialist mayor of a major city in the United States, Seidel became the Vice Presidential ...
,
socialist
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...
mayor of Milwaukee
This is a list of mayors of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
List
External linksJS Online
{{Mayors of the City of Milwaukee
Milwaukee
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Mayors
In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a Municipal corporatio ...
from 1910 to 1912. Carl Sandburg later remarked that Milwaukee was where he got his bearings and that the rest of his life had been "the unrolling of a scene that started up in Wisconsin".
Sandburg met
Lilian Steichen
Carl August Sandburg (January 6, 1878 – July 22, 1967) was an American poet, biographer, journalist, and editor. He won three Pulitzer Prizes: two for his poetry and one for his biography of Abraham Lincoln. During his lifetime, Sandburg ...
(1883-1977) at the Milwaukee Social Democratic Party office in 1907, and they married the next year in Milwaukee. Lilian's brother was the photographer
Edward Steichen
Edward Jean Steichen (March 27, 1879 – March 25, 1973) was a Luxembourgish American photographer, painter, and curator, renowned as one of the most prolific and influential figures in the history of photography.
Steichen was credited with tr ...
. Sandburg with his wife, whom he called Paula, raised three daughters. Their first daughter, Margaret, was born in 1911. The Sandburgs moved to
Harbert, Michigan, and then to suburban
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
, Illinois in 1912 after he was offered a job by a Chicago newspaper.
They lived in
Evanston, Illinois before settling at 331 South York Street in
Elmhurst, Illinois, from 1919 to 1930. During the time, Sandburg wrote ''Chicago Poems'' (1916), ''Cornhuskers'' (1918), and ''Smoke and Steel'' (1920).
In 1919 Sandburg won a Pulitzer Prize "made possible by a special grant from
The Poetry Society
The Poetry Society is a membership organisation, open to all, whose stated aim is "to promote the study, use and enjoyment of poetry". The society was founded in London in February 1909 as the Poetry Recital Society, becoming the Poetry Society ...
" for his collection ''Cornhuskers''.
[ Sandburg also wrote three children's books in Elmhurst: ''Rootabaga Stories'', in 1922, followed by ''Rootabaga Pigeons'' (1923), and ''Potato Face'' (1930). Sandburg also wrote ''Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years'', a two-volume biography, in 1926, '']The American Songbag
''The American Songbag'' is an anthology of American folksongs compiled by the poet Carl Sandburg and published by Harcourt, Brace and Company in 1927. It was enormously popular and was in print continuously for more than seventy years. Melodies ...
'' (1927), and a book of poems called ''Good Morning, America'' (1928) in Elmhurst. The Sandburg house at 331 South York Street in Elmhurst was demolished and the site is now a parking lot. The family moved to Michigan in 1930.
Sandburg won the 1940 Pulitzer Prize for History
The Pulitzer Prize for History, administered by Columbia University, is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It has been presented since 1917 for a distinguished book about the history ...
for the four-volume '' The War Years'', the sequel to his ''Abraham Lincoln'', and a second Poetry Pulitzer in 1951 for ''Complete Poems''.["Poetry"]
The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved November 24, 2013.[The ]Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
The Pulitzer Prize for Poetry is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes awarded annually for Letters, Drama, and Music. It was first presented in 1922, and is given for a distinguished volume of original verse by an American author, published ...
was inaugurated in 1922 but the organization now considers the first winners to be three recipients of 1918 and 1919 special awards.
In 1945 he moved to Connemara
Connemara (; )( ga, Conamara ) is a region on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast of western County Galway, in the west of Ireland. The area has a strong association with traditional Irish culture and contains much of the Connacht Irish-speak ...
, a rural estate in Flat Rock, North Carolina. Here he produced a little over a third of his total published work and lived with his wife, daughters, and two grandchildren.
On February 12, 1959, in commemorations of the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...
's birth, Congress met in joint session
A joint session or joint convention is, most broadly, when two normally separate decision-making groups meet, often in a special session or other extraordinary meeting, for a specific purpose.
Most often it refers to when both houses of a bicame ...
to hear actor Fredric March
Fredric March (born Ernest Frederick McIntyre Bickel; August 31, 1897 – April 14, 1975) was an American actor, regarded as one of Hollywood's most celebrated, versatile stars of the 1930s and 1940s.Obituary ''Variety'', April 16, 1975, p ...
give a dramatic reading of the Gettysburg Address
The Gettysburg Address is a Public speaking, speech that President of the United States, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln delivered during the American Civil War at the dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery, Soldiers' National Cemetery, ...
