Sandburg Home Correspondence Room

Sandburg Home Correspondence Room

NPS Photo

This study served as an office where Sandburg worked on correspondence and manuscripts, either with the assistance of a secretary or his daughters Margaret and Helga.  The room was usually piled high with filing boxes and books.  The books lining the shelves were loosely organized according to subjects and projects. 

Sandburg read the many letters sent to him daily; mail from his publisher, fellow poets, school children reading and studying his poetry, U.S. Senators, Supreme Court Justices, and even mail from various Presidents of the United States that he had befriended over the years.

A prominent feature of this room is the table constructed from timbers that supported the roof of the White House during Lincoln’s presidency.  The lumber was salvaged from a renovation project at the White House by carpenter George Severin, He used the wood to construct the table as a gift for Carl Sandburg in honor of his Pulitzer prize-winning biography of Abraham Lincoln.

Click below for an audio clip from Sandburg's address to Congress on the occasion of Abraham Lincoln's 150th birthday in 1959.

• Carl Sandburg Address to Congress excerpt

  
  

  Short clip of the introduction of Carl Sandburg's address to a joint session of Congress on the occasion of Abraham Lincoln's 150th birthday in February 1959.

  Date created:

  02/12/1959

  Audio Transcript

  Not often in the story of mankind does a man arrive on earth who is both steel and velvet. Who is as hard as rock and soft as drifting fog. Who holds in his heart and mind the paradox of a terrible storm and a peace unspeakable and perfect. The incomparable Abraham Lincoln is an approach if not a perfect realization of this character.