Editing Carl Sandburg (section)

==Life==
[[File:Carl Sandburg 1914 Edit.jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.8|Sandburg {{circa}} 1914]]
Carl Sandburg was born in a three-room cottage at 313 East Third Street in [[Galesburg, Illinois]], to Clara Mathilda (née Anderson) and August Sandberg,<ref name=autobio2939>{{cite book|title=Always the Young Strangers|last=Sandburg|first=Carl|publisher=Harcourt, Brace and Company|location=New York|year=1953|pages=29, 39}} Sandburg's father's last name was originally "Danielson" or "Sturm". He could read but not write, and he accepted whatever spelling other people used. The young Carl, sister Mary, and brother Mart changed the spelling to "Sandburg" when in elementary school.</ref> both of [[Sweden|Swedish]] ancestry.<ref>[http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h3767.html "Carl Sandburg"], United States History.</ref> He adopted the nickname "Charles" or "Charlie" in elementary school at about the same time he and his two oldest siblings changed the spelling of their last name to "Sandburg".<ref name=autobio2939 /><ref>Sandburg in 1953 was not able to recall his younger self's reasons, but he relates that being able to correctly pronounce "ch" was a mark of assimilation among Swedish immigrants.</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/carl-sandburg/education-carl-sandburg-timeline/2320/|title=American Masters: Carl Sandburg Timeline|publisher=PBS|date=August 18, 2012|author=Penelope Niven|access-date=January 19, 2014}}</ref>

At the age of thirteen, he left school and began driving a milk wagon. From the age of about fourteen until he was seventeen or eighteen, he worked as a porter at the Union Hotel barbershop in Galesburg.<ref>''Prairie-Town Boy'', by Carl Sandburg, 1955. [http://www.timforsythe.com/tree/tjforsythe/sources_S1703 "timforsythe.com"] {{Webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20130216221248/http://www.timforsythe.com/tree/tjforsythe/sources-S1703 |date=February 16, 2013 }}</ref>  After that, he was on the milk route again for 18 months. He then became a bricklayer and a farm laborer on the wheat plains of [[Kansas]].<ref>''Selected Poems of Carl Sandburg'', edited by Rebecca West, 1954</ref> After an interval spent at [[Lombard College]] in Galesburg,<ref>[[Carl Sandburg College]]. [http://www.sandburg.edu/about-us/history "History"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130207012257/http://www.sandburg.edu/about-us/history |date=February 7, 2013 }}</ref> he became a hotel servant in [[Denver]], then a coal-heaver in Omaha. He began his writing career as a journalist for the ''[[Chicago Daily News]]''. Later, he wrote poetry, history, biographies, novels, children's literature, and film reviews. Sandburg also collected and edited books of ballads and folklore. He spent most of his life in [[Illinois]], [[Wisconsin]], and [[Michigan]] before moving to [[North Carolina]].

Sandburg volunteered to join the military during the [[Spanish–American War]] and was stationed in Puerto Rico with the 6th Illinois Infantry,<ref>*{{cite book | last=Mason | first=Herbert Molloy Jr. |editor-last=Kolb |editor-first=Richard K. |date=1999 |title=VFW: Our First Century |location=[[Lenexa, Kansas]] |publisher=Addax Publishing Group |pages=[https://archive.org/details/vfwourfirstcentu00maso_0/page/13 13, 90] |isbn=1-88611072-7 |lccn=99-24943 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/vfwourfirstcentu00maso_0/page/13 }}</ref> disembarking at [[Guánica, Puerto Rico|Guánica]], [[Puerto Rico]], on July 25, 1898. Sandburg was never actually called to battle. He attended [[United States Military Academy|West Point]] for just two weeks before failing a mathematics and grammar exam. Sandburg returned to Galesburg and entered [[Lombard College]] but left without a degree in 1903. He then moved to [[Milwaukee|Milwaukee, Wisconsin]], to work for a newspaper, and also joined the Wisconsin Social Democratic Party, the name by which the [[Socialist Party of America]] was known in the state. Sandburg served as a secretary to [[Emil Seidel]], socialist [[List of mayors of Milwaukee|mayor of Milwaukee]] from 1910 to 1912. Carl Sandburg later remarked that Milwaukee was where he got his bearings and that the rest of his life had been "the unrolling of a scene that started up in Wisconsin".<ref name="Carl Sandburg and the Steichens">{{Cite web|url=http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/WIReader/WER0131.html|title = Carl Sandburg and the Steichens|date = January 1998}}</ref>