, followed by an address by Sandburg.
Sandburg supported the Civil Rights Movement
The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...
and was the first white man to be honored by the NAACP
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.&nb ...
with their Silver Plaque Award as a "major prophet of civil rights in our time."
Sandburg died of natural causes
In many legal jurisdictions, the manner of death is a determination, typically made by the coroner, medical examiner, police, or similar officials, and recorded as a vital statistic. Within the United States and the United Kingdom, a distinct ...
in 1967 and his body was cremated. The ashes were interred under "Remembrance Rock", a granite boulder located behind his birth house in Galesburg.[His wife and two daughters would also be interred there. See the signage.]
Career
Poetry and prose
Much of Carl Sandburg's poetry, such as "Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
", focused on Chicago, Illinois
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
, where he spent time as a reporter for the ''Chicago Daily News
The ''Chicago Daily News'' was an afternoon daily newspaper in the midwestern United States, published between 1875 and 1978 in Chicago, Illinois.
History
The ''Daily News'' was founded by Melville E. Stone, Percy Meggy, and William Dougherty ...
'' and ''The Day Book
''The Day Book'' was an experimental, advertising-free daily newspaper published in Chicago from 1911 to 1917. It was owned by E. W. Scripps as part of the Scripps-McRae League of Newspapers (later Scripps-Howard Newspapers). Its editor was Negl ...
''. His most famous description of the city is as "Hog Butcher for the World/Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat/Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler,/Stormy, Husky, Brawling, City of the Big Shoulders."
Sandburg earned Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...
s for his collection ''The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg'', ''Corn Huskers'', and for his biography of Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...
('' Abraham Lincoln: The War Years''). Sandburg is also remembered by generations of children for his ''Rootabaga Stories
''Rootabaga Stories'' (1922) is a children's book of interrelated short stories by Carl Sandburg. The whimsical, sometimes melancholy stories, which often use nonsense language, were originally created for his own daughters. Sandburg had three d ...
'' and ''Rootabaga Pigeons'', a series of whimsical, sometimes melancholy stories he originally created for his own daughters. ''The Rootabaga Stories'' were born of Sandburg's desire for "American fairy tales" to match American childhood. He felt that the European stories involving royalty and knights were inappropriate, and so populated his stories with skyscrapers, trains, corn fairies and the "Five Marvelous Pretzels".
In 1919, Sandburg was assigned by his editor at the ''Daily News'' to do a series of reports on the working classes and tensions among whites and African Americans
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
. The impetus for these reports were race riots that had broken out in other American cities. Ultimately, major riots broke out in Chicago too, but much of Sandburg's writing on the issues before the riots caused him to be seen as having a prophetic voice. A visiting philanthropist, Joel Spingarn, who was also an official of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. ...
, read Sandburg's columns with interest and asked to publish them, as ''The Chicago Race Riots, July, 1919''.
Lincoln works
Sandburg's popular multivolume biography ''Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years'', 2 vols. (1926) and ''Abraham Lincoln: The War Years'', 4 vols. (1939) are collectively "the best-selling, most widely read, and most influential book about Lincoln." The books have been through many editions, including a one-volume edition in 1954 prepared by Sandburg.
Sandburg's Lincoln scholarship had an enormous impact on the popular view of Lincoln. The books were adapted by Robert E. Sherwood
Robert Emmet Sherwood (April 4, 1896 – November 14, 1955) was an American playwright and screenwriter.
He is the author of '' Waterloo Bridge, Idiot's Delight, Abe Lincoln in Illinois, Rebecca, There Shall Be No Night, The Best Years of Our ...
for his Pulitzer Prize-winning play, ''Abe Lincoln in Illinois'' (1938) and David Wolper
David Lloyd Wolper (January 11, 1928 – August 10, 2010) was an American television and film producer, responsible for shows such as ''Roots'', ''The Thorn Birds'', and ''North and South'', and the theatrically-released films ''L.A. Confident ...
