Carl Sandburg was an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
writer and editor, best known for his
poetryPoetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
. He won three
Pulitzer PrizeThe Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
s, two for his poetry and another for a biography of
Abraham LincolnAbraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
.
H. L. MenckenHenry Louis "H. L." Mencken was an American journalist, essayist, magazine editor, satirist, acerbic critic of American life and culture, and a scholar of American English. Known as the "Sage of Baltimore", he is regarded as one of the most influential American writers and prose stylists of the...
called Carl Sandburg "indubitably an American in every pulse-beat."
Biography
Sandburg was born in
GalesburgGalesburg is a city in Knox County, Illinois, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 32,195. It is the county seat of Knox County....
,
IllinoisIllinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
, to parents of
SwedishSweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
ancestry. 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
KansasKansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...
. After an interval spent at
Lombard College-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, placing its future at risk, but a large gift from Benjamin Lombard, an Illinois farmer and businessman, rescued the institution,...
in Galesburg, he became a hotel servant in Denver, then a coal-heaver in Omaha. He began his writing career as a
journalistA journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
for the
Chicago Daily NewsThe Chicago Daily News was an afternoon daily newspaper published between 1876 and 1978 in Chicago, Illinois.-History:The Daily News was founded by Melville E. Stone, Percy Meggy, and William Dougherty in 1875 and began publishing early the next year...
. Later he wrote poetry,
historyHistory is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
, biographies,
novelA novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
s,
children's literatureChildren's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...
, and
filmA film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
reviewA review is an evaluation of a publication, a product or a service, such as a movie , video game, musical composition , book ; a piece of hardware like a car, home appliance, or computer; or an event or performance, such as a live music concert, a play, musical theater show or dance show...
s. Sandburg also collected and edited books of
balladA ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of British and Irish popular poetry and song from the later medieval period until the 19th century and used extensively across Europe and later the Americas, Australia and North Africa. Many...
s and
folkloreFolklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
. He spent most of his life in the Midwest before moving to
North CarolinaNorth Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
.
Sandburg volunteered to go to the military and was stationed in Puerto Rico with the 6th Illinois Infantry during the Spanish–American War, disembarking at
GuánicaGuánica is a municipality in southwestern Puerto Rico located on southern coast, bordering the Caribbean Sea, south of Sabana Grande, east of Lajas, and west of Yauco. It is part of the Yauco Metropolitan Statistical Area....
,
Puerto RicoPuerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...
on July 25, 1898. Sandburg was never actually called to battle. He attended
West PointThe United States Military Academy at West Point is a four-year coeducational federal service academy located at West Point, New York. The academy sits on scenic high ground overlooking the Hudson River, north of New York City...
for just two weeks, before failing a mathematics and grammar exam. Sandburg returned to Galesburg and entered
Lombard College-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, placing its future at risk, but a large gift from Benjamin Lombard, an Illinois farmer and businessman, rescued the institution,...
, but left without a degree in 1903.
He moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and joined the Social Democratic Party, the name by which the
Socialist Party of AmericaThe Socialist Party of America was a multi-tendency democratic-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 which had split from the main organization...
was known in the state. Sandburg served as a secretary to
Emil SeidelEmil Seidel was the mayor of Milwaukee from 1910 to 1912. He was the first Socialist mayor of a major city in the United States, and ran as the Vice Presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America in the 1912 presidential election....
, socialist
mayor of Milwaukee from 1910 to 1912.
Sandburg met Lilian Steichen at the Social Democratic Party office in 1907, and they married the next year. Lilian's brother was the photographer
Edward SteichenEdward J. Steichen was an American photographer, painter, and art gallery and museum curator. He was the most frequently featured photographer in Alfred Stieglitz' groundbreaking magazine Camera Work during its run from 1903 to 1917. Steichen also contributed the logo design and a custom typeface...
. Sandburg with his wife, whom he called Paula, raised three daughters.
Sandburg moved to Harbert, Michigan, and then suburban
ChicagoChicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Illinois. They lived in
EvanstonEvanston is a suburban municipality in Cook County, Illinois 12 miles north of downtown Chicago, bordering Chicago to the south, Skokie to the west, and Wilmette to the north, with an estimated population of 74,360 as of 2003. It is one of the North Shore communities that adjoin Lake Michigan...
, Illinois, before settling at 331 S. York Street in
ElmhurstElmhurst is a suburb of Chicago in DuPage and Cook Counties, Illinois. The population is 46,013 as of the 2008 US Census population estimate.-History:...
