Happy Birthday, Carl Sandburg (b. 1878) !

from Writer's Almanac (American Public Media, Garrison Keillor):

January 6 is the birthday of Carl Sandburg, born in Galesburg, Illinois (1878). Many people know him because of his poetry, or perhaps because of his six-volume biography of Abraham Lincoln. But years before he first published his poems, he traveled all over the United States, collecting folk songs -- more than 300 in all -- which he eventually published in The American Songbag (1927).
Sandburg wrote three collections of stories for children: Rootabaga Stories (1922), Rootabaga Pigeons (1923), and Potato Face (1930). Sandburg believed there was a need for truly American fairy tales, since castles and knights didn't have any relevance to American kids. So he wrote fables about the American Midwest, stories about corn fairies, skyscrapers, and farms.