's six-part dramatization for television, ''Sandburg's Lincoln'' (1974). He recorded excerpts from the biography and some of Lincoln's speeches for Caedmon Records
Caedmon Audio and HarperCollins Audio are record label imprints of HarperCollins Publishers that specialize in audiobooks and other literary content. Formerly Caedmon Records, its marketing tag-line was Caedmon: a Third Dimension for the Printe ...
in New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
in May 1957. He was awarded a Grammy Award
The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pres ...
in 1959 for Best Performance – Documentary Or Spoken Word (Other Than Comedy) for his recording of Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland (, ; November 14, 1900December 2, 1990) was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later a conductor of his own and other American music. Copland was referred to by his peers and critics as "the Dean of American Com ...
's ''Lincoln Portrait
''Lincoln Portrait'' (also known as ''A Lincoln Portrait'') is a classical orchestral work written by the American composer Aaron Copland. The work involves a full orchestra, with particular emphasis on the brass section at climactic moments. The ...
'' with the New York Philharmonic
The New York Philharmonic, officially the Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New York, Inc., globally known as New York Philharmonic Orchestra (NYPO) or New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra, is a symphony orchestra based in New York City. It is ...
. Some historians suggest more Americans learned about Lincoln from Sandburg than from any other source.
The books garnered critical praise and attention for Sandburg, including the 1940 Pulitzer Prize for History
The Pulitzer Prize for History, administered by Columbia University, is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It has been presented since 1917 for a distinguished book about the history ...
for the four-volume '' The War Years''. But Sandburg's works on Lincoln also received substantial criticism. William E. Barton, who had published a Lincoln biography in 1925, wrote that Sandburg's book "is not history, is not even biography" because of its lack of original research and uncritical use of evidence, but Barton nevertheless thought it was "real literature and a delightful and important contribution to the ever-lengthening shelf of really good books about Lincoln." Historian Milo Milton Quaife
Milo Milton Quaife (1880–1959) was a historian of Michigan and the Great Lakes region.
Quaife was born in Nashua, Iowa. He received his education at Grinnell College, the University of Missouri and the University of Chicago. He was head of the ...
criticized Sandburg for not documenting his sources and questioned the accuracy of ''The Prairie Years'', noting they contain a number of factual errors. Others have complained ''The Prairie Years'' and ''The War Years'' contain too much material that is neither biography nor history, saying the books are instead "sentimental poeticizing" by Sandburg. Sandburg himself may have viewed his works more as an American epic than as a mere biography, a view also mirrored by other reviewers.
Folk music
Sandburg's 1927 anthology the ''American Songbag
''The American Songbag'' is an anthology of American folksongs compiled by the poet Carl Sandburg and published by Harcourt, Brace and Company in 1927. It was enormously popular and was in print continuously for more than seventy years. Melodies ...
'' enjoyed enormous popularity, going through many editions; and Sandburg himself was perhaps the first American urban folk singer, accompanying himself on solo guitar at lectures and poetry recitals, and in recordings, long before the first or the second folk revival movements (of the 1940s and 1960s, respectively). According to the musicologist Judith Tick:
As a populist poet, Sandburg bestowed a powerful dignity on what the '20s called the "American scene" in a book he called a "ragbag of stripes and streaks of color from nearly all ends of the earth ... rich with the diversity of the United States." Reviewed widely in journals ranging from the ''New Masses'' to ''Modern Music'', the ''American Songbag'' influenced a number of musicians. Pete Seeger, who calls it a "landmark", saw it "almost as soon as it came out." The composer Elie Siegmeister took it to Paris with him in 1927, and he and his wife Hannah "were always singing these songs. That was home. That was where we belonged."
Film
Sandburg said he considered working on D. W. Griffith's ''Intolerance
Intolerance may refer to:
* Hypersensitivity
Hypersensitivity (also called hypersensitivity reaction or intolerance) refers to undesirable reactions produced by the normal immune system, including allergies and autoimmunity. They are usual ...
'' (1916) but his first film work was when he signed on to work on the production of ''The Greatest Story Ever Told
''The Greatest Story Ever Told'' is a 1965 American epic film produced and directed by George Stevens. It is a retelling of the Biblical account about Jesus of Nazareth, from the Nativity through to the Ascension. Along with the ensemble cast, ...
'' (1965) in July 1960 for a year, receiving an "in creative association with Carl Sandburg" credit on the film.
