Carl Sandburg in Hardhat Visiting Workers
Photograph by Leonard Bass
1957

Carl Sandburg believed that all the great work of society is accomplished through the work of many. In Chicago Poems, published in 1918, he explains this in a poem entitled, I Am the People, the Mob in the first few stanzas:

'I am the people-the mob-the crowd-the mass. Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me? I am the workingman, the inventer, the maker of the world's food and clothes. I am the audience that witnesses history.'

Again, some 23 years later he writes about this in his epic poem, The People, Yes. Norman Corwin, a famous radio broadcaster said of Sandburg's poem, "examine the original The People, Yes {TPY} and see if CS {Carl Sandburg} is writing about an American, or even a country. The thing that makes it great is that he is writing about all people everywhere." (Niven, p 545)
Paper. L 20.5, W 25.4 cm
Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site, CARL 7934