Carl Sandburg Biography and Works.

Carl Sandburg (January 6, 1878-July 22, 1967) was an American writer and editor. He was best known for his poetry.

Sandburg won three Pulitzer Prizes – two for his poetry and another for biography of Abraham Lincoln. Much of Carl Sandburg’s poetry, such as ‘Chicago’, focused on Chicago, where he spent his time as a reporter for the Chicago Daily News and the Day Book.

One of his most famous descriptions of the city is as ‘Hog Butcher for the World/Tool Maker, Stacked 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 series of whimsical, sometimes melancholy stories, Rooting Stories, which he originally created for his own daughters. These stories were an inspiration from Sandburg’s desire for ‘American fairy tales’ to match the American childhood. He felt that the European stories involved royalty and knights that were inappropriate. Sandburg populated his stories with trains, skyscrapers, corn fairies and the ‘Five Marvelous Pretzel’.

He is known for his biography of Abraham Lincoln (Abraham Lincoln: The War Years). He recorded excerpts from the biography and some of Lincoln’s speeches for Goodman Records in New York City in May 1957. Sandburg was awarded a Grammy Award in 1959 for best performance Documentary Or Spoken Word (Other Than Comedy) for his recording of Aaron Copeland’s Lincoln Portrait with the New York Philharmonic.

Trivia

Sandburg’s home in Flat Rock, Henderson Count in North Carolina, is preserved by the National Park Service as the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site.