I Am the People, the Mob

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.