It has long fascinated me that Carl Sandburg was one of the writers who nominated John Dos Passos for election to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1947. Sandburg and Dos Passos had so much in common. The Americanism, the skill with biography, the powerful imagery, the fluency with urban and rural idioms, and the liberal politics (at least for half of Dos Passos’ career). You can trace both back to Walt Whitman in many respects.