I associate Carl Sandburg with the city of Chicago and the Midwest, what brought him to North Carolina?
Carl Sandburg was born and raised in Galesburg, Illinois, a small town 200 miles southwest of Chicago. His literary career is most often associated with Chicago and the Midwest as much of his early writing emerged from his experiences there. However, Sandburg first is an American and his writing is not limited to geography. His writing reflects the issues of humanity and democracy and freedom. The move to North Carolina was at the request of his wife, Paula, for the benefit of the goat farm operation. Greener pastures and a longer browsing season for the goats was the primary purpose for choosing to leave their home on the shores of Lake Michigan where they had been for 17 years. The Asheville area was familiar to Mrs. Sandburg because her brother Edward Steichen had spent time there and simply recommended it as a place to investigate.