Legacy
Commemoration
Carl Sandburg's boyhood home in Galesburg is now operated by the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency as the Carl Sandburg State Historic Site. The site contains the cottage Sandburg was born in, a modern visitor's center, and small garden with a large stone called Remembrance Rock, under which his and his wife's ashes are buried. Sandburg's home of 22 years in Flat Rock, Henderson County, North Carolina
Flat Rock is a village in Henderson County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 3,114 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Asheville Metropolitan Statistical Area.
History
Charles Baring and Susan Heyward Baring built Mountain Lo ...
, is preserved by the National Park Service
The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational propertie ...
as the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site
Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site, located at 81 Carl Sandburg Lane near Hendersonville in the village of Flat Rock, North Carolina, preserves Connemara, the home of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and writer Carl Sandburg. Though ...
. Carl Sandburg College
Carl Sandburg College is a public community college with its main campus in Galesburg, Illinois. The college serves west-central Illinois region and has a branch campus in Carthage and an off-campus site in downtown Galesburg.
The college was es ...
is located in Sandburg's birthplace of Galesburg, Illinois
Galesburg is a city in Knox County, Illinois, United States. The city is northwest of Peoria. At the 2010 census, its population was 32,195. It is the county seat of Knox County and the principal city of the Galesburg Micropolitan Statistical ...
, and Fairfax County, Virginia has a Carl Sandburg Middle School.
On January 6, 1978, the 100th anniversary of his birth, the United States Postal Service
The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or Postal Service, is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for providing postal service in the U ...
issued a commemorative stamp
A commemorative stamp is a postage stamp, often issued on a significant date such as an anniversary, to honor or commemorate a place, event, person, or object. The ''subject'' of the commemorative stamp is usually spelled out in print, unlike def ...
honoring Sandburg. The spare design consists of a profile originally drawn by his friend William A. Smith in 1952, along with Sandburg's own distinctive autograph.
The Rare Book & Manuscript Library (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) (RBML) houses the Carl Sandburg Papers. The bulk of the collection was purchased directly from Carl Sandburg and his family. In total, the RBML owns over 600 cubic feet of Sandburg's papers, including photographs, correspondence, and manuscripts.
In 2011, Sandburg was inducted into the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame.
Namesakes
Carl Sandburg Village
Carl Sandburg Village is a Chicago urban renewal project of the 1960s in the Near North Side community area of Chicago. It was named in honor of Carl Sandburg. Financed by the city, it is between Clark and LaSalle Streets between Division Street ...
was a 1960s urban renewal project in the Near North Side, Chicago
The Near North Side is the eighth of Chicago's 77 community areas. It is the northernmost of the three areas that constitute central Chicago, the others being the Loop and the Near South Side. The community area is located north and east of the ...
. Financed by the city, it is located between Clark and LaSalle St. between Division Street and North Ave. Solomon & Cordwell, architects. In 1979, Carl Sandburg Village was converted to condominium ownership.
Numerous schools are named for Sandburg throughout the United States, and he was present at some of these schools' dedications. (Some years after attending the 1954 dedication of Carl Sandburg High School
Carl Sandburg High School, Sandburg, or CSHS, is a public four-year high school located at the intersection of La Grange Road and Southmoor Drive in Orland Park, Illinois, a southwest suburb of Chicago, Illinois, in the United States. It is part ...
in Orland Park, Illinois
Orland Park is a village in Cook County, Illinois, United States, with a small portion in Will County. The village is a suburb of Chicago. Per the 2020 census, Orland Park had a population of 58,703.
Located 25 miles (40 km) southwest of Chicago ...
, Sandburg returned for an unannounced visit; the school's principal at first mistook him for a hobo
A hobo is a migrant worker in the United States. Hoboes, tramps and bums are generally regarded as related, but distinct: a hobo travels and is willing to work; a tramp travels, but avoids work if possible; and a bum neither travels nor works.
E ...
.) Sandburg Halls
Sandburg Residence Hall is a student residence hall on Maryland Ave, Milwaukee, Wisconsin on the campus of University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. The building consists of four high rise towers and is the largest student residence hall of the scho ...
, a student residence hall at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee
The University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee (UW–Milwaukee, UWM, or Milwaukee) is a public urban research university in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It is the largest university in the Milwaukee metropolitan area and a member of the University of Wiscons ...
, carries a plaque commemorating Sandburg's roles as an organizer for the Social Democratic Party and as personal secretary to Emil Seidel
Emil Seidel (December 13, 1864 – June 24, 1947) was a prominent German-American politician. Seidel was the mayor of Milwaukee from 1910 to 1912. The first Socialist mayor of a major city in the United States, Seidel became the Vice Presidential ...