, Illinois, from 1919 to 1930. Sandburg 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 (1927), and a book of poems
Good Morning, America (1928) in Elmhurst. The family moved to Michigan in 1930. The Sandburg house at 331 W. York Street, Elmhurst was demolished and the site is now a parking lot. The War Years, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1940.
Sandburg's Complete Poems won him a second Pulitzer Prize in 1951.
He moved to a
Flat Rock, North CarolinaFlat Rock is a village in Henderson County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 2,565 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Asheville Metropolitan Statistical Area. The village is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as Flat Rock Historic District.- Culture :Flat Rock is...
estate,
Connemara Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site, located near Hendersonville in Flat Rock, North Carolina, preserves Connemara Farms, the home of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and writer Carl Sandburg...
, in 1945 and lived there until his death in 1967.
Sandburg supported the civil rights movement, and contributed to the NAACP.
Works
Much of Carl Sandburg's poetry, such as "
Chicago"Chicago" is a poem by Carl Sandburg, about the U.S. city of Chicago. It first appeared in Sandburg's first collection of poems, Chicago Poems, published in 1916 ....
", focused on
Chicago, IllinoisChicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, where he spent time as a reporter for the
Chicago Daily NewsThe Chicago Daily News was an afternoon daily newspaper published between 1876 and 1978 in Chicago, Illinois.-History:The Daily News was founded by Melville E. Stone, Percy Meggy, and William Dougherty in 1875 and began publishing early the next year...
and the
Day Book. 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 is also remembered by generations of children for his
Rootabaga StoriesRootabaga Stories 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 daughters, Margaret, Janet and Helga, whom he nicknamed "Spink",...
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".
Sandburg earned
Pulitzer PrizeThe Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
s for his collection
The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg,
Corn Huskers, and for his biography of
Abraham LincolnAbraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
(
Abraham Lincoln: The War Years). He recorded excerpts from the biography and some of Lincoln's speeches for Caedmon Records in
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
in May 1957. He was awarded a
Grammy AwardA Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
in 1959 for
Best Performance – Documentary Or Spoken Word (Other Than Comedy)The Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album has been awarded since 1959. The award had several minor name changes:*In 1959 the award was known as Best Performance, Documentary or Spoken Word...
for his recording of
Aaron Copland'sAaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. He was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, and is often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers"...
Lincoln PortraitLincoln 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 work is narrated with the reading of excerpts of Abraham Lincoln's great documents, including...
with the
New York PhilharmonicThe New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...
.
Memorials
Sandburg's home of 22 years in
Flat Rock, Henderson County, North CarolinaFlat Rock is a village in Henderson County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 2,565 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Asheville Metropolitan Statistical Area. The village is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as Flat Rock Historic District.- Culture :Flat Rock is...
, is preserved by the
National Park ServiceThe National Park Service is the U.S. federal agency that manages all national parks, many national monuments, and other conservation and historical properties with various title designations...
as the
Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site, located near Hendersonville in Flat Rock, North Carolina, preserves Connemara Farms, the home of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and writer Carl Sandburg...
.
Carl Sandburg CollegeCarl Sandburg College is a two-year community college based in Galesburg, Illinois, and serving the west-central Illinois region. The Main Campus is located in Galesburg, a Branch Campus is located in Carthage, and an Extension Center is located in Bushnell...
is located in Sandburg's birthplace of
Galesburg, IllinoisGalesburg is a city in Knox County, Illinois, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 32,195. It is the county seat of Knox County....
.
Galesburg opened Sandburg Mall in 1974, named in honor of Sandburg.
Carl Sandburg's boyhood home in Galesburg is now operated by the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency as the
Carl Sandburg State Historic SiteCarl Sandburg State Historic Site was the birthplace and boyhood home of author Carl Sandburg in Galesburg, Illinois.It is operated by the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency...
. 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 he and his wife Lilian's ashes are buried.
Carl Sandburg VillageCarl 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 and North Avenue...
was a Chicago urban renewal project of the 1960s located in the
Near North Side, ChicagoThe Near North Side is one of 77 well-defined community areas of Chicago, Illinois, United States. It is located north and east of the Chicago River, just north of the central business district . To its east is Lake Michigan and its northern boundary is the 19th-century city limit of Chicago,...
. 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.
Elmhurst, Illinois, renamed the former Elmhurst Junior High School as 'Carl Sandburg Middle School,' in his honor in 1960. Sandburg spoke at the dedication ceremony. He resided at 331 S. York Street in Elmhurst from 1919 to 1930. The house was demolished and the site is a parking lot.
