Carl
Sandburg's Life and Contributions
Advocate
for the Common People
After Carl Sandburg spent a year as a hobo, he
joined the Spanish American War in 1898. When he returned to the
United States, later that year, he started college at Lombard College in
Galesburg. During his college years, Sandburg worked as a fireman
to make money.
His first poetry book was published in 1904. In 1907 his poem book,
Incidentals,
was published and another book of poems, The Plaint of the Rose,
was published in 1908. All of these were published in Galesburg,
IL.
Sandburg was very worried about the troubles of the "American Worker,"
which means that he was concerned that not all the people working in American
were getting treated properly. He joined political parties to help.
In 1908, he married Lilian Steichen and got a job as a journalist for the
"Chicago Daily News," writing about labor issues (job problems).
In 1919, Sandburg wrote an article about the Chicago Race Riots, which
began because black people were not treated fairly when they returned from
World War I.
Sandburg's wife, Lilian
Carl
Becomes Famous
In 1914, Sandburg's poems appeared in a nationally
known magazine, Poetry. In 1916 his poetry book, Chicago
Poems was published. His next poetry book, Cornhuskers,
was published in 1918.
Sandburg also became well known for his stories. In 1922, he wrote
his famous children's stories, Rootabaga Stories. In 1926 he wrote
a biography about Abraham Lincoln, which many people liked. It took
him four more years to write the next biography about Lincoln, entitled
Abraham
Lincoln: The War Years. Other works by Sandburg are:
Rememberance
Rock, The American Songbag, New American Songbag, an autobiography,
and Always Strangers.
In 1945, Sandburg moved to Flat Rock, North Carolina. He continued
to write poetry and have it published. On July 22, 1967, Sandburg
died at the age of 89. His ashes were spread at Remembrance Rock
in Galesburg.
Awards
Sandburg won the Pulitzer Prize twice for his writings. The first
one he won in 1940 for his Lincoln biography, Abraham Lincoln: The War
Years. He won another one in 1951 for his poetry book, Complete
Poems.
Contributions
Carl Sandburg was a writer who celebrated the "American Spirit."
He wrote beautiful poetry about the simple things, such as life on the
prairie, or the Chicago landscape, but also about more serious ones.
He wrote to get American workers the rights that they deserved and worked
hard for this cause. He wrote funny stories to make children laugh
and collected silly songs, during his traveling as a hobo, and put them
into a book for all to enjoy. Through Carl Sandburg's writings, we
can come to understand the way life was in the early to middle 1900s, which
he helped to make a brighter place for many people.
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