Martin W. Sandler

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Martin W. Sandler
Martin W. Sandler at his desk, Dec., 2021.
Born	Martin William Sandler (1933-02-11)February 11, 1933 New Bedford, MA, United States
Occupation	Author historian television producer and writer
Genre	American History
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Martin W. Sandler (born February 11, 1933) is an American historian, writer and teacher, the author of more than 50 books about American history and photography, and the winner of the 2019 National Book Award for Young People's Literature.

Biography

He grew up in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and was educated in the public schools there. His father, Nathaniel, was a salesman, his mother, Isabelle (Sage), a homemaker. He attended Providence College on a baseball scholarship, receiving a B.A. in history, and earned a Master of Arts in history from Brown University.

Career and major works

Sandler's first job after earning his degree from Brown in 1957 was as an English and history teacher in South Deerfield, MA. He subsequently held posts as history and English teacher and baseball coach at Quincy Central Junior High School in Quincy, MA and head of school at Stowe Preparatory Academy in Stowe, Vt. He subsequently taught American Studies at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and Smith College, and held an editor's job at Allyn and Bacon in the 1960s.

While a teacher, Sandler endeavored to revitalize the teaching of secondary-school history with a 1971 textbook, The People Make a Nation, that called on students to draw conclusions about history from examining and interpreting primary sources, instead of memorizing facts and narratives. As he delved into visual resources for conveying a sense of the past, he became aware of a major untapped asset – stockpiles of glass-plate photographic negatives stored in attics, barns and closets across New England, mostly forgotten. He assembled the Martin W. Sandler Collection of Glass-Plate Negatives, and used it to produce a series of books and television shows that revealed the intimacy and vitality of bygone moments captured by the camera.

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A small sampling of the works of Martin W. Sandler.

Sandler became coordinator of social studies of the Newton Public Schools in the late '60s, and moved to the Wayland Public Schools in 1972. By then, his first textbook was finished. The People Make a Nation was written over a period of two years with the assistance of Amherst College history professor Edwin C. Rozwencz and Sandler's predecessor as Newton social studies coordinator, Edward C. Martin. It required students to draw conclusions from direct evidence such as contemporary paintings and primary sources from the era.

The Restless Americans used similar techniques at a college level, and Sandler's next and final textbook, In Search of America, took a deliberately visual approach, seeking to connect with high schoolers who had below-grade-level reading skills. In compiling the images for that book, Sandler realized an entire realm of storytelling awaited, and he shifted his focus to a general audience.

His first foray into general-interest storytelling via photograph was This was New England: Images of a Vanished Past, published by the New York Graphic Society in 1977. New York Graphic Society was a high-toned history-focused imprint of Little, Brown. It sought to bring New England's everyday past alive by letting the images from glass plate negatives tell the story. The book was well-received, and from the glass-plate negatives Sandler had discovered in researching it, he wrote This Was Connecticut: Images of A Vanished World (Little, Brown, 1977), and The Way We Lived (1977). This run of "common life though glass plates" books ended with As New Englanders Played, published by Globe Pequot Press in 1979.

Sandler widened his scope and narrowed his audience in significant ways with The Story of American Photography: An Illustrated History for Young People (Little, Brown, 1979). This title looked at the history and art of photography itself, rather than historical subject areas per se. It also directed itself to an older teen/young adult age group that would prove so fruitful for his future undertakings. Meantime, his photographic-curation work became a natural subject for television production, and he wrote or assisted in the making of several TV series and specials. His authorial output dipped a bit during these years as he focused on the creation of television, first for WCVB-TV in Boston, then independent producers, then his own company, Eagle Productions.

During his foray into television, Sandler turned his TV series This Was America into a print treatment that sold well, modeling it on 1977's This Was New England.

Television

Gene Kelly Taping American Treasure at the Smithsonian in 1985.

Playing off the success of his photo-centered textbooks, Sandler successfully pitched the idea of a television series centered on the glass-plate images. WCVB was considered one of the best local TV stations in the nation, if not the best. As a TV series, This Was America was well-received, winning a Best of Boston award in 1980, and made a profit for the station in syndication.

In 1976, General Motors sponsored the network broadcasts of both national conventions, and accompanied their commercials with GM Presidential Moments giving short biographies of the U.S. presidents. Sandler produced and wrote those spots. He wrote Odyssey—the art of photography at National Geographic, produced for Greg Harney Productions and aired on PBS in 1990.

