Manual System
Manual System - context Summary
Composed in 1916 Chicago
Published in 1916 within Chicago Poems, Sandburg's free-verse sketch records an urban service worker — a telephone operator named Mary — in a few spare, repetitive lines. The poem reflects Sandburg’s interest in working-class life and the mechanizing effects of modern city labor. Its clipped, cyclic wording mirrors the monotony and impersonality of service work and situates the piece in his broader realism about industrial urban America.
Read Complete AnalysesMary has a thingamajig clamped on her ears And sits all day taking plugs out and sticking plugs in. Flashes and flashes--voices and voices calling for ears to put words in Faces at the ends of wires asking for other faces at the ends of other wires: All day taking plugs out and sticking plugs in, Mary has a thingamajig clamped on her ears.
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