19 pages • 38 minutes read
I Am the People, the Mob
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Background
Literary Context
Sandburg’s 1916 collection Chicago Poems made waves in the American literary scene because it provided a unique poetic voice from the American Midwest. The American literary scene during the 1910s was dominated by the cultural elite of the East Coast. Cities like New York City, Boston, and Philadelphia churned out pieces of cerebral literature written by (and aimed toward) the educated middle- and upper-classes. Harriet Monroe, the editor of Poetry magazine, latched on to the kind of social realism Sandburg wrote during this period. Sandburg represented a distinctly Midwestern voice and perspective, and his poetic abilities helped to destabilize the East Coast’s cultural grip.
Sandburg’s poetry from this time largely attempted to give voice to classes and groups of people who have been traditionally underrepresented in literary works. This is no better seen than in “I Am the People, the Mob,” where Sandburg gives voice to “the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the world’s food and clothes” (Line 3). Rather than looking at the working class as an object of curiosity, Sandburg embodies the American agricultural and industrial working men. Sandburg, of course, was not alone in this approach. This emphasis on working-class individuals is indicative of a larger literary movement in the 1910s and 20s now known as the Chicago Literary Renaissance, of which Sandburg’s Chicago Poems is often cited as an exemplar.
Socio-Political Context
Sandburg was deeply influenced by his time in Milwaukee, and it is no accident that his poetry career took off with the socially and politically-minded collection Chicago Poems. One of the many reasons given for Sandburg’s popularity is his ability to connect with many strands of American life—particularly the working-class and impoverished people who were often subjects of poetry but were rarely depicted without affected sentimentality. Sandburg’s own financial struggles and wealth of experience working menial labor jobs from the ages of 13 to 20 allowed him to sincerely connect with these working-class experiences and understand that “all the great work of the world is done through” (Line 2) these people.
It is difficult to verify when Sandburg composed “I Am the People, the Mob,” except to say it was between 1900 and 1910, but the poem’s emphasis on a collective labor identity and social upheaval suggests that it is influenced by the socialist ideas Sandburg encountered in Wisconsin.
The kind of American socialism in which Sandburg participated while the organizer for the Wisconsin Social Democratic Party was not as maligned or contentious as socialism has been in recent United States history. In fact, a strong minority of Americans—both citizens and politicians—supported movements like the 1917 Russian Revolution and saw these as a way of eliminating oppressive regimes in the same way the French and American Revolutions aimed to do. This is also likely the kind of revolutionary power that Sandburg points toward in the last two lines of his poem. It was not until decades later, in the aftermath of World War II and resultant Cold War (1947-1991) between America and the Soviet Union, that socialism became a political faux pas in the United States.
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By Carl Sandburg