In 1954,
Carl Sandburg High SchoolCarl Sandburg High School, Sandburg, or CSHS, is a public four-year high school located at the intersection of La Grange Road and 131st Street in Orland Park, Illinois, a southwest suburb of Chicago, Illinois, in the United States. It is part of Consolidated High School District 230, which also...
was dedicated in
Orland Park, IllinoisOrland Park is a village in Cook County, Illinois, United States; it also extends slightly into Will County. The population was 56,767 at the 2010 census. The office of the Assistant Village Manager, Ellen Baer, states that the Will County section of Orland Park is industrial while the Cook County...
. Mr. Sandburg was in attendance, and stretched what was supposed to be a one hour event into several hours, regaling students with songs and stories. Years later, he returned to the school with no identification and, appearing to be a hobo, was thrown out by the principal. When he later returned with I.D., the embarrassed principal canceled the rest of the school day and held an assembly to honor the visit.
In 1959, Carl Sandburg Junior High School was opened in Golden Valley,
MinnesotaMinnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
. Carl Sandburg attended the dedication of the school. In 1988 the name was changed to Sandburg Middle School servicing grades 6, 7, and 8. Originally built with a capacity for 1,800 students the school now has 1,100 students enrolled. Sandburg Middle school was one of the first schools in the state of Minnesota to offer accelerated learning programs for gifted students.
In December 1961, Carl Sandburg Elementary School was dedicated in
San Bruno, CaliforniaSan Bruno is a city in San Mateo County, California, United States. The population was 41,114 at the 2010 census.The city is adjacent to San Francisco International Airport and Golden Gate National Cemetery.-Geography:San Bruno is located at...
. Again, Sandburg came for the ceremonies and was clearly impressed with the faces of the young children, who gathered around him. The school was closed in the 1980s, due to falling enrollments in the San Bruno Park School District.
Sandburg HallsSandburg Halls 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 school with 2,700-student housing capacity. The north and west...
is a student residence hall at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. The building consists of 4 high rise towers with a total housing capacity of 2,700 students. It has an exterior plaque on Sandburg's roles as an organizer for the Social Democratic Party and as personal secretary to Emil Seidel, Milwaukee's first Socialist mayor. There are several other schools named after Sandburg in Illinois, including those in Wheaton, Orland Park, Springfield, Mundelein, and Joliet.
On January 6, 1978, the 100th anniversary of his birth, the
United States Postal ServiceThe United States Postal Service is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for providing postal service in the United States...
issued a
commemorative stampA commemorative stamp is a postage stamp, often issued on a significant date such as an anniversary, to honor or commemorate a place, event or person. The subject of the commemorative stamp is usually spelled out in print, unlike definitive stamps which normally depict the subject along with the...
honoring Sandburg. The spare design consists of a profile originally drawn by his friend
William A. SmithWilliam A. Smith or William Alexander Smith may refer to:*William Alden Smith , U.S. Representative from the U.S. state of Michigan*William Alexander Smith , U.S. Representative from the U.S...
(1918–1989) in 1952, along with Sandburg's own distinctive autograph.
Rare Book and Manuscript Library at the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign possesses the Carl Sandburg collection and archives. The bulk of the collection was purchased directly from Carl Sandburg and his family, with many smaller collections having been donated by his family and purchased from outside sources.
Funded by the State of Illinois, Amtrak in October 2006 added a second train on the Chicago–Quincy (via Galesburg and Macomb) route. Called the
Carl SandburgThe Carl Sandburg is a 258-mile passenger train operated by Amtrak that runs between Chicago and Quincy, Illinois. This train began operation on October 30, 2006 and is an addition to the existing Illinois Service rail network created in 1971 and partially funded by the Illinois Department of...
, this new train joined the "Illinois Zephyr" on the Chicago–Quincy route.
In Neshaminy School District of lower Bucks County resides the secondary institution Carl Sandburg Middle School. Located in the lobby is a finished split tree trunk with the quote engraved lengthwise horizontally:
- "MAN IS BORN WITH RAINBOWS IN HIS HEART AND YOU'LL NEVER READ HIM UNLESS YOU CONSIDER RAINBOWS"
Another secondary school by the same name is located south of Alexandria, Virginia, and is part of the Fairfax County Public Schools School District.
Carl Sandburg Library first opened in
Livonia, MichiganLivonia is a city in the northwest part of Wayne County in the U.S. state of Michigan. Livonia is a very large suburb with an array of traditional neighborhoods connected to the metropolitan area by freeways. The population was 96,942 at the 2010 census, making it Michigan's 9th largest...
, on December 10, 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 for a time.
External links