ABSTRACT
This chapter brings Carl Sandburg to the Family of Man project in the 1950s. Except for the efflorescence of The Family of Man, the cultural moment for Sandburg, as for Steichen, was during the interwar years. Despite pointed invitations to make invidious comparison between the United States and the Soviet Union, both Steichen and Sandburg repeated their faith in the common emotions and aspirations of humankind, the epitome of which was expressed through The Family of Man. Steichen, labelled ‘probably the greatest photographer of all time’ and tied to the production of The Family of Man, ‘the greatest epic poem of mankind, that mankind everywhere can read and feel’, hampered by a hacking cough, let his brother-in-law lead the way. To some contemporary observers, their pronouncements seemed, at best, banal, but, from the start, it was apparent that they were confidently defending a world-view that the commentators were not prepared to hear.
