Born July 14, 1912
Okemah, Oklahoma

Died October 3, 1967
Queens, New York

Songwriter, folksinger, social activist

Woody Guthrie. Archive Photos. Reproduced by permission.

"He'd stand with his guitar slung on his back, spinning out stories like Will Rogers [popular 1930s entertainer], with a faint, wry grin."

Pete Seeger, in the foreword of Bound for Glory, by Woody Guthrie

Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie's musical career lasted just seventeen years. At the age of thirty-nine Guthrie was struck with Huntington's chorea, an inherited disease that had killed his mother. He nevertheless wrote over a thousand songs before his career came to a premature end. Guthrie's songs reflected his experiences of the 1930s Great Depression, severe drought on the Great Plains, President Franklin D. Roosevelt's (1882–1945; served 1933–45; see entry) New Deal programs, and World War II (1939–45). The New Deal was a collection of federal legislation and programs aimed at relieving the effects of...