Sandburg, Carl

Sandburg, Carl (August) (Militant; Jack Philips, pen names)

(1878–1967) poet, writer, folklorist; born in Galesburg, Ill. He studied at Lombard College, Galesburg (1898–1902)—with time out for service in the Spanish-American War (1899)—and in the decades ahead would work as an editor, journalist, copywriter, lecturer, and collector of folk songs. He was an organizer of the Social-Democratic Party (1908), and was secretary to the Socialist mayor of Milwaukee (1910–12). Known for such famous poems as "Chicago" (1914), and "Fog" (1916), he won the Pulitzer Prize (1940) for the last of his six-volume biography of Lincoln (1926–39). He was ahead of most of his fellow poets in his interest in American folksong and lore; he collected some 300 folksongs and ballads in The American Songbag (1927) and he often gave public recitals, accompanying himself on the guitar. He also wrote children's books and a novel, Remembrance Rock (1948). Based in Chicago for much of his life, he retired to Flat Rock, N.C.

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Sandburg, Carl

 

Born Jan. 6, 1878, in Galesburg, Ill.; died July 22, 1967, in Flat Rock, N.C. American poet.

Sandburg’s first volume of verse was Chicago Poems (1916). His collections Cornhuskers (1918) and Smoke and Steel (1920) revealed a deep concern with social problems. Sandburg’s poetry is marked by urban imagery and journalistic language. His mastery of free verse, which is similar to the language of folk songs, is apparent in The American Songbag (1927). Sandburg’s narrative poem The People, Yes (1936) is written in the tradition of W. Whitman; it reflects Sandburg’s radical attitudes during the “red” 1930’s. A philosophical lyricism pervades Sandburg’s later work, as seen in Honey and Salt (1963). Two widely known works by Sandburg are the historical novel Remembrance Rock (1948) and the six-volume biography Abraham Lincoln (1926–39; Russian translation, 1961). In 1959, Sandburg visited the USSR.

WORKS

Complete Poems. New York, 1970.
The Letters of Carl Sandburg. New York, 1968.
In Russian translation:.
Stikhi raznykh let. Moscow, 1959.
Izbr. lirika. Moscow, 1975.

REFERENCES

Kashkin, I. A. Dlia chitatelia-sovremennika. Moscow, 1968.
Callahan, N. Carl Sandburg, Lincoln of Our Literature: A Biography. New York, 1970.

A. M. ZVEREV

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.