, Milwaukee's first Socialist mayor.
Carl Sandburg Library opened in Livonia, Michigan
Livonia is a city in Wayne County, Michigan, Wayne County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 95,535 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, which ranked it as Michigan's ninth most-populated municipality.
Livonia is a part ...
in 1961. The name was recommended by the Library Commission as an example of an American author representing the best of literature of the Midwest. Carl Sandburg had taught at the University of Michigan
, mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth"
, former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821)
, budget = $10.3 billion (2021)
, endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
for a time.
Galesburg opened Sandburg Mall
Sandburg Mall, a.k.a. Carl Sandburg Mall, was a shopping mall in Galesburg, Illinois. The mall operated as an enclosed shopping center from 1975 to 2018 with main anchor stores and a variety of interior stores. The interior mall was closed Septembe ...
in 1975, named in honor of Sandburg. The Chicago Public Library
The Chicago Public Library (CPL) is the public library system that serves the City of Chicago in the U.S. state of Illinois. It consists of 81 locations, including a central library, two regional libraries, and branches distributed throughout the ...
installed the Carl Sandburg Award, annually awarded for contributions to literature.
A subdivision in a suburbs of Atlanta Georgia is named after Carl Sandburg and his life. Connemara HOA in Lawrenceville (GA) includes the namesake of Connemara, his home in NC. Street names include Galesburg Dr (his birthplace), Windflower Way (named after the poem Windflower Leaf), Remembrance Trace (named after his only novel of Remembrance Rock), Flat Rock Dr (his home of Connemara in Flat Rock, NC), and Lombard Dr (the College he attended).
Amtrak added the ''Carl Sandburg
Carl August Sandburg (January 6, 1878 – July 22, 1967) was an American poet, biographer, journalist, and editor. He won three Pulitzer Prizes: two for his poetry and one for his biography of Abraham Lincoln. During his lifetime, Sandburg ...
'' train in 2006 to supplement the ''Illinois Zephyr
The ''Illinois Zephyr'' and ''Carl Sandburg'' are a pair of passenger trains operated by Amtrak on a route between Chicago and Quincy, Illinois. As ''Illinois Service'' trains, they are partially funded by the Illinois Department of Transporta ...
'' on the Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
– Quincy route.
In other media
* Avard Fairbanks
Avard Tennyson Fairbanks (March 2, 1897 – January 1, 1987) was a 20th-century American sculptor. Over his eighty-year career, he sculpted over 100 public monuments and hundreds of artworks. Fairbanks is known for his religious-themed commis ...
produced Sandburg's portrait during the Lincoln Sesquicentennial. It was cast in bronze and placed at the Chicago Historical Museum and at Knox College, his alma mater, in Galesburg, IL.
* NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an Television in the United States, American English-language Commercial broadcasting, commercial television network, broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Enterta ...
produced a six-episode miniseries
A miniseries or mini-series is a television series that tells a story in a predetermined, limited number of episodes. "Limited series" is another more recent US term which is sometimes used interchangeably. , the popularity of miniseries format h ...
entitled ''Lincoln
Lincoln most commonly refers to:
* Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), the sixteenth president of the United States
* Lincoln, England, cathedral city and county town of Lincolnshire, England
* Lincoln, Nebraska, the capital of Nebraska, U.S.
* Lincoln ...
'', also referred to as ''Carl Sandburg's Lincoln'', starring Hal Holbrook
Harold Rowe Holbrook Jr. (February 17, 1925 – January 23, 2021) was an American actor, television director, and screenwriter. He first received critical acclaim in 1954 for a one-man stage show that he developed called ''Mark Twain Tonight!'' ...
and directed by George Schaefer, aired between 1974 and 1976.
* Richard Armour
Richard Willard Armour (July 15, 1906 – February 28, 1989) was an American poet and prose writer who wrote more than 65 books.
Life and works
Armour was born in San Pedro, Los Angeles, California the only child of Harry W. and Sue Wheelock Ar ...
's poem "Driving in a Fog; or Carl Sandburg Must Have Been a Pedestrian" was published in the January 1953 ''Westways
The Automobile Club of Southern California is the Southern California affiliate of the American Automobile Association (AAA) federation of motor clubs. The Auto Club was founded on December 13, 1900, in Los Angeles as one of the nation's first mot ...
