Carl Sandburg (1878-1967) was an internationally-acclaimed, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet whose eclectic career spanned a stint as a hobo, soldier, political activist, poet, writer of childrenâ??s fantasy, journalist, and a novelist. Throughout it all, he was a champion of the everyday working class. Born to Swedish immigrants in Galesburg, Illinois, Sandburg began working as a small child; quitting eighth grade to deliver milk, harvest ice, lay bricks, thresh wheat, shine shoes, and travel as a hobo. In 1898 he volunteered for service in the Spanish-American War, and served a peaceful year in Puerto Rico. He returned home and entered Lombard College. At Lombard Sandburg joined the Poor Writersâ?? Club, and his creativity was encouraged by the founder of the club, Professor Phillip Green Wright.

After graduation, Sandburg worked in the vicinity of Lombard as a salesman and wrote poetry on the side. Wright printed a number of books of verse for his pupil, including Reckless Ecstacy (1904), Incidentals (1907), and The Plaint of a Rose (1908). Meanwhile, Sandburg became politically active, assisting the Wisconsin Social Democratic Party. After marrying, he returned to Illinois and became a reporter covering labor issues for the Chicago Daily News.

In 1914, a group of Carl Sandburgâ??s poems were published in Poetry magazine. The poems brought him national attention; attention fulfilled in 1916 by the publication of his Chicago Poems. He quickly published another volume of poetry, Cornhuskers (1918), and then a childrenâ??s short story book, Rootabaga Stories (1922). Sandburg then tackled the subject of Abraham Lincoln, publishing six biographical volumes on the legendary figure. His four-volume Abraham Lincoln: the War Years earned him a Pulitzer Prize (1940), setting the stage for his second Pulitzer in 1951 for his collection Complete Poems (1950). Sandburg moved from Illinois to Connemara, North Carolina, where he wrote, lectured, and published a number of poems as well as the novel Remembrance Rock (1948). Sandburg passed away on July 22, 1967, and was buried in Galesburg, at what is now the Carl Sandburg Park.

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Articles About Sandburg, Carl

Carl Sandburg's Connemara	February 4, 2007
Twenty-four miles south of Asheville in Flat Rock, NC, there once lived a Midwestern poet that wrote for the common man. His name was Carl Sandburg. He was a Pulitzer Prize winning poet & biographer, most famous for his Chicago Poems, American Songbag and massive biography of Abraham Lincoln.