Guthrie, Woody | Research & Encyclopedia Articles

Woody Guthrie

Born July 14, 1912

Okemah, Oklahoma

Died October 3, 1967

New York, New York

Folk singer whose songs raised consciousness about the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl of the 1930s

"This land is your land, this land is my land, from California to the New York Island, from the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters, this land was made for you and me."

Woody Guthrie was the foremost composer of folk music in twentieth-century America. His hometown of Okemah, Oklahoma, is just the sort of place one would expect him to be from. He once described Okemah as "one of the singiest, square dancingest, drinkingest, yellingest, preachingest, walkingest, talkingest, laughingest, cryingest, shootingest, fist fightingest, bleedingest, gamblingest, gun, club and razor carryingest of our ranch towns and farm towns, because it blossomed out into one of our first Oil Boom Towns."

To fully understand Guthrie's life, it is necessary first to understand two events that took place during the 1930s: the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl.

The Great Depression and the Dust Bowl

In 1929, prices on the New York Stock Exchange fell steeply on October 25, or Black Friday, as it was called later.

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