Sandburg met [[Lilian Steichen]] (1883–1977) at the Milwaukee Social Democratic Party office in 1907, and they married the next year in Milwaukee. Lilian's brother was the photographer [[Edward Steichen]]. Sandburg with his wife, whom he called Paula, raised three daughters. Their first daughter, Margaret, was born in 1911. The Sandburgs moved to [[Harbert, Michigan]], and then to suburban [[Chicago]], Illinois in 1912 after he was offered a job by a Chicago newspaper.<ref name="Carl Sandburg and the Steichens"/> They lived in [[Evanston, Illinois|Evanston]], Illinois, before settling at 331 South York Street in [[Elmhurst, Illinois|Elmhurst]], Illinois, from 1919 to 1930. During the time, Sandburg wrote ''Chicago Poems'' (1916), ''Cornhuskers'' (1918), and ''Smoke and Steel'' (1920).<ref name="Danilov 198"/> In 1919 Sandburg won a Pulitzer Prize "made possible by a special grant from [[Poetry Society of America|The Poetry Society]]" for his collection ''Cornhuskers''.<ref name=pulitzer/> Sandburg also wrote three children's books in Elmhurst: ''Rootabaga Stories'', in 1922, followed by ''Rootabaga Pigeons'' (1923), and ''Potato Face'' (1930). Sandburg also wrote ''Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years'', a two-volume biography, in 1926, ''[[The American Songbag]]'' (1927), and a book of poems called ''Good Morning, America'' (1928) in Elmhurst. The Sandburg house at 331 South York Street in Elmhurst was demolished and the site is now a parking lot. The family moved to Michigan in 1930.

Sandburg won the 1940 [[Pulitzer Prize for History]] for the four-volume ''[[Abraham Lincoln: The War Years|The War Years]]'', the sequel to his ''Abraham Lincoln'', and a second Poetry Pulitzer in 1951 for ''Complete Poems''.<ref name=pulitzer>[http://www.pulitzer.org/bycat/Poetry "Poetry"]. The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved November 24, 2013.</ref><ref Name="Pul">{{cite web |url= http://www.pulitzer.org/faceted_search/results/Carl-Sandburg |title=12 Search Results  |publisher=Pulitzer.org |access-date=April 25, 2013}}</ref><ref group=note>The [[Pulitzer Prize for Poetry]] was inaugurated in 1922 but the organization now considers the first winners to be three recipients of 1918 and 1919 special awards.</ref>

In 1945, he moved to [[Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site|Connemara]], a {{convert|246|acre|adj=on}} rural estate in [[Flat Rock, Henderson County, North Carolina|Flat Rock, North Carolina]]. Here, he produced a little over a third of his total published work and lived with his wife, daughters, and two grandchildren.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.nps.gov/carl/learn/historyculture/sandburg-grandchildren.htm|title=Sandburg Grandchildren - Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site (U.S. National Park Service)|website=www.nps.gov|language=en|access-date=January 21, 2017}}</ref>

On February 12, 1959, in commemorations of the 150th anniversary of [[Abraham Lincoln]]'s birth, Congress met in [[List of joint sessions of the United States Congress#1950s|joint session]] to hear actor [[Fredric March]] give a dramatic reading of the [[Gettysburg Address]], followed by an address by Sandburg.<ref>{{cite news | title= Nation Honor Lincoln On Sesquicentennial | url= http://dig.lib.niu.edu/ISHS/ishs-1959summer/ishs-1959summer-291.pdf | date= February 11, 1959 | publisher= [[Northern Illinois University Libraries]] | work= [[Yonkers Herald Statesman]] | agency= [[Associated Press]] | access-date= April 25, 2013 | quote= Congress gets into the act tomorrow, when a joint session will be held.  Carl Sandburg, famed Lincoln biographer, will give and address, and actor [[Fredric March]] will read the [[Gettysburg Address]]. | url-status= dead | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20131101065149/http://dig.lib.niu.edu/ISHS/ishs-1959summer/ishs-1959summer-291.pdf | archive-date= November 1, 2013 }}</ref>

Sandburg supported the [[Civil Rights Movement]] and was the first white man to be honored by the [[National Association for the Advancement of Colored People|NAACP]] with their Silver Plaque Award as a "major prophet of civil rights in our time."<ref>{{cite news|title = Carl Sandburg cited by NAACP|newspaper=[[Baltimore Afro-American]]|date=30 November 1965|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=euMlAAAAIBAJ&pg=4863%2C6596609}}</ref>

[[File:Carl-Sandburg-Remembrance-Rock.jpg|thumb|Remembrance Rock gravesite]]
Sandburg died of [[natural causes]] in 1967 and his body was cremated. The ashes were interred under "Remembrance Rock", a granite boulder located behind his birth house in Galesburg.<ref>{{cite news|title = Carl Sandburg's ashes placed under Remembrance Rock |page=61 |newspaper = The New York Times|date = 2 October 1967}}</ref><ref group=note>His wife and two daughters would also be interred there. See the signage.</ref>