Editing Carl Sandburg (section)

===Poetry and prose===
[[File:RootabagaStories.jpg|thumb|left|''Rootabaga Stories'' (book 1, 1922)]]

Much of Carl Sandburg's poetry, such as "[[Chicago (poem)|Chicago]]", focused on [[Chicago|Chicago, Illinois]], where he spent time as a reporter for the ''[[Chicago Daily News]]'' and ''[[The Day Book]]''. His most famous description of the city is as "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."

[[File:Sandburgs four volume work on Abrham Lincoln.png|thumb|Sandburg's biography of Lincoln]]

Sandburg earned [[Pulitzer Prize]]s for his collection ''The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg'', ''Corn Huskers'', and for his biography of [[Abraham Lincoln]] (''[[Abraham Lincoln: The War Years]]'').<ref Name="Pul"/> Sandburg is also remembered by generations of children for his ''[[Rootabaga Stories]]'' and ''Rootabaga Pigeons'', a series of whimsical, sometimes melancholy stories he originally created for his own daughters. ''The Rootabaga Stories'' were born of Sandburg's desire for "American fairy tales" to match American childhood. He felt that the European stories involving royalty and knights were inappropriate, and so populated his stories with skyscrapers, trains, corn fairies and the "Five Marvelous Pretzels".

[[File:4646 N. Hermitage Ave.JPG|thumb|left|Sandburg rented a room and lived for three years in this house, where he wrote the poem "Chicago". It is now a Chicago landmark.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.chicago.gov/content/dam/city/depts/zlup/Historic_Preservation/Publications/Carl_Sandburg_House.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/https://www.chicago.gov/content/dam/city/depts/zlup/Historic_Preservation/Publications/Carl_Sandburg_House.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live |title=Carl Sandburg House|date=October 4, 2006|publisher=City of Chicago Department of Planning and Development, Landmarks Division|access-date=August 28, 2019}}</ref>]]

In 1919, Sandburg was assigned by his editor at the ''Daily News'' to do a series of reports on the working classes and tensions among whites and [[African Americans]].  The impetus for these reports were race riots that had broken out in other American cities. Ultimately, [[Chicago race riot of 1919|major riots]] broke out in Chicago too, but much of Sandburg's writing on the issues before the riots caused him to be seen as having a prophetic voice. A visiting philanthropist, [[Joel Spingarn]], who was also an official of the [[National Association for the Advancement of Colored People]], read Sandburg's columns with interest and asked to publish them, as ''The Chicago Race Riots, July, 1919''.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-opinion-flashback-chicago-race-riots-carl-sandburg-20190718-lh3xtxuf3nc4bhttja6dcf6epi-story.html |title=Flashback: Before Chicago erupted into race riots in 1919, Carl Sandburg reported on the fissures |last=Grossman |first=Ron |date=July 19, 2019 |work=Chicago Tribune  |access-date=July 21, 2019}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/chicagoraceriots00sand |title=The Chicago Race Riots July, 1919 |last=Sandburg |first=Carl |publisher=Harcourt, Brace and Howe |year=1919 |location=New York |access-date=July 21, 2019}}</ref>