''.
* William Saroyan
William Saroyan (; August 31, 1908 – May 18, 1981) was an Armenian-American novelist, playwright, and short story writer. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1940, and in 1943 won the Academy Award for Best Story for the film ''The ...
wrote a short story about Sandburg in his 1971 book ''Letters from 74 rue Taitbout
''Letters from 74 Rue Taitbout or Don't Go But If You Must Say Hello To Everybody'' is a book of short stories in the form of letters by William Saroyan. The stories often recollect meetings, relationships, observations, ask questions and wond ...
or Don't Go But If You Must Say Hello To Everybody''.
* Thomas Hart Benton painted a portrait ''Carl Sandburg'' in 1956, for which the poet had posed.
* Sandburg's "Sometime they'll give a war and nobody will come" from ''The People, Yes'' was a slogan of the German peace movement ("''Stell dir vor, es ist Krieg, und keiner geht hin''"); however, it is often falsely attributed to Bertolt Brecht
Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a pl ...
.
* Daniel Steven Crafts' ''The Song and The Slogan
''The Song & the Slogan'' was composed by Daniel Steven Crafts in 1996, on commission from the late opera tenor Jerry Hadley. It sets to music sections of Carl Sandburg’s 1918 prose poem “Prairie” with excerpts from other Sandburg poems chos ...
'' is an orchestral composition built around recited passages from Sandburg's "Prairie".
* Dan Zanes
Daniel Edgerly Zanes (born November 8, 1961) is an American former member of the popular 1980s band the Del Fuegos and is now the front man of the Grammy-winning group Dan Zanes and Friends.
History
Zanes's father was a teacher, as well as a p ...
's ''Parades and Panoramas: 25 Songs Collected by Carl Sandburg for the American Songbag.''
* Peter Louis van Dijk's "Windy City Songs", based on the ''Chicago'' poems, was performed by the Chicago Children's Choir Chicago Children's Choir is a non-profit organization, founded in 1956 at First Unitarian Church of Chicago.
Organization
Founded in Hyde Park in 1956, CCC has grown from one choir into a network of in-school and after-school programs serving nearl ...
and the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University
Nelson Mandela University (formerly known as ''Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU)'' ) and before that - the University of Port Elizabeth (UPE), the Port Elizabeth Technikon and Vista University's Port Elizabeth campus. This South Afr ...
Choir in 2007.
* Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg (; born December 18, 1946) is an American director, writer, and producer. A major figure of the New Hollywood era and pioneer of the modern blockbuster, he is the most commercially successful director of all time. Spie ...
claimed that the face of E.T.
''E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial'' (or simply ''E.T.'') is a 1982 American science fiction film produced and directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Melissa Mathison. It tells the story of Elliott, a boy who befriends an extraterrestrial, dub ...
was based on a composite of Sandburg, Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century fic ...
, and Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...
.[ p. 134.]
* Bob Gibson
Robert Gibson (born Pack Robert Gibson; November 9, 1935October 2, 2020) was an American professional baseball pitcher who played 17 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the St. Louis Cardinals (1959–1975). Nicknamed "Gibby" and "Hoot" ( ...
's "The Courtship of Carl Sandburg", starring Tom Amandes
Tom Amandes (born March 9, 1959) is an American actor. His best-known role to date is that of Eliot Ness in the 1990s television series ''The Untouchables''; he also played Geena Davis' boyfriend in ''The Long Kiss Goodnight'', and Abraham Linco ...
as Sandburg
* Samuel M. Steward's gay pulp collection "$tud"'s protagonist refers to Sandburg in an ironic nod to his commentary on the "painted women of Chicago" (as Steward contrarily wrote of the "male whores" of Chicago).
* In Jonathan Lethem
Jonathan Allen Lethem (; born February 19, 1964) is an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. His first novel, ''Gun, with Occasional Music'', a genre work that mixed elements of science fiction and detective fiction, was publishe ...
's novel ''Dissident Gardens
''Dissident Gardens'' is Jonathan Lethem's ninth novel. It is a multigenerational saga of revolutionaries and activists, the civil rights movement and the counterculture, from the 1930s Communists to the 2010s Occupy movement, and is mostly set ...
'' the main character Rose Zimmer became an Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...
devotee after reading Sandburg's biography. Her copy of the six volumes became the centerpiece of her shrine to Lincoln.
