Published Works by Carl Sandburg

Carl Sandburg was a writer through and through. Despite criticism, time, and the difficulties life threw at him, his efforts stood out. His writing, be it poetry or journalism, drew in admirers and won many awards over the years. Sandburg dipped his pen into many different genres, from poetry to non-fiction, to history, and to children's books. As with any writer Sandburg was not free of criticism. Critics of his poetry questioned his style and were not always welcoming to free verse poetry. Yet others felt his poetry captured the essence of American life in the 20th century. His writing could have a life of its own, as many authors have expressed. He began some projects, like his children's Lincoln history, with one idea and finished as something else entirely.

Kings, Presidents, universities, governments, and organizations alike recognized Sandburg's work. Sandburg received many Doctorates from multiple universities.

1928:

• Lombard College

1929

• Knox College

1940

• Harvard

• Yale

• Wesleyan

• New York University

• Lafayette College

1941

• Syracuse University

• Dartmouth College

1948

• Augustana College

1950

• Uppsala University, Sweden

His granddaughter Paula Steichen recalled how Sandburg stored his degrees and awards.

"In our childhood, my brother and I used to go to the glass and wood case occasionally and finger through the ribboned medals and awards within, not understanding them, but intrigued with their weight and bright colors and the varying boxes of velvet or cardboard within which they rested. They were mixed there among skipping stones from Lake Michigan and among small oddities that people had given to the family— tiny carvings of animals; sugar cubes decorated with log cabins, axes, and stovepipe hats; the clean, white skull of a very small creature; heavy, ribbed, uneven bullets from the battlefields of the Civil War. There, too, in the case, were rolled documents, which we hardly ever bothered to open. Among them were honorary doctorates from Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, Wesleyan, New York, and Syracuse universities, Lafayette and Knox colleges and Uppsala University in Sweden. And somewhere in the confusion of stones and boxes, small carvings and papers, lay two Pulitzer Prizes."

Sandburg's first Pulitzer Prize was for history in 1940, after publishing the four-volume Abraham Lincoln: The War Years. That year he was also elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Sandburg's second Pulitzer Prize, in 1950, was for Poetry for Complete Poems. Two incredibly prestigious awards mixed among skipping stones, degrees, carvings, and boxes. Such a collection fit well into Sandburg's longtime ideal of a simple lifestyle. Two years later, in 1952, Sandburg received the National Institute of Arts and Letters gold medal for history and biography.

Before the Pulitzers and the degrees, Sandburg’s early awards were for his poetry. He won awards from the Poetry Society of America. The first was in 1919, for the Poetry Society of America prize, shared with Margaret Widdemer. The second prize from the society in 1921 was the Annual Book Award shared with Stephen Vincent Benet.

Notably, Sandburg was invited as one of a few private citizens in U.S. history, to address Congress. In 1959, on Lincoln Day, February 12 the 150th anniversary of Lincoln's birth, Sandburg arrived at the joint session to deliver an address. 1959 was also the year Sandburg visited Stockholm for Swedish-American Day. On this visit, he received the Litteris et Artibus medal from King Gustav. The King of Sweden also gave Sandburg and Order of the North nearly three decades before, in 1938. Illinois named Sandburg poet laureate in 1962, and the International United Poets Award named him Hon. Poet Laureate of the U.S.A. in 1963. Almost 30 years later in 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson granted him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

The 1960s were the final decade Carl Sandburg would experience in life. But they were also a time of great change and filled with multiple awards granted to the experienced poet. Leaders of social movements in the 60s began recognizing the work and efforts of those who had also worked before them. In 1965 the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (N.A.A.C.P.) reached back almost half a century to the 1919 Chicago Race Riots. The N.A.A.C. gave Sandburg a lifetime achievement award in recognition of his reporting and writing on the summer riots in 1919. He considered the award to be one of his proudest achievements and it was one of the few awards he kept out on display. The placard can still be seen today at the family house in the Carl Sandburg National Historic Park.

Poetry
In Reckless Ecstasy. Illinois: Asgard Press, 1904.
Incidentals. Illinois: Asgard Press, 1904.
The Plaint of the Rose. Illinois: Asgard Press, 1908.
Chicago Poems. New York, NY: Henry Holt, 1916.
Cornhuskers. New York, NY: Henry Holt, 1918.
Smoke and Steel. New York, NY: Harcourt, 1920.
Slabs of the Sunburst West. New York, NY: Harcourt, 1922.
Selected Poems. New York, NY: Harcourt, 1926.
Good Morning, America. New York, NY: Harcourt, 1928.
The People, Yes. New York, NY: Harcourt, 1936.
Bronze Wood. San Francisco, CA: Grabhorn Press, 1941.
Poems of the Midwest. World Publishing Company, 1946.
The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg. New York, NY: Harcourt, 1950.
Harvest Poems. New York, NY: Harcourt, 1960.
Six New Poems and a Parable. University of Kentucky Press, 1961.
Honey and Salt. New York, NY: Harcourt, 1963.
Breathing Tokens. Edited by Margaret Sandburg. New York, NY: Harcourt, 1978.
Fables, Foibles and Foobles. University of Illinois Press, 1989.
Billy Sunday and Other Poems. Edited by George and Willene Hendrick. New York, NY: Harcourt, 1993.
Selected Poems of Carl Sandburg. Edited by George and Willene Hendrick. New York, NY: Harcourt, 1996.

Nonfiction
You and Your Job. Chicago, IL: Charles H. Kerr & Company, 1908.
Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years. Two volumes. New York, NY: Harcourt, 1926.
The American Songbag. New York, NY: Harcourt, 1927.
Steichen the Photographer. New York, NY: Harcourt, 1929.
Mary Lincoln: Wife and Widow. New York, NY: Harcourt, 1932.
Abraham Lincoln: The War Years. Four volumes. New York, NY: Harcourt, 1939.
Storm over the Land. New York, NY: Harcourt, 1942.
Home Front Memo. New York, NY: Harcourt, 1943.
Always the Young Strangers. New York, NY: Harcourt, 1953
A Lincoln Preface. New York, NY: Harcourt, 1953.
Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and the War Years. One volume edition. New York, NY, 1954.
The Sandburg Range. New York, NY: Harcourt, 1957.
The Letters of Carl Sandburg. Edited by Herbert Mitgang. New York, NY: Harcourt, 1968.
The Chicago Race Riots of 1919. New York, NY: Harcourt, 1969.
Carl Sandburg at the Movies. Edited by Dale Fetherling and Doug Fetherling. New Jersey: Scarecrow Press, 1985.
The Poet and the Dreamgirl: The Love Letters of Lilian Steichen and Carl Sandburg. Edited by Margaret Sandburg. University of Illinois Press, 1987.

Fiction
Remembrance Rock. New York, NY: Harcourt, 1948.

For Children
Rootabaga Stories. New York, NY: Harcourt, 1922.
Rootabaga Pigeons. New York, NY: Harcourt, 1923.
Abe Lincoln Grows Up. New York, NY: Harcourt, 1928.
Early Moon. New York, NY: Harcourt, 1930.
Potato Face. New York, NY: Harcourt, 1930.
Prairie-town boy. New York, NY: Harcourt, 1955.
The Wedding Procession of the Rag doll and the Broom Handle and Who Was in It Wind Song. New York, NY: Harcourt, 1960.
The Sandburg Treasury. New York, NY: Harcourt, 1970.
Rainbows Are Made. New York, NY: Harcourt, 1982.
More Rootabagas. Knopf Books for Young Readers, 1993.
Never Kick a Slipper at the Moon. Holiday House, 2008.