January 6

Today in labor history, January 6, 1878, is the birthday of renowned Illinois poet Carl Sandburg.  He was born to Swedish immigrants in Galesburg, Illinois. Later Sandburg worked as an editorial writer at the Chicago Daily News. He was part of a group of poets and novelists, known as the “Chicago Literary Renaissance.” Sandburg became most well-known for his poetry, which won two Pulitzer Prizes.  He also won a third Pulitzer for his biography of his hero Abraham Lincoln.  Sandburg’s poems often evoked images and explored themes of the industrialized United States.  This was especially true of his 1920 volume, Smoke and Steel.  In this collection Sandburg wrote about workers in Gary, Indiana and farmers around Omaha, Nebraska.  He wrote about railroad workers and steel workers.  His words instilled unexpected beauty in these industrial scenes.  Sandburg wrote in free verse, a style that did not rhyme.  He used accessible language in his poems, making them available to the “common man.”  He would take short tours around the U.S. reading his poems and playing folk songs on guitar.  His poems gained a wide, popular readership.  The opening lines of his poem “Chicago,” so captured the workers and spirit of the city, these words remain indelibly entwined in the city’s image:  “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.”