Carl Sandburg: The Socialist Poet of the People

Socialist, militant, radical: these words do not typically conjure images of the beloved Illinois poet, Carl Sandburg. Growing up in Wheaton, Illinois, a western Chicago suburb, I read Sandburg’s less controversial, and at times, edited poems, but for the most part, I knew very little about the man who is an American icon. While researching my Master’s thesis, I read commentary and poetry by Sandburg on the shipwreck of the S.S. Eastland, which sank in the Chicago River in 1915. It was Sandburg’s raw, passionate anger and vicious hatred toward the capitalists and elites of America that caught my attention. I needed to know and immerse myself in the works by this Carl Sandburg. This Carl Sandburg fought for stricter child labor laws, advocated for the workingman, supported the Socialist Party of America, and spewed out venomous words towards his enemies, and blurred the line between poetry and politics. I needed to understand why Sandburg’s legacy is not that of a political activist, something modern society undermines, but as a literary icon. This quest led me to uncover who and what influenced Sandburg’s political beliefs and why his biographers only briefly touch upon his socialist beliefs.

Sandburg was more than the poet and writer that we currently know him as; he was a journalist and political activist. Sandburg’s early writings, particularly those written in the 1900s and the 1910s, were influenced by the social conditions, public policy debates, and the general cultural climate of the day[1]. His socialist beliefs stemmed from his relationship with his professor at Lombard College, his interactions with the lower class who had to steal money or transportation out of economic necessity, his time spent in the Spanish American War, and from his Swedish immigrant background[2]. In 1907, Sandburg joined and worked for the Socialist Party of America, in which he maintained a moderate socialist stance[3]. The year 1912 was a pivotal year for Sandburg. He moved from Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Chicago, Illinois, he began his journalism career, and his political views shifted to the radical left[4].

Modifying Sandburg’s image was intentional by both his biographers and himself. The biographies of Sandburg touch on his socialist beliefs, but they are not the focal point in telling Sandburg’s life story[5]. Penelope Niven, referencing an autobiographical sketch Sandburg composed for his publisher, Henry Holt and Company, quoted Sandburg as stating that “he did not belong to ‘any clubs or societies’ and had ‘quit the Socialist Party as a party’”[6]. Niven continued to state that Sandburg was not politically involved with socialism by 1916[7]. However, Philip Yannella argued in his book, The Other Carl Sandburg, that Sandburg’s socialist beliefs continued well into the 1910s and 1920s[8]. Yannella formulated his argument on the basis that Sandburg worked at several socialist newspapers and journals, including the Day Book and the International Socialist Review, and his poetry dripped with socialist discourse[9].

Toward the end of his life, Sandburg actively began cleaning up the language he used in his early literary career because he did not want his radicalism to infringe upon his fame as a biographer of Abraham Lincoln[10]. Around 1917/1918, Sandburg joined the efforts to bring the Bolshevik revolution to America and the United States, which prompted the United States Army Military Intelligence Division, an agency whose mission was to stop both American radicalism and Bolshevism, to investigate Sandburg[11]. After the Bolshevik revolution in 1917, the terms “socialism” and “socialists” had (and continue to have) negative connotations. Therefore, we changed Sandburg’s memory in order to comfort ourselves. After all, how could we possibly have an American icon who was a radical socialist?

Sandburg advocated for better treatment of the working class, better health conditions, improved safety measures in the workplace, public sphere, and at home. He was anti-capitalist and big business and wanted to eliminate the graft and vice in the government. His early poetry and journalism articles reflect his view and the world around him in the early 20th century.

In “Billy Sunday,” originally published as “To a Contemporary Bunkshooter,” he challenged the hypocrisy of religious leaders in the early 1900s, such as Billy Sunday.

He showed how the corrupt practices of politicians, Chicago police officers, and government officials came at the expense of the working class men, women, and children in “Implications,” “Government,” and in his Day Book articles. He described the horrors the working class faced on a daily basis in "Onion Days," "Working Girls," and "Skyscraper."

He did not shy away from controversial subjects, such as prostitutes, or pointing out his disgust at sensationalized journalism by targeting William Randolph Hearst. He knew that in order for society to become a better place to live, people needed to know of the issues that effected the everyday American.

Even though it is easier to remember Sandburg for his poetry and biographies on Abraham Lincoln, we cannot forget about his socialist past nor we should clean up his early poetry. We need to embrace and celebrate it. In fact, it is his early works that drip with socialist prose that make him even more of an American icon. He used freedom of speech and the press to his advantage by expressing his opinions, pointing out the injustices of society, and exposing the perils of the working class, corrupt capitalists, and government officials. Without embracing Sandburg’s early adult life, we cannot fully appreciate who Carl Sandburg was as a person, author, and American icon.

Sources

[1] Philip R. Yannella, The Other Carl Sandburg (Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 1996), xx.

[2] Carl Sandburg, Always the Young Strangers (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1953), 206-208, and 378; Carl Sandburg, Ever the Winds of Chance, ed. Margaret Sandburg and George Hendrick (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1983), 32; Penelope Niven, Carl Sandburg: A Biography (New York: C. Scribner, 1991), 138-139, 150-151, 160.

[3] Yannella, Other Carl Sandburg, xx; Carl, Sandburg, The Letters of Carl Sandburg, ed. Herbert Mitgang (NY: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1968), x.

[4] Yannella, Other Carl Sandburg, xx, xxiii, 151.

[5] For further reference, see William Alexander, “The Limited American, the Great Loneliness, and the Singing Fire: Carl Sandburg’s ‘Chicago Poems,’” American Literature 45, no. 1 (March 1973), 67-83, accessed August 31, 2015, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2924539; Karl Detzer, Carl Sandburg: A Study in Personality and Background (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Company, 1941); Harry Golden, Carl Sandburg (Cleveland: World Publishing Company, 1961); Joseph Haas and Gene Lovitz, Carl Sandburg: A Pictorial Biography (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1967); George Hendrick and Willene Hendrick, introduction to Billy Sunday and Other Poems: Unpublished, Uncollected, and Unexpurgated Works, by Carl Sandburg, (San Diego: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1993), xi-xxiv; George Hendrick and Willene Hendrick, introduction to Carl Sandburg: Selected Poems, by Carl Sandburg, (Orlando, FL: Harcourt, 1996), xi-xxix; Penelope Niven, Carl Sandburg: A Biography (New York: C. Scribner, 1991); Mark van Wienen, “Taming the Socialist: Carl Sandburg’s Chicago Poems and its Critics” American Literature 63, no. 1 (March 1991), 89-103, accessed August 31, 2015, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2926563; Philip R. Yannella, The Other Carl Sandburg (Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 1996).

[6] Niven, Carl Sandburg, 285.

[7] Niven, Carl Sandburg, 285. Yannella quoted Niven as writing, “Sandburg there said that he had ‘quit the Socialist Party as a party’ in 1912. Then, Niven, writes, he began to articulate his political concerns ‘from the wider, more objective angle of the journalist and commentator rather than the immediate involvement of the activist and partisan’ (285).” Yannella, Other Carl Sandburg, xiii-xiv.

[8] Yannella, Other Carl Sandburg, xiii.

[9] Yannella, Other Carl Sandburg, xiii.

[10] Yannella, Other Carl Sandburg, 155.

[11] Yannella, Other Carl Sandburg, xx-xv.

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