* Sufjan Stevens
Sufjan Stevens ( ; born July 1, 1975) is an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. He has released nine solo studio albums and multiple collaborative albums with other artists. Stevens has received Grammy and Academy Award nomi ...
's "Come on! Feel the Illinoise! Part I: The Columbian Exposition Part II: Carl Sandburg Visits Me in a Dream" (from ''Illinois
Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...
'').
*Composer Phyllis Zimmerman
Phyllis E. Zimmerman (1934–2012) was an American composer, choral conductor, and music educator who is accessible on Spotify.
Biography
Zimmerman was born in Pennsylvania and graduated from Thiel College in Greenville, Pennsylvania in 1956. Sh ...
set Sandburg's poems to music in her choral composition ''Fog'', which was recorded and produced on CD.
Bibliography
*''In Reckless Ecstasy'' (1904) (poetry) (originally published as Charles Sandburg)
*''Incidentals'' (1904) (poetry and prose) (originally published as Charles Sandburg)
*''Plaint of a Rose'' (1908) (poetry) (originally published as Charles Sandburg)
*''Joseffy
Josef P. Freud (also known as Joseffy) (3 March 1873 – 26 May 1946) was a Vienna, Viennese Illusionist, magician.
Life
Joseffy came to the United States of America at the age of 19 where he worked at a Chicago Magic Store, building props a ...
'' (1910) (prose) (originally published as Charles Sandburg)
*''You and Your Job'' (1910) (prose) (originally published as Charles Sandburg)
*''Chicago Poems'' (1916) (poetry)
*''Cornhuskers'' (1918) (poetry)
*''Chicago Race Riots'' (1919) (prose) (with an introduction by Walter Lippmann)
*''Clarence Darrow of Chicago'' (1919) (prose)
*''Smoke and Steel'' (1920) (poetry)
*''Rootabaga Stories
''Rootabaga Stories'' (1922) is a children's book of interrelated short stories by Carl Sandburg. The whimsical, sometimes melancholy stories, which often use nonsense language, were originally created for his own daughters. Sandburg had three d ...
'' (1922) (children's stories)
*''Slabs of the Sunburnt West'' (1922) (poetry)
*''Rootabaga Pigeons'' (1923) (children's stories)
*''Selected Poems'' (1926) (poetry)
*'' Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years'' (1926) (biography)
*''The American Songbag'' (1927) (folk songs)
*''Songs of America'' (1927) (folk songs) (collected by Sandburg; edited by Alfred V. Frankenstein)
*''Abe Lincoln Grows Up'' (1928) (biography rimarily for children
*''Good Morning, America'' (1928) (poetry)
*''Steichen the Photographer'' (1929) (history)
*''Early Moon'' (1930) (poetry)
*''Potato Face'' (1930) (children's stories)
*''Mary Lincoln: Wife and Widow'' (1932) (biography)
*''The People, Yes
''The People, Yes'' is a book-length poem written by Carl Sandburg and published in 1936. The 300 page work is thoroughly interspersed with references to American culture, phrases, and stories (such as the legend of Paul Bunyan
Paul Bunyan i ...
'' (1936) (poetry)
*'' Abraham Lincoln: The War Years'' (1939) (biography)
*''Storm over the Land'' (1942) (biography) (excerpts from Sandburg's own '' Abraham Lincoln: The War Years'')
*''Road to Victory'' (1942) (exhibition catalog) (text by Sandburg; images compiled by Edward Steichen
Edward Jean Steichen (March 27, 1879 – March 25, 1973) was a Luxembourgish American photographer, painter, and curator, renowned as one of the most prolific and influential figures in the history of photography.
Steichen was credited with tr ...
and published by the Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
)
*''Home Front Memo'' (1943) (essays)
*'' Remembrance Rock'' (1948) (novel)
*''Lincoln Collector: the story of the Oliver R. Barrett Lincoln collection'' (1949) (prose)
*''The New American Songbag'' (1950) (folk songs)
*''Complete Poems'' (1950) (poetry)
*''The Wedding Procession of the Rag Doll and the Broom Handle and Who Was In It'' (1950) (children's story)
*''Always the Young Strangers'' (1953) (autobiography)
*''Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and the War Years'' (1954) (illustrated one-volume edition)
*''Selected Poems of Carl Sandburg'' (1954) (poetry) (edited by Rebecca West)
*''The Family of Man
''The Family of Man'' was an ambitious exhibition of 503 photography, photographs from 68 countries curated by Edward Steichen, the director of the New York City Museum of Modern Art's (MoMA) Department of Photography. According to Steichen, ...
