What is your opinion on Carl Sandburg?

[Rob Wick]

Quote:As someone who went to Middle and High School during the 1990's and the very early 2000's, Carl Sandburg's biography of Lincoln had no influence on my interest in Lincoln studies. By that time Sandburg's biography was considered outdated and riddled with errors. A multi-volume work of that age with that reputation just didn't appeal to somebody with a limited amount of funds who had enlisted in the Army.

Steve,

Your point is well-taken, although (you knew there'd be an "although" didn't you?) I think a case can be made that even older biographies, while outdated, can be utilized and even recommended with some certainty as to their benefit. Lucas Morel shows that even Lord Charnwood's 1917 biography can still be read and learned from, and I wouldn't have spent the last five or so years on Ida Tarbell if I didn't think even her really outdated work had merit.

I also find your comment about Donald's biography to be ironic, given that it was published in 1995 and is coming up on its 25th anniversary. Of course, Donald can never now update his book, but I personally don't believe Lincoln scholars will view it as strongly as Benjamin Thomas's 1952 biography of Lincoln is seen. As I've often stated here before, I truly believe Thomas's is the best single-volume biography of Lincoln in existence.

Of course, as you set the parameters of your point, I cannot disagree that you took the correct path. What I would hope, however, is that at some point you give the six volumes a try. While the single volume distillation is more pleasing to what H.L. Mencken called "the professors of Lincolnology" it's the six volumes as Sandburg originally wrote them that is the best example of what he was trying to accomplish.

Quote:This was the late 80's and I was just a teenager. At this time I was a complete an utter nerd so I spent most of my time at the Chicago Public Library on weekends. I was actually doing some research on a completely different topic and I ran across the full six-volume set. Over several weekends I read all six volumes so yeah I was hooked. So, in answer to your question I just stumbled on Sandburg.

GustD45

In addition to the set, I would also recommend that you read Sandburg and Paul Angle's biography of Mary as well as his paean to Oliver Barrett, one of the greatest Lincoln collectors of all time. What I have found to be of greater interest, however, is Sandburg's letters concerning his Lincoln. They are a treasure. Anyone with a few days to kill and who is near the University of Illinois should make a pilgrimage to the Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

I want to provide everyone with a post I wrote on a blog I used to do. It describes the development of my interest in Sandburg. It was also the genesis for my journal article on the friendship between Sandburg and James G. Randall. As is most things I post here it's a bit long, but I hope you'll all read it.

Best
Rob

I was in an office just off the circulation desk of the main library at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. A library staff member had just brought a stack of books I had requested. Included was a small brown volume called The Beleaguered City, Richmond, 1861-1865. In this volume I wanted to see if I could find evidence of a theater which Everton Conger said existed when, in 1865, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.
The book itself was nondescript. It had the familiar markings of a library book which had been well-thumbed over the years. After finding no evidence of what I was looking for, I started to put it down. Suddenly, looking at the bookplate, my eyes widened at what was written there.

“From the library of Carl Sandburg”.

It was as if a lightening bolt had struck me. I was holding a book that, at one point, was held by Carl Sandburg. Whether you like Sandburg or not (and many don’t) no fair mind can say that Sandburg wasn’t a player in the field of Lincoln studies. Indeed, given all those who have dedicated their lives to studying the 16th president, Sandburg stands out as the most famous.
The irony of finding a book that had belonged to Sandburg at a university which had been home to the man who had a hearty dislike for amateur historians wasn’t lost on me. It was later that I found out many of Sandburg’s papers are located in the university archives, in the same spot, as it were, with James G. Randall’s. [2019 edit--Sandburg's papers are not in the archives, although a small portion of Randall's are].

But a stranger situation would soon demand my attention and would question just what Randall actually thought of the poet from Galesburg, Ill.

While perusing the shelf of Prairie Archives, my favorite bookstore in Springfield, I came across a volume of Lincoln the Liberal Statesman, a collection of essays written by Randall published in 1947. While it was priced at $45, it also bore Randall’s autograph. “For Myron Fox with great respect and cordial regards. J.G. Randall, April 27, 1950”.
When I got home and looked at what I bought, I saw on the dedication page three words that greatly confused me.

“To Carl Sandburg”.

Randall had devoted this book to the one man I had believed he held responsible for much of the misinformation and bad history written about Lincoln. After all, as Richard Nelson Current wrote in the fourth volume of Lincoln the President, when asked about Sandburg, Randall reportedly said that as a historian he made a good poet.

What was going on here?

In this age of shout television when gracious and vigorous debate has been replaced by verbal garbage, it’s hard for us to realize that two people who are so diametrically opposed could actually put that aside at the end of the day and develop a close friendship. I had forgotten that even Ronald Reagan and Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill were able to put political differences aside and enjoy a drink or two together.
In her book I Ruth, Ruth Randall recalled several times when Sandburg and Randall would get together to talk about politics, the world and, of course, their favorite topic—Lincoln. One time, when both men were in Chicago, Sandburg invited Randall to his home in Michigan. “One memorable evening the two took a long moonlight walk along the shore of Lake Michigan,” Ruth writes, “a thing Carl said he liked to do at the end of the day to rest his eyes and relax. Jim recorded what they talked about in considerable detail. They exchanged opinions on many subjects: Lincoln, literary matters, politics, philosophy. They compared notes on the prolonged drudgery of writing a nonfiction biography.”
She reported that Sandburg told Randall he wanted to write a book on Lincoln that he wished was available when he was driving a milk wagon in Galesburg. He profusely praised Randall’s Civil War and Reconstruction and told Randall the biography Randall was writing would be much better because he had allowed his thoughts to mature over time.
When it came time to review Sandburg’s four-volume Abraham Lincoln: The War Years, the American Historical Review assigned the task to Randall. While he praised Sandburg’s “rare feeling for Lincoln, a life absorption in the subject, a burning desire to produce the saga, a Marathon-like endurance over decades of prodigious labor, a poet’s sense of language, a flair for pithy phrasing, a robust personality spiced with the tang of the prairies, and an ability to combine realistic detail with emotional appreciation” Randall sighed that “historianship in the full sense is lacking.”
Pointing out that Sandburg failed to include footnotes and many times only half-mentioned a source, Randall added that sometimes Sandburg was guilty of “an undiscriminating use of material” which he said “relieves the author of the necessity of checking, rechecking, and testing.” He added that “one would hardly turn to Sandburg’s pages for historical analysis, for sifting and evaluation, for conclusions distilled from masses of evidence, or for the settlement of disputed or doubtful points.”
What one takes from the review, however, is not that Randall felt Sandburg’s work was without worth, but that it could have benefited from what Randall preached throughout his professional life. Sandburg needed to visit the archives and sift through primary manuscript material rather than rely on already published reminisce.
But in the end Randall accepted that “Sandburg did not write for historians but for the general reader” and that “there will be thousands who, in thinking of Lincoln, will inevitably think of Sandburg.”
Randall’s review is in most instances a fair evaluation of Sandburg’s material. I think that my own belief that Randall held Sandburg responsible for amateurish attempts to study Lincoln’s life came from the “good poet” quote but also from Edmund Wilson’s characterization of Sandburg’s work as the worst thing to happen to Lincoln since his assassination. In this sense, I put two and two together and came up with 12.
During Randall’s illness, Sandburg was one of the last people to see Randall. Indeed, the last entry in Randall’s diary was “He [Carl] looks well….Kissed Ruth on leaving and took both my hands.” Three days later, James Randall was dead.