Awards, reviews and recognition

• Winner, National Book Award, Young People's Literature, 2019 – "1919: The Year that Changed America"
• Washington Post Best Children's Book, 2019 – "1919: The Year that Changed America"
• Finalist, 2018 American Library Association Young Adult Library Services Association Non Fiction Award – "The Wydah: A Pirate Ship Feared, Wrecked and Found"
• Finalist, 2014 American Library Association Young Adult Library Services Association Non Fiction Award – "Imprisoned: The Betrayal of Japanese Americans During World War II"

Sandler has accumulated dozens of highly laudatory reviews through the course of his career. A recent sampling: Kirkus Reviews called Race Through the Skies "Fascinating and eminently entertaining." Booklist said Apollo 8 was marked by "astonishing details and storytelling." Kirkus gave its review of Picturing a Nation a simple one-word headline: "Stunning."

Other examples:

-- For Resolute: An enthralling and detailed chronicle – Associated Press

-- For The Impossible Rescue: "Top notch history...Smart, well written, meticulously researched and a lot of fun"- The New York Times

-- For The Wydah: "A captivating read...will likely not sit on shelves long." – School Library Journal

-- For The Dust Bowl: "Telling the story with intelligence and sensitivity, Sandler honors the people who lived through the disaster" -- Booklist

-- For Picturing a Nation: "It is not often that I read a book and all I can say is, 'Wow...Buy it; just buy it.'" – Booklist "Beautifully reproduced images...with informative captions and lively quotations...Authoritative and elegantly written" – The Horn Book

-- For Lost to Time: "Such a splendid book, full of fascinating, well told tales." – Booklist

-- For Island of Hope: "This winning history..is an inspiring portrait of a seminal generation of Americans." – Publisher's Weekly

-- For Lincoln Through The Lens: "A valuable and interesting perspective that stands as an essential purchase for libraries" - ' 'Kirkus Reviews

-- For Imprisoned: "Although it's the pictures that provide the 'wow factor,' Sandler's perceptive words have their own elegance." – Booklist

Personal life

Sandler lives in Cotuit, Mass. He and his late wife, Carol Weiss Sandler, collaborated on several titles. They have five children, all from first marriages.

Published works

• The People Make a Nation (1971) with Edwin Rozwencz and Edward Martin
• The Restless Americans (1972)
• In Search of America (1975)
• This Was New England (1977)
• This Was Connecticut: Images of A Vanished Past (1977)
• The Way We Lived (1977)
• As New Englanders Played (1979)
• This Was America (1980)
• Changing Channels (1982)
• The Story of American Photography (1984)
• The Entrepreneurs: An American Adventure (1986)
• American Image: Photographing 150 Years In the Life of America (1989)
• Celebrating the American Family (1992)
• Beyond the Bottom Line (1998)
• America: A Celebration (2000)
• Vaqueros: America's First Cowmen (2001)
• Photography: An Illustrated History (2002)
• Against the Odds: Women Pioneers in the First Hundred Years of Photography (2002)
• Isle of Hope: The Story of Ellis Island and the Journey to America (2004)
• America Through the Lens (2005)
• Resolute: The Epic Search for the Northwest Passage (2006)
• Atlantic Ocean: An Illustrated History of the Ocean that Changed the World (2008)
• Lincoln Through the Lens (2008)
• The Dust Bowl Through the Lens (2009)
• Lost to History (2010)
• Kennedy Through the Lens (2011)
• The Impossible Rescue: The True Story of an Amazing Arctic Adventure (2012)
• Imprisoned (2013)
• The Secret Subway (2009)
• The Letters of John F. Kennedy (2013)
• Why Did the Whole World Go To War? (2013)
• Who Were the American Pioneers? (2014)
• What Was America's Deadliest War? (2014)
• How the Beatles Changed the World (2014)
• Iron Rails, Iron Men (2018)
• The Wydah (2017)
• Apollo 8 (2018)
• 1919: The Year That Changed America (2018)
• Race Through The Skies: The Week the World Learned to Fly (2019)
• Picturing A Nation: The Depression's Finest Photographers Introduce America To Itself (2021)
• Shipwrecked: Diving for Hidden Time Capsules on the Ocean Floor

Library of Congress Books: 6-volume series under LOC imprimatur (1995–96)

• Inventors
• Presidents
• Immigrants
• Cowboys
• Pioneers
• Civil War

Transportation in America: 6-volume set (2003–04)

• Flying Over the U.S.A.
• Straphanging in the U.S.A.
• Riding the Rails in the U.S.A.
• Stagecoaching in the U.S.A.
• On the Waters of the U.S.A.
• Driving Around the U.S.A.

References

This article "Martin W. Sandler" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Martin W. Sandler. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

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