'' (1955) (exhibition catalog) (introduction; images compiled by Edward Steichen
Edward Jean Steichen (March 27, 1879 – March 25, 1973) was a Luxembourgish American photographer, painter, and curator, renowned as one of the most prolific and influential figures in the history of photography.
Steichen was credited with tr ...
)
*''Prairie-Town Boy'' (1955) (autobiography) (essentially excerpts from ''Always the Young Strangers'')
*''Sandburg Range'' (1957) (prose and poetry)
*''Harvest Poems, 1910–1960'' (1960) (poetry)
*''Wind Song'' (1960) (poetry)
*''The World of Carl Sandburg'' (1960) (stage production) (adapted and directed by Norman Corwin, dramatic readings by Bette Davis and Leif Erickson (actor), Leif Erickson, singing and guitar by Clark Allen, with closing cameo by Sandburg himself)
*''Carl Sandburg at Gettysburg'' (1961) (documentary)
*''Honey and Salt'' (1963) (poetry)
*''The Letters of Carl Sandburg'' (1968) (autobiographical/correspondence) (edited by Herbert Mitgang)
*''Breathing Tokens'' (poetry by Sandburg, edited by Margaret Sandburg) (1978) (poetry)
*''Ever the Winds of Chance'' (1983) (autobiography) (started by Sandburg, completed by Margaret Sandburg and George Hendrick)
*''Carl Sandburg at the Movies: a poet in the silent era, 1920–1927'' (1985) (selections of his reviews of silent movies; collected and edited by Dale Fetherling and Doug Fetherling)
*''Billy Sunday and other poems'' (1993) (edited with an introduction by George Hendrick and Willene Hendrick)
*''Poems for Children Nowhere Near Old Enough to Vote'' (1999) (compiled and with an introduction by George and Willene Hendrick)
*''Poems for the People.'' (1999) 73 newfound poems from his early years in Chicago, edited with an introduction by George Hendrick and Willene Hendrick
*''Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and the War Years'' (2007) (illustrated edition with an introduction by Alan Axelrod)
See also
*Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site
Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site, located at 81 Carl Sandburg Lane near Hendersonville in the village of Flat Rock, North Carolina, preserves Connemara, the home of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and writer Carl Sandburg. Though ...
References
Footnotes
Notes
Further reading
* Niven, Penelope. ''Carl Sandburg: A Biography''. New York: Scribner's, 1991.
* Sandburg, Carl. ''The Letters of Carl Sandburg''. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1968.
* Sandburg, Helga. ''A Great and Glorious Romance: The Story of Carl Sandburg and Lilian Steichen''. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978.
External links
Carl Sandburg's birthplace
in Galesburg, IL (at sandburg.org)
Carl Sandburg Birthplace, Galesburg, IL
(at uncharted101.com)
Carl Sandburg Home, North Carolina
from the National Park Service
The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational propertie ...
*
*
*
The Day Carl Sandburg Died
PBS ''American Masters'' video
''Prayers for the People: Carl Sandburg's Poetry and Songs''
, a Nebraska Educational Telecommunications film, University of Nebraska (video, 1 hour)
Carl Sandburg databases
from the University of Illinois
from the FBI website
*
*
Helga Sandburg
at LC Authorities, with 20 records
Carl Sandburg Home NHS images on Open Parks Network
''Without The Cain and The Derby'', a poem by Carl Sandburg: ''Vanity Fair'', May, 1922
*
*
Archival materials
Oliver Barrett-Carl Sandburg Papers
at Newberry Library
North Carolina Writers Photographs Collection
J Murrey Atkins Library, UNC Charlotte
Sandburg Series in the Harry Golden papers
J Murrey Atkins Library, UNC Charlotte
Guide to the Carl Sandburg and Ruth Falkenau Correspondence 1919-1930
at th
University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center
Guide to the Carl Sandburg-Joseph Halle Schaffner Collection 1927-1969
at th
University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center
*hdl:10079/fa/beinecke.sandbrg, Sandburg-Page Papers. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sandburg, Carl
1878 births
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20th-century American novelists
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